Creative Arts for Health and Happiness
Creative Arts for Health and Happiness
Arts and culture is well known for having a positive effect on people’s lives - improving mental health and wellbeing and bringing people and communities together.
Creative Art4Health and Happiness
We are very much looking forward to welcoming Jayne Hopwood, who recently completed an interior design make-over of the Centre, to Shropshire this month with her Creative Art 4 Health and Happiness (upcycling 101) Workshop. Taking place on July 26th at the centre at 4 Austin’s Friars in Shrewsbury, all materials and tools will be supplied and there will be a selection of products available to offer choice in what people would like to make.
Helping the environment
Jayne is a great advocate of using upcycling to help the environment - but also believes creating art is a very important tool in helping the healing process. We spoke to Jayne about her workshop and why she believes art can play such a positive role in mental health.
“The reason I care about this subject and wish to communicate this through
workshops is because of mental health issues I have myself experienced,” she says.
Personal experience
“Being able to express myself through art and getting emotions, thoughts and ideas out, as well as connecting with inner parts of myself, has supported my mental health.
“Art helps meet challenges in health and social care associated with mental health, loneliness, grief, long-term conditions and ageing - I have explored how it can be a very helpful, if not essential, part of supporting people’s mental health.
“I have drawn on a variety of sources including evidence-based research, feedback from individual experience and other artists exploring mental health.”
Mental Health
In the UK, 1 in 4 members of the general population annually experience a mental health issue and it affects thousands of people; their friends, families, work colleagues and society.
“During my personal journey I discovered how unaware most of us are about the lack of support offered, and that these points just mentioned are placed over people’s care and wellbeing,” Jayne adds. Research shows that people with mental health problems are amongst the least likely of any group – be it racial, ethnic, sex, age, class, those with a refugee status, with a long-term health condition or physical disability – to:
Find work
Be in a steady long-term relationship
Live in decent housing
Be socially included in mainstream society
The workshop
For the Centre of Integral Health workshop the theme will be why art contributes to positive mental health and the value of upcycling items to assist in a greener planet. During the workshop Jayne will answer any questions and ask questions about the creative process in delegates and there will be an opportunity for feedback. The adult workshop is for a maximum of 15 people and will begin with an icebreaker and brainstorming of ideas about the medium, before Jayne takes the delegates through making interesting and beautiful objects out of single-use items!
Costs and further information
Costs are £40 per person and payments can be made through Eventbrite prior to the event or on the day. Pre booking is required. Arrival at the centre is 9.45am with the workshop beginning at 10am.
For more information, or to book your place, visit
About the Centre
The Centre for Integral Health was started in 2013 by director Ben Calder after studying Integral theory since 2011 and over 10 years of professional practice of kinesiology and Bowen fascia Release Technique, coupled with the desire to explore the application of the Integral Model in relation to health.
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