Discuss how the act of creativity, particularly visual practice, can enable mental health sufferers to achieve the aims of well being.

Discuss how the act of creativity, particularly visual practice, can enable mental health sufferers to achieve the aims of well being.

My area of investigation is the link between mental health, creativity, and well-being; more specifically I intend to look at three different strategies of mental health care, which are being run around creative projects, in particular visual practice.

In this extended essay I will to discuss how the concept of well-being actually works through the medium of creativity. In order to achieve this I have considered three case studies; self motivated therapy, arts motivated therapy, and a third case concentrating on a more casual approach to care within the community. Having discussed the various different attributes of each case study I hope to, not necessarily answer the question which method provides the best form of mental health care but instead understand how creativity can inform and improve mental health care regardless of how it is administered.

Well-Being

To begin with I will outline the basic concept of mental well-being. Well-being in this context can be summarized as finding ways in to maintain a healthy mental state regardless of whether there are mental health issues or not. Every person needs to provide themselves with an identity, stimulation or occupation, social inclusion, a good comfort level, and some form of attachment and security[1]. These ideas of well-being are the building blocks for an individuals’ quality of life, and this is a concept relevant across many fields. It is beyond the scope of this dissertation to provide a full review of the different conceptualisations of mental well-being. Instead I will focus on its use in relation to artistic and creative practise, in particular visual practices. I first came across the concept whilst talking with a lecturer from Bradford University about how she uses the theory in her research into care for alzheimer sufferers. After this personal introduction I started researching the subject, and I came across Start.

“Start in Manchester is a different type of NHS mental health service. Our work is based around the experience of creativity. Through art and gardening courses, our team help people to improve and maintain mental wellbeing, develop coping strategies and self-care skills, and regain the confidence to move back into mainstream life.”[2]

Through Start I learnt more about the ways in which mental health groups look at using the idea of well-being within the field of creativity. These aims of well-being are the key points which I will focus on while I interpret how the case studies. I have chosen to put into practice their theory of well-being within the fields of creativity, and how their various different approaches achieve the end goal of improving the participants’ quality of life.

Motivation

Mental health care is something that has always particularly fascinated me. Some of my earliest memories are of my father, who was one of the founding members of Growing Space, taking me along with him to the offices. Growing Space works in a very similar way to Start, or Arts on Prescription (both of these groups look at providing their users with skills and occupation). However instead of visual imagery, they used the medium of horticulture to give the participants a place within a safe and comfortable environment, which also enables them to have a sense of identity, and skills to take back into society once participants feel confident enough to be away from this protected atmosphere.

I also have a multitude of personal experience of mental illness, I have suffered an extended period of depression from a relatively early age and several of my friends and parents of friends have been given serious diagnoses that have required a great deal of management and support. This support has not necessarily come from me but being submerged in this world has meant that I have become increasingly interested in the subject My experiences have made me very aware that there is a great deal of ignorance surrounding mental health. It is stated that“1 in 4 people will experience some kind of mental health problem in the course of a year.”[3] Therefore this is an issue which statistically must affect everyone in some way, whether it’s directly or indirectly. Looking at how creativity (another passion of mine) and mental health care can work together to enable a person to feel better within them-selves is something that I believe should be more widely understood. This is the position from which I began trying to improve and deepen my own understanding of the field.

Outline

The first case study I have researched is the artist, Bobby Baker, and her approach towards a form of self-therapy using the method of drawing a image of her emotions regularly, to enable her to reflect upon howher mental health progresses.

The second strategy I have chosen to research is Pool Arts, this Manchester based project is less dogmatic towards its participants than the stereotyped view we have of mental health arts groups. An example of this is that they do not emphasize the mental health aspect of the movement, but do recognise that creativity can have a positive effect upon people regardless of their particular situation. The website states that

“Pool Arts aims to educate the public about the positive effects on well being of involvement with the arts and provide studio space, support, training, professional and personal development opportunities for members.”[4]

Pool Arts is primarily an art group, which also happens to helps its users to handle themselves and maintain a good level of mental stability, whilst still producing sellable art.

