Pip Woolf talks about the benefits for both residents and artist.
Wednesday 21st February 2018, The Muse, Brecon, 7.00 pm £5 (Friends £2)
The Friends of Brecon and District Mind have, on Wednesday 21st February, invited well-known artist Pip Woolf to talk about her experiences of working as an artist in a care home. She will talk about the benefits for both residents and artist at the Muse, Glamorgan Street, Brecon, from 7pm.
In 2014 Pip attended a workshop about the arts and dementia at Arts Alive (now Peak: Art in the Black Mountains) which demonstrated the potential of working as an artist alongside people whose mental health was changing. ‘It made me want to explore,’ she reflects, ‘the power of drawing as a means of expressing different ways of thinking and being within communities as a currency of exchange.’
She attended a dementia drop-in and here she drew, for over a year, on a continuous roll of paper, inviting others to join her if they wished and explaining the process as necessary. As artist-in-residence at Mountains Care Home, Libanus, residents’ reactions have influenced her artistic process. It became clear that, in some cases, cognitive impairments had the potential to support and inspire creativity. Pip explains that ‘Slowly drawing alongside people both caring for and living with dementia inspires a subconscious shift of both pace and scale. Every one of us sees and experiences the world differently…’ She has also made a series of portraits, inspired by care-home residents, from hundreds of pieces of paper, beads, rags and glass.
In 2016 Pip ran a Big Draw event, This is ME!, which won a national Campaign for Drawing award. To explore different approaches, she has worked with a pathologist and volunteered to have her brain scanned by physicists. Each experience has further developed her studio work.
The Friends support the work of Brecon and District Mind and raise awareness of mental health issues in and around Brecon, Crickhowell, Talgarth and Hay-on-Wye. It is open to everone and holds talks, walks, social activities and fund-raising events.
Brecon and District Mind, Tŷ Croeso, St David’s House, 48 Free Street, Brecon, Powys, LD3 7BP / 01874 611529 / info@breconmind.org.uk / www.breconmind.org.uk
Friends of Brecon and District Mind: friends@breconmind.org.uk
David Moore
