New Blog - Creating Space (in a nutshell)

Hi everyone, so - I set up Creating Space in January 2017, and I thought it was about time that I really started engaging with my audience and explaining not only what I do but also the specifics of the motivation behind the work and why I think its so important.

A bit about me

(I am planning on doing an about me page super soon, but in the meantime). I studied Art at school until degree level before working as a support worker for 4 years. In this time I had really decided that my creative streak wasn't something that was going to be silenced and working with people really made me tick so I went to do an MA in Art Therapy with a mind to working with adults with learning difficulties/mental health issues.

During my training I set up one to one Art Therapy as well as running groups on wards and in hospitals - I also started working part time in an Art Studio for the NHS in mental health services and across to an Arts in Health Charity facilitating art spaces and curating exhibitions of the members work. This continued after I graduated in 2014.

Longer story made ever so much shorter - funding cuts. We know. Its happening. So my hours at the NHS evolved and no longer needed a freelancer and the charity sector climate became a hard landscape to navigate so unfortunately my time and the NHS and with the charity came to a close in the same year after 2/3 years of stable work.

Creating Spaces first year was sticky, not sure I was doing the right thing and determined to try and make it all work with the contacts that I had built up in my local area. Meetings about meetings and being offered a lot of work, which wasn't up my street or was unpaid for a lot of my time and materials.

Where are we now?

Fast-forward to 2018 and I am at the end of a very busy summer! And having taken some time to reflect on it all (and listen to The Multi-Hyphen Method by the pool in the sunshine, which definitely helped - recommended by my talented and wonderful sibling) I have decided that I'm busy and some positive changes need to be made :)

This finally brings me around to my blog! So. My work is varied and in many different areas - I do Clinical Supervision for other Art Therapists, I teach at a pupil referral unit, I run workshops and teach adults, as well as my own artwork and selling and exhibiting, and help out my other creative friends with bits too! Lots of my jobs are sessional, maybe annual? Its hard to explain. So I decided the best way to do this was talk about it - all on here when I do a workshop of complete a piece of work, tell you about it. Hopefully this way people understand a bit more about what I do, and how and if I could be any use to you (or even if you are just nosey - thats also fine).

I have a newsletter you can sign up to on my website for regular updates and an events page and a Facebook and Instagram so please share, follow, like and link.

Thanks for reading,

Claire