Finally, St Lukes Art project also a Manchester based project takes a more simplistic approach to care within the community. I have visited this project and talked with the coordinator Alison Kershaw who works within both St Lukes and Pool Arts. Looking at these three case studies I will be able to begin to grasp how well-being and creativity are linked to one another. Along with this I hope to deepen my understanding of how the various approaches in each example apply the theory of well-being from their particular perspectives, and what results are produced.

I intend to deepen my knowledge of how creativity and well-being line up with one another by asking myself how the case studies’ different methods of approach show us the ways which art can provide a re-found ability to cope with the social world. How do methods differ in the ways in which they can help individuals? What can the visual arts provide specifically to the participant? Are the visual arts unique in providing this ability to help individuals gain control again? To do this I employed three key techniques to enable me to find out more. I spoke casually with people who have attended these groups, along with some of the founders, I also talked to one of my friends, who has been diagnosed as having a bi-polar disorder, about her personal experiences of this sort of ‘therapy.’ Thirdly, I will attempt a Bobby Baker style of self analysis.

Above: My images of myself based on the Bobby Baker, Diary Drawings.

Bobby Baker

Bobby Baker is by trade a performance artist, who studied at St Martin’s College of Art (now Central St Martin’s College of Art and Design) in the late 1960s. She was studying at a time when her university and the world of art seemed to be mainly dominated by men, this being particularly true within the field of sculpture[5], as Anthony Caro, and the ‘British school’ of sculpture resided within St Martins and influenced the students greatly, with their large metal works.

“Baker felt it was ‘inconceivable’ that complex and difficult ideas could be expressed in these massive art forms, and also felt that they were typically masculine in their size and pretension.”[6]

Baker seemed to already be viewing the art world from a different perspective to many of her peers, and stepping away from this masculine world was Baker’s next move beginning to submerge herself into feminine literature and a different sort of world to the one she currently inhabited.

These feelings led Baker to read and reread books by Virginia Woolf, (who also had mental health issues, resulting in suicide) and Jane Austen, seeking out comfort in the fact that there are other women out there whom have the same emotions about the society they lived in. Baker has said of her time at university that she always had the fear that someone would come up to her and say “you can’t be an artist, you’re a woman” [7] All this led Baker into looking at how she could express herself in a way in which she would be bucking the latest masculine trend. The first piece Baker links with this is her baseball boot cake, 1972. The piece came about by Baker simply making cakes for the pleasure of baking, when after producing a boot shaped cake she made the link in her mind that the cake was in fact a sculpture, and that this was a medium that she felt comfortable using. This was the turning point that moved Baker away from the conventions she felt that she had to adhere to, to be considered a real artist. This is regarded as the point at which Baker freed herself and became the artist we see today. Baker’s own comments on the cakes assimply an attempt to elevate women’s everyday domestic trivia to the status of art. This is one of the first indicators of Baker moving out on her own and carving herself a uniquely feminine approach to her creative expression.

This leap into the unknown is something that we see again and again within artists who turn out to have some form of mental illness. For example: Virginia Woolf, Vincent Van Gogh, or Munch. This ability to leave behind the ‘norm’, to move into a completely innovative field is commented on by Kay Redfield Jamison, a writer and clinical psychologist, who happens to have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Her bookTouched with Fire: Manic-depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, looks into the link between hypomania and creativity, (Hypomania being the step before full-blown mania). Jamison describes the link between mental illness and creativity. As there is already this link between mental illness and artistic expression, it seems to be a very logical step to find ways in which to harness creativity to positively contribute to the treatment of a mentally ill individual.

Baker released her ‘diary drawings’ at an exhibition at the Wellcome Trust in London in 2009.

