Visit to Artlift
On February 8th, Heather Parnell and Nancy Evans visited an Arts on Prescription printmaking workshop run by Artlift, Gloucestershire's Arts on Prescription project. Here is Heather's summary of the outing.
The Tutor
Nikki White is a freelance printmaker. Also a qualified FE tutor with mentoring skills and introduction to counseling. She has an annual contract to plan and deliver printmaking workshops every Monday morning in blocks of 8 to groups of 8 – 10 participants. Nikki plans and runs the class independently, phoning each new participant 2 weeks before classes begin*, and she also issues pre and post project questionnaires**. Nikki also takes an active role in purchasing materials and advertising the class in GP surgeries in the neighborhood.
Referrals Groups are mixed in age, ability and reason for referral. Today there were participants with mild depression, physical disabilities, difficulty managing pain and an elderly carer.
The workshops Nikki ran a very relaxed but organized space. The atmosphere in the studio was quiet, but also industrious, lots going on, with individuals moving about the space preparing plates in the centre, inking up by the windows and printing near the stairs. Everyone looked very absorbed in the activity.
Workshops run over 8 weeks and build up a progressive skill set in printmaking; introducing monoprinting, faux etching, relief printing, collography, drypoint etc. The artwork we saw suggested that this immersion within a particular discipline with an artist specialist results in high quality outcomes. As Nikki pointed out, printmaking techniques are manageable, but also require some thinking for instance, as everything prints out in reverse. There is no specific theme proposed, individuals are free to choose their own imagery, but resources are supplied for inspiration too.
The participants were keen to speak of their experiences and did so in very positive terms. Some commented on the effect they felt workshops had had on their particular difficulty (many said they simply forgot their problems while they were absorbed in the printmaking process). Some commented on the pleasure they were having in picking up old interests and learning new skills.
Administration* Participants are referred through their GP and complete a referral form for initial processing by Artlift’s referral officer. The officer telephones referred patients and puts them into the programmes available. She also provides Nikki and other Artist tutors with information on forthcoming participants to be contacted prior to the start date.
Research** The University of Gloucester are collecting the data from workshops. These include an Edinburgh Warwick mental wellbeing scale, a satisfaction questionnaire and an equality and diversity questionnaire. They will be using this data to search for evidence of the benefits of Arts on Prescription.
For more information visit the Artlift website at: www.artlift.org
