Today is the start of my week off work - and my week of creativity and wellness with Bridport Mind Fest!
I feel as if this week could not have come at a better time. As much I'm really looking forward to running my Rangoli workshop tomorrow, trying to organise this and prepare around a full time job, a few art commissions, other voluntary projects, trying to be a good partner, family commitments (my brother is getting married and I am a bridesmaid - lovely), and also the boring chores of life that come with the territory of that dreaded thing called adulating, as well as the things I know I should do to look after my mental health, has started to take its toll/ deteriorate. (Sadly with the mental health bit dropping off the agenda first). I'm busy! And i don't event have children! I don't know how mumma's cope. I'm also a little nervous to be responsible for a workshop, and whether or not anyone will ever turn up, and very conscientious that if they do then I want it to be good and enjoyable for people.
As much as I love my job, I've also started to feel a little bit worn out and unable to switch off from my workload. Undoubtedly, it is the perfect point for me to have a week off, reset and reboot. I'm treating this week as my holiday, with lots of fun workshops for mental wellness weaved in.
Now that the time is here and everything is ready to go for Rangoli, I feel a sense of calm that I can relax and focus on my own wellbeing for a few days, and I know that I will get a sense of wellness from participating and working on this project. For some reason I have also told myself that I need to blog about it (It is the perfect content for the purpose of my blog!!) But I've been reminded through the second workshop today (I will write about this later) that I write because I love to , and because it makes me feel good. I hope reading this makes you feel good too. And I hope I don't write too much.
With my to-do lists having been getting longer and feeling just a little more unmanageable, I've noticed some of the signs that tell me I need to stop and slow down. I've become extremely perfectionist about things, have felt unable to say no to things, had difficulty sleeping, been forgetting to eat, and have put a lot of pressure on myself recently. I've also gradually been smoking a few more cigarettes (after quitting for over a year!) and have slowly but surely been making exercise and a few minutes of mindfulness throughout the day less and less of a priority. These are signs that I recognise mean....I need to look after myself. I need to use the tools I know about and take responsibility for my wellbeing. We all need to look after ourselves! I need to practice what I preach!
When I arrived in Bridport this morning after another sleepless night, I felt a little anxious about my first workshop. I had a ticket to attend - Oops Wow for Grown Ups!
Not only is it nerve wracking to walk into the unknown, alone, I had concerns of not being in control of getting really messy ( I had just had a shower after putting it off for a day because I DIDN'T HAVE TIME - this is only in my head), and concerns of being surrounded my slightly extrovert and frightening (bonkers) people. I was also worryingly aware in my tired and slightly stressed state of the very real possibility that toddler art may trigger me to somehow regress uncontrollably and embarrass myself beyond what is appropriate.
These worries were just that -worries. Nada. Just my brain like everyone brain saying rather unhelpful and troublesome things. Anxiety was not the case at all - This workshop was FANTASTIC! It was friendly and welcoming, with everyone slightly apprehensive at the start of what to expect and quickly building a sense of non-judgment and openness.
The idea behind this workshop was that it was a chance to come and play! It's an art group that's usually for toddlers (!), but this time for grown ups. The sessions was about fun, freedom, expression without self-consciousness and non-judgmental working together. Despite my reservations, this was exactly what I needed. I honestly haven't laughed so much, felt so authentic or found such joy in painting or drawing in a long time. It rekindled for me the reason why I know creativity is important - because it makes us feel good. It especially makes us feel good when we stop worrying about what we are making or why, and just do it for the instinctive joy of it.
The workshop was run by Jo Burlington who typically runs these workshops with young children. It was broken down into three activities. Firstly, she read us a story to inspire our first project. As part of my job, I often read stories to children and talk about the pictures and help them to enjoy the words. Being read to in this way, showed me how it feels to be on the receiving end. It made me remember how being read to can immerse you in a story, spark your imagination. It showed me how the pictures can capture you and the words can write songs in your head.
The story was a picture book called 'The Big Orange Splot' by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. The story is about an ordinary man, Mr.Plumbean, who wakes up to find a big orange splurge on his roof. His neighbours ask him to clear it up, but instead it inspires him to paint his whole house multicoloured and to make his garden into a jungle. His neighbours are annoyed at first that he is making the street look untidy, but eventually they see how joyous he is with his new home that they all decide to redecorate the outside of their houses exactly the way they want to. This results in a whole street that is colourful, vibrant, creative and magical. Some homes look like hot air balloons, one man makes his into a giant boat and somebody turns theirs into an art gallery.
The story reminded me of how when I was younger, we lived in a pink house and I always felt proud that it was the different one on the street. It was like that when we bought it, but I always got the feeling that my mum and step-dad would have preferred a plainer looking house. I used to wish that my mum would let me paint a rainbow on the outside wall and a big sun on the front door, and I didn't understand the concept that it might 'devalue the house'. I thought it would make the house more happy.