These images were produced during Baker’s experience as a patient receiving various forms of care for mental health problems. She was diagnosed in 1996 with a personality disorder. Personality disorder is a very loose term which can mean very different things for different people. Baker herself describes more specifically suffering from bloody hallucinations, and periods of depression. The exhibition takes the viewers through her story of coping with her own self from the beginning months when she produced aimage every day, to the present when she is battling breast cancer. The images themselves are not the entire set that were produced, rather the highlights. Baker breaks them down into stages, within these stages are around ten to twenty pieces, some of which have annotations attached to them afterwards,providing a commentary of the emotions of the day of production. Along with this annotation each section orstage having an overall explanation on the wall and within the guide. This divulging of personal information is something that a great deal of people would not feel comfortable doing, due in general, I feel, to the fear of the stigma attached to being ‘crazy’. This is yet another point that Baker shows us she is one of the individuals that enjoy bucking the trends of the day, that she seems to have no fear to bare her soul to the world. The potential for this to dispel myths, misunderstandings and fear arising from abstract ideas of mental illness is great, and Baker’s explicit and direct presentation of her experiences in real time is undeniably powerful.

The fact that Baker took it upon herself to not only show these incredibly personal images, but to produce them without being prompted by a health worker, makes them all the more personal and fascinating.

“I began to do these drawings at Pine Street Day Cantre in 1997. It was a state-funded ‘therapeutic community’ based in Clerkenwell, London. I’d been finding it a massive struggle to hold my life together and began self-harming in 1996. I’d never heard of this before it happened to me and it was as shocking to me as it was to the few others around me who knew. During a particularly gruelling tour of two shows in the USA in the autumn of 1996 I realised I needed more help. I referred myself to Pine Street, against the advice of my psychiatrist, in January 1997. I planned to be there for three weeks and found a small sunny art room. I made a strict rule: to do a diary drawing every single day I was there.”[8]

This first step taken by Baker to put herself into a ‘therapeutic community’(Pine Street) and her attempts to use it to free herself in order to produce art that truly represented her thoughts, shows us that she hasindependently started to use the theories of well being. In so far as she has sought out a safe and secure environment where she will not be judged and she can produce work that it would not necessarily be acceptable to produce where her family and loved ones would be able to respond and perhaps intervene.Baker decided to allow us into her most private of pieces, only after she herself has taken from the process an ability to gain control of her life, despite several setbacks. (These setbacks include both she and her Mother becoming ill, as well as the loss of a very close friend, and breast cancer) This is again an act of defiance, which we see Baker repeatedly perform throughout her years of work.

The theories of well being are not only concerned with the use of a safe and secure environment for the participant to feel at ease in but also the use of inclusion within a society or group. Baker took longer to allow this into her therapeutic regime but, as she tells us, after having spent a series of short periods of time in more controlled ‘crisis houses’, that by February 2003 Baker had gone back to the therapeutic community of Pine Street for group sessions. Baker remarked that; “this felt like progress, of a sort”[9]. Now hitting most of the aims of well-being, gaining social inclusion from not only the group meetings but also the team of health advisors, stimulation simply from the process of creating a piece of art on a regular basis, a safe environment to inhabit (this being Pine Street). Pine Street is also the aspect that provided Baker with comfort, as it was she who chose to use this place, she was in charge of where she went regardless of what her first psychiatrist thought was best. Baker seems to have felt restricted by life and especially during her earlier years at university. This seems to have prompted her to actively decide resist being constricted by the normalities and expectations of the art world again. This could be why the flexibility of a day centre such as Pine Street works well for her, the self-driven therapy is a rather unusual example, as generally it is a hard task to keep momentum and productivity up when dealing with any kind of illness, but this is again Baker hitting the aims of well being. She has provided herself with a specific identity, she is in charge and she will produce work to her own schedule. This is the very publicly backed up with the opening of the show and the baring of her soul to thousands.

Above; the details of the Bobby baker show which I visited as an official “carer” with one of my friends the day before it closed.

