I have suffered from Mental Health since I was in my early twenty’s, it is something that I thought I could manage on my own. I would have a few days of feeling low and tell myself to pull myself together and this worked for a while. I had children – it morphed into Post Natal depression. Sound familiar?
We all have days were we feel a bit ‘down in the dumps’ someone has said something to upset us or for us ladies its that ‘time of the month’, but what happens when those days of feeling low turn into weeks and then months and on it goes! I thought I had it all under control, in 2012 I left a job I wasn’t that happy in and left the UK for an adventure with my husband and son to China. I was on cloud nine, it was amazing and it really was for about 6 months until I became very lonely.
As an avid crafter I had taken all of my crafty goodies with me so that I could ‘play’ whilst I had all this spare time on my hands and it was during this period in 2013 that I discovered Art Journaling!
After returning to the UK at the end of 2014 I hoped that life would return to how it had been before we had left. I was wrong, I became more reclusive, not wanting to leave the house and spending the time when my husband was away to ball my eyes out! I was not in a great place. Art Journaling was my outlet, it let me escape, each page I created told a story of how I was feeling that day, I would use quotes to say how was I feeling. Those pages helped me get through a very difficult time.
If it helped me, surely it could help other people! I teach at a local craft shop once a month, and am often told how well I explain a different technique. It then dawned on me that this could be taken into the workplace. We could offer a workshop to businesses taking everything with us and allowing adults to explore their inner child!
I did some research and found that as well as being really good for Mental Health and Wellbeing (a known fact), ‘Art’ hung in the workplace can increase productivity – so why not combine the two! A team building event where employers and employees can get creative and if a day event is planned, canvases can be created to hang on the office walls!
If productivity can increase by 32% when staff choose the colours of the artwork placed in a workplace how much could it increase if they had created the pieces themselves? 50% or more? Then there is also the happiness factor – creating anything uses the right side of the brain, the bit that doesn’t get used very often if you spend all day working in an office doing something non-creative. When employees are happy productivity increases again and they aren’t having days off sick with mental health issues!
Debs Smith is Creative Director at Carpe Occasio Creative Art