Following on from the story about Mr.Plumbean, we each were given a cardboard box and some poster paints. We were asked to imagine that the box was our dream house and we could paint it anyway we chose. I used lots of colours on mine and made it into an abstraction of colours and brush marks. I even forgot about getting messy and let myself paint with fingers!
I ran out of time painting my house, so it wasn't finished, but it is certainly more colourful than when I started.
We then moved onto the next activity - dancing to music to inspire our drawings. This was the part outlined in the leaflet that had almost made me reconsider my decision to go. I have little rhythm for one thing, have never been to a dance class, am often cripplingly self conscious, and also my arms and legs don;t always seem to do what I tell them to do.
However - this was my favourite part of the whole workshop. We had long lines of papers laid out on tables and on walls. To different pieces of music, we moved our arms and bodies with pens and pastels in hand to create instinctive and rhythmic marks on the page. Everyone was so focused and involved in their own movement, that I didn't need to worry about what I looked like and quickly became immersed in it. My favourite was the classical piece of music where we moved along a wall with different colours. It was amazing how the vast canvas of white so quickly became full of life and colour. It also felt so good to move and listen and focus on just the mark I was making. I haven't felt this present in a while. And it was also so much fun! It has inspired me to draw to music at home, just because. Not to create anything fancy, not to fulfil a brief for somebody, but just to ground myself and feel the pen on the page.
The final activity we did was inspired by an animation we watched. It was a film where abstract shapes merge and change into one another and jump around and seperate and dance and materialise into new spaces. The shapes were simple block of colour with a Bauhaus style. My first thought was - this is what it must have been like on the inside of Kandinsky's brain!
After watching the video, we all got down on the floor to a large sheet of white paper each and a huge pile of cut out foam shapes, string, strips of card and labels in an array of colours. The idea was that we could use the shapes build up a picture on our papers, photograph it and then change it into something else. This exercise made me want to paint in a more abstract way. The method of physically moving and layering shapes on the page and paying with the material, made me consider the space in between the shapes and the composition on the page. On the other hand, the ease of it made me less fussy and more inclined to plonk things down and try it without the worry that it was 'wrong'. I took some photos of my various compositions, and was also inspired seeing the way that other people worked with the materials.
I came away from the workshop feeling so uplifted and joyful. All of my stresses and worries from the last few weeks had subsided. I was back in the present. The main thing I have taken away from this workshop is - stop overthinking it! And have fun!
Pictures to follow - they won't upload right now. Pop back!
I feel as if this week could not have come at a better time. As much I'm really looking forward to running my Rangoli workshop tomorrow, trying to organise this and prepare around a full time job, a few art commissions, other voluntary projects, trying to be a good partner, family commitments (my brother is getting married and I am a bridesmaid - lovely), and also the boring chores of life that come with the territory of that dreaded thing called adulating, as well as the things I know I should do to look after my mental health, has started to take its toll/ deteriorate. (Sadly with the mental health bit dropping off the agenda first). I'm busy! And i don't event have children! I don't know how mumma's cope. I'm also a little nervous to be responsible for a workshop, and whether or not anyone will ever turn up, and very conscientious that if they do then I want it to be good and enjoyable for people.
As much as I love my job, I've also started to feel a little bit worn out and unable to switch off from my workload. Undoubtedly, it is the perfect point for me to have a week off, reset and reboot. I'm treating this week as my holiday, with lots of fun workshops for mental wellness weaved in.
Now that the time is here and everything is ready to go for Rangoli, I feel a sense of calm that I can relax and focus on my own wellbeing for a few days, and I know that I will get a sense of wellness from participating and working on this project. For some reason I have also told myself that I need to blog about it (It is the perfect content for the purpose of my blog!!) But I've been reminded through the second workshop today (I will write about this later) that I write because I love to , and because it makes me feel good. I hope reading this makes you feel good too. And I hope I don't write too much.
With my to-do lists having been getting longer and feeling just a little more unmanageable, I've noticed some of the signs that tell me I need to stop and slow down. I've become extremely perfectionist about things, have felt unable to say no to things, had difficulty sleeping, been forgetting to eat, and have put a lot of pressure on myself recently. I've also gradually been smoking a few more cigarettes (after quitting for over a year!) and have slowly but surely been making exercise and a few minutes of mindfulness throughout the day less and less of a priority. These are signs that I recognise mean....I need to look after myself. I need to use the tools I know about and take responsibility for my wellbeing. We all need to look after ourselves! I need to practice what I preach!
When I arrived in Bridport this morning after another sleepless night, I felt a little anxious about my first workshop. I had a ticket to attend - Oops Wow for Grown Ups!
