Boxing Shadows - The Welsh Mental Health Arts Festival 2016

Boxing Shadows is an exhibition of over 30 artists made up of sculpture, paintings, drawings, films and ceramics in parallel with artist Stephen Park's Residency Exhibition at Celf o Gwmpas in Llandrindod Wells. It is on until 5 January 2017, and last week I attended a panel discussion and artist talks as part of the second annual Welsh Mental Health Arts Festival. Other activities scheduled at Celf as part of the week long event in partnership with Disability Arts Cymru and Making Minds 'WALLS: MURIAU' included a Comedy Evening and a drop-in workshop with new arts group Celf-Able.

Artist Rachel Dunlop wrote about the year-long Learning and Practice project at Celf o Gwmpas back in the summer, taking an in-depth look at the sessional weekends for artists who have experience or knowledge of the arts and mental health. Artist in residence Stephen Park and Powys artist Blue MacAskill have been engaging and working with artists "who have knowledge and experience of mental ill health from across the county. Working together, they have developed knowledge, practice, experience and creative aspirations and promoted wider understanding of arts and mental health".

Jane Cooke from our team with sculpture by Geraint Edwards

The panel discussion provided a great opportunity for a more in depth discussion around arts and mental health. It was attended by individuals, artists, voluntary organisations and professionals engaged in both the art and mental health sectors.

Stephen Park, a graduate of Goldsmiths College and the Slade School in London, was first up to speak. He told us that for 10 years he had been a mental health support worker, and for 15 years he was on the periphery of the art world working in art colleges. This was the first time, however, that he had spoken to both sectors "in one sentence". 

Artist-in-Residence Stephen Park

He said that in mental health there is the perception that there are lots of different approaches, probably conflicting. "It is a mix-and-match approach to help you. It is the same in art college – people are trying to become themselves and flourish. There are lots of confusing approaches."

Stephen does not feel he belongs to the art establishment – the academic world of art colleges, museums, and critical thinking. He feels the same about mental health. Institutions such as hospitals and charities have their own agenda that does not quite correspond to the internal experience of the person in it with mental health difficulties. Or the novice artist trying to find/identify a way of working.

He said that in mental health there is the idea that art is good for you. Yet staff have no understanding whatsoever what art is. "Art is terribly important. You should do it even if it is bad for you. For artists the worst eventuality is to become a zombie – doing everything to tick a box.... pay a mortgage... Artists see this and are frightened of it".

Stephen explained that he was invited by Celf o Gwmpas to run a workshop with a mental health angle. He did not take the angle of mental illness – he does not have the language for that. He can, however, understand confusion and distress. So he designed a course – having spoken to hundreds of creative people – that is one size fits all.

"If you have a creative impulse it is an infinite space which is very daunting. You need a compass and confidence and faith in what you have done. You don’t rely on other people too much".

Much lively debate ensued. Some of the points raised included:

• There is always a focus on being positive. Society has an obsession with being happy all the time and there is something wrong with you if you have negative feelings. We should be allowed to be sad. 
• An acknowledgement of the beauty of this project – it took people as they are and let them express their feelings in art if they wanted to – or not. 
• The job of the artist is to ask questions. 
• The job is to make something that was not there before. It might be questioned.

Next on the panel to speak was Sean Burns – a writer, performer and outsider artist whose work has been influenced by his experiences of psychosis. He read some of his poetry and spoke about the politics of mental health.

 “Words are weapons and I’m in a war. The war hasn’t stopped.” Andrew Vachss

A mental health support worker once said to Sean: “What d’you need books for? You’re homeless.”

Artist and poet Sean Burns, with Rachel Dunlop on his right

Sean was the first artist in residence at Celf five years ago. His latest project is Waters of Life – “creative mappings related to mental distress” – a journey along the River Usk from source to sea. His experience of the source – “it was the first time I had seen such wide horizons and it really opened my thinking.”

He spoke about Gwyneth Lewis's book "Sunbathing in the Rain" – a cheerful book about depression. “The cure for depression is the truth… It teaches you slowly to live better.”

Sean read "Gob Squad Arriving" – a poem he wrote after going to his first punk gig in 1981 in Brecon against his psychiatrist’s orders. “Learn to love your madnesses.”

Celf-Able - a new art group

Celf-Able is a new group of disabled artists in Mid Wales, meeting regularly in Newtown and Llandrindod Wells. Amanda Wells (second from left) introduced the group and encouraged people to join. There was a brief discussion on the difference between a disabled artist and a disability artist. Amanda said that the latter looks at issues of disability through art. 

The debate continued - and there was much lively discussion about the values (or not) of receiving funding to pursue artistic aims, whether as an individual or an organisation.

Stephen said that "Art and creativity is not something done by experts elsewhere. It’s done here and now. You dive in. Participate. Resourcefulness is a prime quality for artists. We can either say – they won’t let me in – and just sit there. Or we can do it ourselves. You will feel vulnerable, exposed.... scared even. But it has to be that way. That’s how you become strong and find your voice and participate. Art will always surface regardless of funding. People will use what they have in the time available."

Jane and Jackie: PAVO mental health team

Jane Cooke attended the panel with three hats on – as the Mental Health Senior Officer at PAVO, as a counsellor, and as a trustee of Celf o Gwmpas.

She talked about the language of mental illness, and asked the question – why art and mental health? How do people feel at the end of taking part? Elated? With increased confidence? Courage? Self-esteem? Involvement in other projects such as sport or the environment could attract those words. It is about oneself – referring to oneself and the rest of the world and how you make sense of things like stigma.

She spoke about the work of the PAVO mental health team, and involvement on various boards and partnerships. "When the words mental health are used, people are not referring to feeling great about yourself, "that was terrific, fantastic…" Rather it’s another way of saying mental illness".

