Taking Care of Ourselves

2022-2024

In autumn 2022 I was awarded a bursary from a-n to explore the development of an individualised support framework to help me think about how to sustainably work in this sector, including working with experts to:

Think about practical ways to manage fees and workloads, including building awareness of the 'weight' of current and upcoming works and emotional capacity to work on such projects;
Explore how to better implement and ask for support when working on projects that have the potential for exposure to distressing conversations and content;
Identify and notice via embodied methods when work is causing a significant disruption, and figuring out how to create change or process the residual feelings.

Since then I have been running sessions to support other artists and arts workers, sharing my findings and taking them through a creative and collaborative exploration of what taking care of ourselves might look like. The aim of the workshops have been to support individuals to gently build up the beginnings of their own support framework. Artists have been supported to:

Explore setting professional and personal boundaries in their work;
Exploring and defining what they need to do their best work;
Make work that explores their lived experience of illness;
Let go of the content they are exposed to at work or in participatory practices.

If you are interested in commissioning me to run a version of these workshops please get in touch.

Quotes from Participants:

“It has made me reflect - I am doing a lot of the “right” things already – colour coding diary, boundaries, clarity around what good work looks like, journaling, processing etc - but the big difference your session has made is to help me to see these things as my RIGHT! Not things I need to do to look after myself because I am somehow struggling or not coping.”

”I really value you sharing your toolkit with us so that we can reflect on our own self-care strategies. It was an incredibly rich workshop. Your exemplary prioritising of self-care to best fulfil creative work is extremely inspiring.”

“It felt great to take the time to stop and reflect — I don’t often do it and this has inspired me to do it more often!”

“This was better than 1 year of monthly reflective practice!”

“I will take away: the importance of taking time, the importance of reflecting, that letting go matters, that I matter most…”