Art Career Beginnings
I originally went to art
school because I felt lost. Making art was the only consistency in my life. I
used art as a form of therapy and as a respite from the world. While at
university, however, I did some work and volunteering at the University Gallery
and Watt Space and realised that helping others to display their creativity was far more
rewarding than fostering my own.
From this insight, I developed my interest in arts health, which was the basis of my Honours thesis. Art has many purposes. It can be a form of entertainment and enjoyment; it can
be a vehicle for social, personal, or political communication; it can be a way
of preserving individual and cultural heritage and history. Art can also be
used to facilitate recovery. The process of art-making can be therapeutic, as
can art present in the environment. Art in hospitals and healing centres has
been demonstrated to be conducive to healing, health and well being.
Exploring these ideas changed my direction from being focused entirely on art, to focusing on the welfare of others.