Below; some individuals enjoying Bakers work. (A wonderful and calm atmosphere surrounded the works, and an understanding between the viewers to allow each other time and room with the pieces.)

Pool Arts.

Pool Arts is a Manchester based project; that provides artists with space to produce their work, and a group environment, within which members are involved in the running and organising of the group, both core aims of promoting mental well-being through creative means. There are paid part time members of staff such as a studio manager, who make sure the studio space is kept running smoothly, freeing the artists/members to concentrate on their work. The organisation itself is officially a company limited by guarantee with charitable aims. This ensures that none of the members are liable. This is crucial to the success of the enterprise as it helps to provide the secure environment, another of one of the cornerstones of promoting well-being.

Although there are distinct resemblances to the theory of well-being already described, Pool Arts’ approach to the concept of using creativity and well-being in conjunction with one another is takes an entirely different perspective than other groups I’ve researched. The members of Pool Arts are definitely identified artists first and the need to take into consideration their mental health and how they manage their lifestyles is secondary. To give a more specific example of what I mean, I will tell you about my personal experience of learning to manage my mind. When I was deeply depressed and in my first year of university I would physically run away, and in the worst cases fall into a panic attack, this being a result of me feeling I was in the way or hindering others generally. To handle this part of me I learnt coping techniques and took part in cognitive therapy. As a result I still feel the extreme and unreasonable emotions bubbling up through me but now I can take myself away from the situation and go through what’s happening logically before it becomes too late. These are the sort of things that take time and simply cannot be avoided if you have mental health difficulties of any sort. These are the things that wouldn’t be ‘weird’ or ‘odd’ to do within the environment of Pool Arts, as they have managed to create an environment in which the norm has shifted from general social views, and instead use their own, more supportive mini-culture which is defined and defended. The aims are to provide an environment for artists who find it hard to cope with mainstream life within the art world and to provide a secure, and non-judgemental environment.

Pools Arts has recently managed to achieve a target which they’ve aimed for over ten years, and acquired funding for a permanent studio space which they have prepaid, for the next three years as well as securing more funding to keep a studio manager for a year[10]. This has been one of the aims of the group for a long time as it allows the members to concentrate more on the production of their art rather than finding funding, and ensuring that the project isn’t going to fail.

“Pool Arts formed in 1999 and have worked tirelessly to provide support, facilities and opportunities for artists in the Manchester area. Members come from a diversity of backgrounds and all share a keen desire to develop their practice, but may have found the mainstream inaccessible.”[11]

The members of Pool Arts had made the decision years ago to not publicise the fact that the group members have varying degrees mental health issues. This is to safeguard against prejudice when the public view the art produced. This is something that some people may think of as a cowardly move, but this is the exact point of the project. The participants’ Primary status is not defined as mentally ill people who do art, but instead they are identified as artists who need to be more aware of how they look after them-selves mentally.

To enrich the participants’ social inclusion in a meaningful way, Pool Arts has taken the slant of not only placed the control of the group within the group itself, but has also produced a collective of artists in their own right. The common aspect that links this to other similar endeavours may be less publicized than other collectives, but to be a part of a team, who all have a common goal, in this case to produce high quality art shows, is undoubtedly a wonderful thing for any person’s well-being.

“Pool Arts, the organisation, is a work of art in its own right, that is constantly evolving and adapting itself to create opportunities for artists who may otherwise find themselves isolated or excluded – it asks who an artist might be today”[12]

This quote is the crux of what Pool Arts stands for. The aim is inclusion above all else, the other aims of well-being are met but not nearly with the same degree of importance as inclusion. Identity becomes being part of the art collective, stimulation and occupation is self motivated, comfort, and attachment arise out of the security of now having a permanent studio space. This is the defining and unusual nature of Pool Arts.

St Lukes art project.

