Arts and Wellness Cafe - How are you using your Creative Voice?

 

Come and join me for Arts and Wellness Cafe as we look at the way in which you use your creative voice.  There are so many talents in which you can share and it is a blessing to many around the world.  It can sometimes take a while to find your voice, but with practice and perseverance you can see it blossom in a lot of different ways.

We also touch on a few other areas to consider in your creative walk.  Making room for your gifts by getting rid of those things that do not serve or are just cluttering up your space, leaving you little time to really be creative.

I have been playing with some of the items I collected from the Artists Materials Bank and made some small stitched items so that I can get a feel for the materials before moving on to bigger items.

You will see in the video at the end how the materials looks and feels.

Fabric Selection

I love making the fabric stories and this is also a great way to see how the materials work together or with other items that you may want to work with.

Fabric Stitched Stories

With the smaller pieces you can play about with designs and even see if you want to go larger.  The smaller pieces are very therapeutic to work on and you can then put the smaller pieces together.

Fabric Stitched Stories with Trim

I had also got some beads in a similar shade and was able to see how the colours looked together.

Fabric Stories

This mini cushion was originally supposed to be a purse and got changed at the last minute.  The fabric that I was using was very versatile and I also found that when you frayed the edges you could use some of the threads in the project.

Mini Cushion

I got carried away and made a fabric glass case, I used a similar method to creating a pillow case.

Glass case holder

Mini Art Journal Cover and holder with some of the scraps that were left from the main piece that I cut

Mini Art Journal

It is always great to be able to create and plant for new things in the studio, it has been a slight distraction while I ponder on other projects to be complete.  Do let me know what you are up to and what kind of things pop up to distract you.

Arts and Mental Health

I have seen some great results from the participants in my Art session at Raglan House Centre for the Elderly with Dementia in Camden. They are keen to participate and enjoy the social aspect of doing an activity together. They have the opportunity to have a discussion around different topics, we have music of different eras playing in the background and you can find them either singing along, tapping their feet - its great to see.

Every month we have an exhibition of work completed, and photos of participants in the session

Concentration has improved a great deal, and the sessions last for 2 hours - with participants remarking, 'have we finished already'!

This week we covered memories and words of wisdom. I was saying to the group with the rise in the family being separated and so busy we don't often get to share 'things their mother told them' or 'things they tell their children' and unless you are doing inter-generational work it often gets forgotten. 

Participants get to try new techniques and find the ones they like the best

Over the next few days will be sharing their words and some images.

Todays word of wisdom -

'If you want others to respect you, you have to respect yourself

If you would like to find out about Arts and Health Events connect with the Arts in Health NHS Network HERE