The day we made 25 foot long Christmas decorations!

Workbase, the Mental Health charity where WellArt is based, was asked to decorate the Kendal Town Councils Christmas Tree. The project is being led by Ruth the art coordinator at Workbase. To help out the WellArt group agreed to spend a session working on the decorations. They consist of 25 foot lengths of plastic balls (the sort they use in children's ball pools) sewn and bunched together using fishing line and inter spaced with reflective strips.

They will look really good strung out and when on the tree with the lights on  and will be very colourful in the day and at night. Here are some pics of the WellArt group making some of the strips.

The day we were influenced by MOMA

A year or two ago I attended a talk by a lady, Carrie McGee, who worked at the New York Museum of Modern Art here in the UK. They described a project where people with dementia were brought into the museum and had talking sessions around the artwork on show. More can be found at the MOMA website www.moma.org. This really helped them regain some of their ability to converse and was very inspiring. It made me think of how when I had mental health problems I retreated inwards and didn't interact but by becoming involved in art opened up and aided my improvement.

With this in mind I used a pack I downloaded from the MOMA site and adapted it to use with WellArt group. We had slides of the artwork and looked at a selection based on the theme of music and rhythm. It was a really good session as everyone was soon joining in and chatting about the images with careful questions leading them into discussing different aspects of the pictures.

At the end we has a creative session where the group produced images in the style of one of the artists but based around the theme of music. We all really enjoyed it and came away feeling great.

The day Tim Farron MP called on our Gallery.

The WellArt Gallery has been a great success attracting a large number of people in to have a look round over the week we were there. We were really pleased that we had service users and volunteers working on projects in the gallery as this made it feel more open and people were more willing to talk and interact with us.

Tim Farron, the local MP, was kind enough to call in and support us as he has done with all our projects based in shops. Afterwards Tim kindly commented:

"I was inspired by the work I saw and it is fantastic use of an empty shop in Kendal. I want to thank Elephant Yard for taking the bold step and allowing Workbase to use the space. Mental health is often considered a taboo, but this exhibition helps to break that taboo and gives local people the chance to express themselves in a really powerful way."

The Gallery has raised the awareness and profile of the WellArt group, Workbase and issues around mental health. We plan further exhibitions of this kind in the near future and hope to involve other local charities and artists. Watch this space!