In contrast, St Lukes itself is a Church of England building, which has an art space within it. There are very few ground rules for the participants, except there is not to be bad language, drunkenness or anything that may up

set any of the users, be those church goers, members, or visitors to the project. I went to visit this project, and to meet Alison Kershaw (artist in residence) and found it to have a calm and relaxed atmosphere. The users who seemed to have been attending the project for an extended period of time have developed into mentors for the newer users and this feels like a natural development, providing a sense of community, and inclusion between the members, and non-members such as myself.

After a few moments waiting to talk to Alison Kershaw I observed that on that particular day there were only female members in attendance, and once they had attained my name I then felt like I was completely accepted. I didn’t realise until the point when I was talking one to one with a participant that there were no prior indications to her whether I was taking part in the group, or just observing them (As the project has been closely observed in the past for a research project) this is a testimony to the environment that Kershaw and the church have managed to create.

I had actually visited the project with the sole intentions of interviewing Alison Kershaw, the artist in residence, and a paid member of staff, who is not only a crucial cog in this organisation, but is also integral to the Pool Arts project, as well as being a free-lance artist for Arts on Prescription. Having talked to Alison Kershaw I got a great deal of invaluable factual information, as well the benefit of some of her personal opinions about what aspects of the project help the participants. In conjunction with this, I fell into a conversation with one of the participants and gained a glimpse of how the project contributes to the individual members’ emotional needs. This was something that affected me considerably on a number of levels, but that Kershaw probably observes on a day to day basis. Being involved with this project from the outset, Kershaw’s deep level of involvement with St Lukes is not only clear when you talk to her, but also when you see the admiration the participants have for her.

“This is an open studio, based in Manchester, particularly aimed at individuals who have experienced mental or emotional distress including psychiatric illness. St Lukes Art Project developed from Alison Kershaw's artist residency 1993-1995”

Kershaw links together several groups within which users switch and swap or attend several of, this shows us the importance of Kershaw. If it weren’t for her input and commitment most of the people who attend one of the groups and don’t find it satisfactory would not want to try another method which may be more suited to them. The fact that Kershaw is involved directly with them all on a personal level means that there is a common currency and a sense of security and safety which underpins the group. This is only helped by the fact that Kershaw is so fundamentally involved in and integral to the projects she’s in, this case being St Lukes art project.

Talking with one of the members, helped me to understand what the ‘drop in’ aspect of the facility provides. Many of the attendants do not have jobs not because they are lazy but simply as it is difficult for to maintain the rigidity and structure needed to be conventionally employed. St Lukes’ flexibility provides the users with occupation and stimulation without confining the individual to a timetable that cannot be maintained over an extended time period. This is something that I discussed with one of St Lukes members who was practising the piano while I was there, something that she learned about from a connection within the centre. She told me

how a few months ago she felt she could not leave her flat, let alone hold a job down. This woman who had introduced herself to me, and seemed to be one of the most self assured people I had seen all day, was so at ease within this community atmosphere that she felt she could happily instigate a conversation with me. To me this woman seemed to be a manifestation of St Lukes’ success story. She has no pressure from anyone but herself to keep attending, and for her, the achievement of getting through the piano books was enough to bring her back again and again.

Talking with Kershaw about the success rate of the group, she informed me that the people who are referred by their GP or other doctor and don’t want to be or see the point in being ‘creative’ tend disappear from the group fairly quickly. This is not necessarily a failure of the group to meet well-being aims, but rather the fact that this sort of package isn’t for them. St Lukes runs in what I would think of as a classic style of group care in the community, this may not suit everyone. The feeling of therapy is there, even though the works are not analysed, interpreted or judged even for their artistic merit. There is undoubtedly something which makes this very different from just an art group. Kershaw has been working closely with an alcoholic man, who she says has never had any artistic inkling and now he produces pieces from memories of his childhood, something that he was adamant he couldn’t achieve when he first started attending. The use of creativity and a bit of attention from Kershaw has helped that man to massively improve in terms of well-being; he has become part of a social group, be it only between himself and Kershaw which will undoubtedly provide a real sense of social inclusion. This is followed by the security of the centre itself; he now has somewhere to come where he is not judged, and with Kershaw’s help he is rediscovering his own identity. This is a prime example of how the project is successful in helping people become more empowered and find a sense of their own worth not just internally, but also in time as part of a wider community.