"Health is a good thing. The language of mental health is of illness… disorders… conditions. It’s not the truth, it’s a construct. A lot of intelligent people are now challenging that." She likes to think what it would be like to create a project for “well-ordered” people. Jane encouraged us not to use the language of mental illness when writing funding bids or reports. 

She concluded by saying that "projects like Boxing Shadows help people to get beyond their internal difficulties and barriers – so there is a real value to getting funding. It gets people to a place they wouldn’t have done without it".

To find out more contact Celf o Gwmpas, tel: 01597 822777 or email: events@celfogwmpas.org

DIY Futures: the library tour

When’s the last time you stepped inside a Powys library?

I was at Welshpool Library last week for the launch in the library service of the DIY Futures book – It’s the inside that matters - which Jane wrote about in January…  And a whole group of us chatted, drank tea, munched on grapes and digestive biscuits… and generally had a good old chinwag about the book, the Light the Way (mental health action group) meeting later that afternoon, the benefits of volunteering, and how many of us had lost freezer contents to the power cuts of the previous week… 

Which was great.  But what we noticed was… how different it felt to library experiences of the past. No one said “Ssssh!! Be quiet, you’re not allowed to talk above the level of a whisper in here…”  No one told us to pack away the nibbles and clear out with our cups…  Instead we were made welcome to share the content and success of the book with other library-goers and staff in our own DIY way. 

Many of the beneficiaries of the DIY Futures 1:1 service, which came to an end in March 2013, were there. Two of them gave short readings from the book. The event was accompanied by an exhibition of artwork created especially for this unique publication:

"This artwork was produced through a series of visual poetry workshops run by Celf o Gwmpas using their artist in residence programme. The workshop leader was Sean Burn, an outsider artist with a growing international reputation. His work challenges the language of racism and “reclaims the language of lunacy”; emphasising the way in which the language of illness pathologises natural responses to the ups and downs of life and for some people extreme circumstances, such as abuse, violence and neglect.

These challenges to established thinking parallel the work of DIY and the book. Instead of starting with symptoms and diagnosis, set ways of being told by someone else – this is who you are – the work of DIY started with the person – who you are, what do you want to change and what support do you need." Jane Cooke, DIY Futures Project Manager

This event is one of three taking place in the county libraries as the DIY Futures project draws to a close at the end of March 2014. Colleagues were welcomed at Ystradgynlais Library last Thursday, and are looking forward to attending Brecon Library on Wednesday 26th February (with the added bonus of a trip to The Hours café to look at the artwork and eat cake). 

The Powys library service has welcomed the book into its collections enthusiastically, and we would like to thank the staff for their support in this and the book’s ongoing promotion.

If you would like to borrow the DIY Futures book, each Powys library now has a copy in its lending collection. If you prefer to read books on a digital device such as a laptop, tablet, ebook reader or smartphone, we are working on an ebook which we hope will be available soon.

Have you been to your library lately? Tell us what you think, and the sort of books you would like to see stocked on the shelves alongside It’s the inside that matters.

Chatting to library staff about the DIY Futures book It's the inside that matters

It's the inside that matters

by Jane Cooke, DIY Futures Project Manager

That’s a truth that many of us recognise – it’s not how we look but how we feel, what we feel strongly about, what hurts or has hurt us, what has shaped us, what brings us joy that matters. That is one of the essential messages of our beautiful book. We were struggling to find a title, going over many suggestions, some of us liked one, some another, but when one of the contributors to the book said, “After all it’s the inside that matters” we all realised immediately that this was the title we had been searching for.

The book launch at the DIY Futures Celebration October 2013

This is a book of thirteen accounts of life, whatever aspect of life that the contributor wanted to talk about.

We also ran, through Celf o Gwmpas, a series of ‘visual poetry’ workshops. Through these workshops, led by Sean Burn, an outsider artist with a growing international reputation, we achieved some moving work which, through layered and intriguing images reflects the experiences and feelings of the artist.

Jane promotes the book at the Powys Mental Health Alliance AGM 

How to get free copies of the book!

Thanks to the Big Lottery Fund, the books can be freely given away – but they do have a job to do – we want the books to help us challenge the stigma and discrimination that is so often faced by people who receive mental health services, willingly or not, and/or who experience emotional distress. Sometimes those negative and disturbing ideas about dangerousness, unpredictability, strangeness or other views are held internally about ourselves – none of us lives in a bubble isolated from media comments and sensationalised reporting. The stories show how life is, what has been experienced and endured, how circumstances and life affect us.

You or your group can receive free copies of the book – provided that you use it to help challenge the stigma experienced by people who use mental health services or who experience emotional distress. One way that you could do that is to invite people to meet together, look through the book and individually choose one story to read. And then discuss the stories and how you felt reading them. Then talk about what you might do as individuals or as a group to help challenge stigma.

Get in touch to say that you are interested and we will send you some books and some paperwork – nothing too demanding – we just need to know numbers of people taking part, some comments, quotes, reactions and any actions people or groups will be taking as a result. Actions can vary from talking to family and friends to thinking about the meaning and impact of using words like ‘nutter’ or ‘mental’, deciding to follow relevant blogs or twitter accounts, asking if where you work is a ‘mindful employer’, getting some leaflets for your workplace or club, church group etc. You might want to suggest getting a speaker to come and talk to your group or club, or seeing if, for example, your sporting association is tackling stigma in mental health. (Read this BBC blog about mental health and sport). There is plenty you can do and we can help with suggestions.

Contact us by emailing: jane.cooke@pavo.org.uk or pamhinfo@pavo.org.uk

Or by ringing 01597 822191 or 01686 628300 or...  leave a comment below. 

You can watch a video of the book launch here, and a video of Marion Aslan speaking at the same event here.