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At The Grassroots
Another December, another COP climate summit. Every year, as everyone winds down for the Christmas holidays, politicians and negotiators descend on a conference centre somewhere in the world to decide...
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Question Time
What is the best way to use art and creativity to help mental health? Is there even one best way, or are there many, each one as different as the individuals experiencing mental health issues? Is it...
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Figurative Vs. Abstract
Have you found that using different art styles has different impacts on mood and wellbeing, on mental health? Is drawing a figurative picture more stimulating than painting an abstract, absorbing your...
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Songs For Life
If you were to choose one song that is “your song”, what would it be? A song you remember hearing on a special occasion, or one you just couldn’t stop singing along to when you were young? A song...
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Talking About Art
In old age, the Impressionist painter Claude Monet dedicated himself almost entirely to painting water lilies. Depressed by bereavement, declining sight and the events of World War One, he was...
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Slowing Down
Mindfulness, relaxation, calm: the need to step back has become more and more common, as people react to the pace of life. Everything now moves at speed. With communication easier than ever, it feels...
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Fuller Lives
Art, music and all arts enrich life, and they’ve become tools we can all use for wellbeing – to lift mood and ease mental health issues. They open up fuller lives. March is Women’s History Month, and...
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Time For Art
Making space for art in your daily life has to be one of the most positive, creative and practical small things you can do to change your routine. When something is known to have so beneficial an...
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Nature On My Mind
When you think about nature helping mental health, what picture comes to your mind? Would it be time spent in a garden, or time photographing or drawing something in nature? A walk on a sunny day,...
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Music For Every Mood
Is there truly music for every mood? With a vast array of music now only a tap or a click away, there surely has to be. The choice of musical genre, rhythm, beat, tempo, duration and performer has...
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Forest Of Flowers
Recently I saw a photo of wild flowers blooming in the middle of a busy city, part of the Forest Of Flowers initiative. I remembered the photo in part because I like the name: Forest Of Flowers. It...
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Space For Solitude
When I hear the word “solitude”, I picture a quiet room with sunlight streaming through the windows and with a chair, and table covered with art materials and a notebook and pen. Everyone’s ideal of a...
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Overlooked
Outside my window as I write this is a small patch of grass – maybe 2 metres by 1 – where I have let the grass grow longer to see what else might appear. There’s some dove’s foot cranesbill with its...
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Nature’s Soundscape
Hearing sounds of the natural world can become everyday and something I take for granted. Wind rustling through tree leaves, a blackbird singing, bees buzzing, water trickling over stones. There are...
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Up Country
Country music is enjoying an upsurge. Whether it be Dolly Parton, whose fame only continues to grow in her 70s, or younger stars such as Taylor Swift and Beyonce, whose Texas Hold-‘Em recently became...
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Sketching Nature
On the very first day of meteorological autumn, as it is now called, I saw a cranefly – or daddy long legs – bumbling along the back wall of my house, up and down and across. Always a sign that autumn...
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A New Beginning
A fresh start, a time to recommit and throw yourself back into life, or a dreary slide towards winter? How do you see this time of year? Long into adulthood, autumn still has that “back to school”...
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Growing Old Creatively
Living in the moment can be one of the arts’ best gifts, lifting us out of the everyday and out of the wider picture. Maybe this is all the more important in older age, opening up space to imagine, to...
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A New Stigma
Sometimes I wonder which is truly more beneficial for wellbeing: creativity that expresses and explores thoughts & feelings directly, or that highlights something totally different? Is creativity...
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Make To Give
What do you think is the most overshadowed way art and creativity can help mental health & wellbeing? The more I’ve led and learned, the more I feel that making art or craft to share and give away...
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