Reflections

In conclusion having researched this field of creativity as a ‘filter’ for mental health care, I have gained a great deal of information about how the groups work and indeed differ from one another. Each case study is chasing the same result, providing a higher quality of life for their users. However, in each case the examples differ in terms of who they are aimed at and how they go about producing this positive effect. Examining the work of Bobby Baker gives me an insight into how the individual can use the system to provide herself with the form of activity or occupation that she feels helps her well-being, albeit supported and fed into with professional help. If Baker had not had this environment to go to regularly, equally if she did not have the group support she may well never have been able to achieve the all the aims of well-being. She is self motivated but within a system that will provide the rest of the support she needs.

Pool Arts is again an individually motivated system with no ties except for the fact that you’re part of a group that is your art collective; you are an individual but artistically the project provides an ability to be producing and exhibiting work without the pressure of the mainstream lifestyle. Again being included as part of a group or movement is crucial to the success of implementing the aims of well-being.

Finally St Lukes’ which is most classic ‘arts therapy’ group gave me a look at how having a low pressure but permanent space for individuals who live close by to just drop in to can create a well-being promoting environment. There is no formal need to be artistically talented, and the very point of this group is to use creativity to start building mental bridges to regain what has been lost due to mental or emotional distress of many sorts. This group really use creativity as a source of connection or communication.

This experience of researching the various method of using creativity with mental health care has been personally very fulfilling. I was inspired by Bobby Baker; in particular to reflect on my own practice as being crucially linked with my mental state, something that can be aided by developing and nurturing my creativity. This suggestion that the more time I spend being creative, the more mentally balanced I’ll be, is, of course far too simplistic, but never the less this concept placed within the bounds of well-being works, and is a structure I’m going to try to implement within my lifestyle. This idea is itself not only empowering, but also liberating in some ways, as it has also helped me to see clearly the relationship between creativity and mental well-being. I feel it is an important notion that artistic work can sometimes be just the process of making of a piece of work, this can be just as important as the end product, certainly in terms of maintaining and encouraging wellbeing. I have come to realise that ‘art for art’s sake’ is in many ways not to be mocked or indeed to be considered any less important than any other piece, the positive feedback produced by the process of creativity could in itself be considered the art.

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[1] Tom Kitwood, Kitwood T (1997) Dementia Reconsidered Buckingham: Open University Press

[2] Start http://www.startmc.org.uk/about.php

[3] Mental Health Foundation http: //www.mentalhealth.org.uk/information/mental-health-overview/statistics/

[4] Pool arts http://www.poolarts.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=32&Itemid=42

[5]Michèle Barrett (Editor), Bobby Baker (Editor) Bobby Baker: Redeeming Features of Daily Life. published by Routledge 2007

[6]Michèle Barrett (Editor), Bobby Baker (Editor) Bobby Baker: Redeeming Features of Daily Life. publishedby Routledge 2007

[7] Michèle Barrett (Editor), Bobby Baker (Editor) Bobby Baker: Redeeming Features of Daily Life.published by Routledge 2007

[8] Bobby Baker Bobby Baker’s Diary Drawings: Mental illness and me, 1997-2008. 19^th March-2^nd August 2009. Wellcome Collection leaflet stage one.

[9]Bobby Baker Bobby Baker’s Diary Drawings: Mental illness and me, 1997-2008. 19^th March-2^nd August 2009. Wellcome Collection leaflet, stage seven.

[10] Alison Kershaw, interviewed by Catherine Berry, on 12^th oct 2009, at 13:00

[11] www.poolarts.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1

[12] http://www.alison-kershaw.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=12