Art Appreciation Weekend Selkirk Arms Hotel 2026      

We have been running Art Appreciation weekends for nearly two decades now with Jeremy Carlisle who has decided now to retire from delivering these wonderful weekends. We are delighted however to have found an equally well qualified Art curator and archaeologist in Amanda Herries. Here’s a little introduction to Amanda

Hallo to all art lovers,

I’m Amanda Herries, and I am delighted that Chris and Joanna at the Selkirk Arms have invited me to continue with the wonderful art appreciation weekend in Kirkcudbright that Jeremy Carlisle has overseen with such expertise for the last few years. I’m very aware that Jeremy sets a very high bar for me to reach. I am very grateful that I take over this event with his blessing, and we have discussed that I shall probably approach the general topic of art from a slightly different perspective.

For those of you used to a November ‘slot’ for this weekend I apologise for the change in 2026 to March, but unfortunately I am already committed to a lecture tour in Australia and New Zealand for October and November, and I know that in the past there have been March weekends – so it is March for 2026 but may return to the end of the year thereafter.

What are my credentials? I am an archaeologist by training (Cambridge University) – a career I had dreamt of from my early teens. But fate intervened, I wanted to work at the Museum of London, took the first job I could, rather assuming I could move internally into their Department of Urban Archaeology and found myself stuck in their ‘Modern Department’. For ten years I absorbed social and art history from 1714 to the day before the yesterday of then, all focussed on London. I then moved to Japan for eight years with my family (husband’s job) where I added Japanese and Asian knowledge to my European base. It was a hugely rewarding and enriching time.

Since my return to UK I have been involved in many artistic activities from being a Trustee of the National Trust for Scotland for nine years to cataloguing the fine art in public collections in Southern Scotland for the ArtUK project to curating exhibitions and writing books. All the while lecturing, mostly as an accredited Arts Society lecturer, which has taken me throughout the UK and Europe and to Australia and New Zealand, as well as lecturing and leading tours in Japan. I consider myself to be a social and decorative arts specialist, but you can’t, in my opinion, disassociate those arts from fine art appreciation and the ever-present joy and enrichment of looking at art.

I look forward to the challenge of following in Jeremy’s footsteps and I invite you to come with me on this very informal weekend as we explore some of the never-ending marvels

created by artists worldwide and over thousands of years.

Amanda ( November 2025)

Friday 6th March -Sunday 8th 2026

BIRDS IN ART 6 - 8 MARCH 2026 with Amanda Herries

For his final art appreciation weekend Jeremy Carlisle decided to focus on animals in art. He was right to do so – they are a source of endless fascination to artists.

For my first, I thought it would be fun to continue that approach and talk about birds in art.  My talks take place in an informal setting and I welcome questions and discussion.

Birds appear worldwide in art from prehistoric aboriginal cave paintings of huge birds prized as a source of food  to the divine messengers of the Maya, to mythological Egyptian and Classical contexts, and through Christian religious symbolism to wonderful asymmetric  and isometric Chinese and Japanese depictions or the infamous optical distorting and morphing flocks of birds created by the Dutch graphic artist M.C. Escher nearly 100 years ago. Sometimes they are ornithologically perfect, very often they are fantastical and bizarre. 

Sometimes, like the legendary phoenix, they reappear and reoccur through different cultures, worldwide, through the millenia.

I can’t possibly do more than give you a taster in a short weekend… but I hope I will give you some signposts to send you off art twitching on your own explorations.

Arrive Friday - check in from 2pm

Meet your host for the weekend Amanda Herries at a drinks and canapés reception in the Burns room at 6pm before your first talk and dinner and a chance to meet your fellow residents attending the Art Appreciation weekend.

First talk 6.30 and your introduction to the weekend

A 2 course dinner with tea or coffee will be served at 7.30pm

Saturday

Breakfast served from 07.15 to 09.15

First talk of the day 10am - 11am - a break for coffee and then 11.30 - 12.45 before a soup and sandwich lunch

The afternoon is free to explore Kirkcudbright and the many wonderful galleries

Pre dinner drinks and canapés at 6pm, 6.30 talk before a 2 course dinner at 7.30pm

Sunday

Breakfast served from 08.00 - 09.30

First talk of the day will start at 10am with the same format as Saturday and finishing with a soup and sandwich lunch.

Price inclusive of dinner, bed, breakfast, pre dinner drinks, talks and soup and sandwich lunches £299 Per person based on 2 people sharing a twin or double room £450pp single room / occupancy