Our Community Connectors' monthly creative arts and crafts group in Ipswich have been working towards an art display which, this week, was held at Ipswich County Library as part of Mental Health Awareness Week.
As part of the Suffolk Mental Health Alliance, our Community Connectors service provides one-to-one and community support to people discharged by secondary mental health services across the county.
The work produced at the art & craft sessions had the re occurring theme of Mental health. This gave our service users a chance, to be creative in expressing their inner emotions and struggles through their art work.
As a group they also wanted to show what people create when they are struggling at home, in the
day, or at night when they can’t sleep and how craft projects, can help them focus and switch off for a while. From creating art our service users found it gave them a sense of peace and quiet and escape, if only for a few hours at a time.
Included in the exhibition was photography from wellbeing walks and some that service users had shot in their own time. Paintings, mixed media canvases, 3d hanging hearts, mobiles, Tshirts, mugs, handmade hats , headbands, resin coasters, resin earrings, mono prints, masks tea light lanterns, fairy doors and diamond art.
Below is some feedback from our service users about the Ipswich Arts and crafts sessions:
‘I was so far in depression I found very little in life enjoyable. Doing Diamond Art re-sparked my
creative side and inspired me to do more and more. I now find joy in my hobbies’
‘Attending the creative art session, was so relaxing, I felt like I could breathe.’
‘Spending time for myself, being creative, I was able to switch off from my thoughts, the time just flew by’
‘I have never been really creative and I sat watching the others in the session, I couldn’t help but have a go, I was so surprised how much I enjoyed it’
It was great to share all of this great work and to chat to so many people about what our Community Connectors do and why they do it.
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