Not only is it nerve wracking to walk into the unknown, alone, I had concerns of not being in control of getting really messy ( I had just had a shower after putting it off for a day because I DIDN'T HAVE TIME - this is only in my head), and concerns of being surrounded my slightly extrovert and frightening (bonkers) people. I was also worryingly aware in my tired and slightly stressed state of the very real possibility that toddler art may trigger me to somehow regress uncontrollably and embarrass myself beyond what is appropriate.
These worries were just that -worries. Nada. Just my brain like everyone brain saying rather unhelpful and troublesome things. Anxiety was not the case at all - This workshop was FANTASTIC! It was friendly and welcoming, with everyone slightly apprehensive at the start of what to expect and quickly building a sense of non-judgment and openness.
The idea behind this workshop was that it was a chance to come and play! It's an art group that's usually for toddlers (!), but this time for grown ups. The sessions was about fun, freedom, expression without self-consciousness and non-judgmental working together. Despite my reservations, this was exactly what I needed. I honestly haven't laughed so much, felt so authentic or found such joy in painting or drawing in a long time. It rekindled for me the reason why I know creativity is important - because it makes us feel good. It especially makes us feel good when we stop worrying about what we are making or why, and just do it for the instinctive joy of it.
The workshop was run by Jo Burlington who typically runs these workshops with young children. It was broken down into three activities. Firstly, she read us a story to inspire our first project. As part of my job, I often read stories to children and talk about the pictures and help them to enjoy the words. Being read to in this way, showed me how it feels to be on the receiving end. It made me remember how being read to can immerse you in a story, spark your imagination. It showed me how the pictures can capture you and the words can write songs in your head.
The story was a picture book called 'The Big Orange Splot' by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. The story is about an ordinary man, Mr.Plumbean, who wakes up to find a big orange splurge on his roof. His neighbours ask him to clear it up, but instead it inspires him to paint his whole house multicoloured and to make his garden into a jungle. His neighbours are annoyed at first that he is making the street look untidy, but eventually they see how joyous he is with his new home that they all decide to redecorate the outside of their houses exactly the way they want to. This results in a whole street that is colourful, vibrant, creative and magical. Some homes look like hot air balloons, one man makes his into a giant boat and somebody turns theirs into an art gallery.
The story reminded me of how when I was younger, we lived in a pink house and I always felt proud that it was the different one on the street. It was like that when we bought it, but I always got the feeling that my mum and step-dad would have preferred a plainer looking house. I used to wish that my mum would let me paint a rainbow on the outside wall and a big sun on the front door, and I didn't understand the concept that it might 'devalue the house'. I thought it would make the house more happy.
Following on from the story about Mr.Plumbean, we each were given a cardboard box and some poster paints. We were asked to imagine that the box was our dream house and we could paint it anyway we chose. I used lots of colours on mine and made it into an abstraction of colours and brush marks. I even forgot about getting messy and let myself paint with fingers!
I ran out of time painting my house, so it wasn't finished, but it is certainly more colourful than when I started.
We then moved onto the next activity - dancing to music to inspire our drawings. This was the part outlined in the leaflet that had almost made me reconsider my decision to go. I have little rhythm for one thing, have never been to a dance class, am often cripplingly self conscious, and also my arms and legs don;t always seem to do what I tell them to do.
However - this was my favourite part of the whole workshop. We had long lines of papers laid out on tables and on walls. To different pieces of music, we moved our arms and bodies with pens and pastels in hand to create instinctive and rhythmic marks on the page. Everyone was so focused and involved in their own movement, that I didn't need to worry about what I looked like and quickly became immersed in it. My favourite was the classical piece of music where we moved along a wall with different colours. It was amazing how the vast canvas of white so quickly became full of life and colour. It also felt so good to move and listen and focus on just the mark I was making. I haven't felt this present in a while. And it was also so much fun! It has inspired me to draw to music at home, just because. Not to create anything fancy, not to fulfil a brief for somebody, but just to ground myself and feel the pen on the page.
The final activity we did was inspired by an animation we watched. It was a film where abstract shapes merge and change into one another and jump around and seperate and dance and materialise into new spaces. The shapes were simple block of colour with a Bauhaus style. My first thought was - this is what it must have been like on the inside of Kandinsky's brain!
After watching the video, we all got down on the floor to a large sheet of white paper each and a huge pile of cut out foam shapes, string, strips of card and labels in an array of colours. The idea was that we could use the shapes build up a picture on our papers, photograph it and then change it into something else. This exercise made me want to paint in a more abstract way. The method of physically moving and layering shapes on the page and paying with the material, made me consider the space in between the shapes and the composition on the page. On the other hand, the ease of it made me less fussy and more inclined to plonk things down and try it without the worry that it was 'wrong'. I took some photos of my various compositions, and was also inspired seeing the way that other people worked with the materials.
I came away from the workshop feeling so uplifted and joyful. All of my stresses and worries from the last few weeks had subsided. I was back in the present. The main thing I have taken away from this workshop is - stop overthinking it! And have fun!
Pictures to follow - they won't upload right now. Pop back!