Medley

Slow Looking

How long would you spend looking at a painting on an art gallery wall? Or in a book, or online? Recent research found that the average person spends just a few seconds. Is that enough? Is it more important to see as many different paintings as possible, or to dwell on one or two? There’s now a move towards “slow looking”, encouraging us to stop and linger. How might that deepen an encounter with art, and impact mood and wellbeing all the more?

Yes, in a few seconds you’ll probably form an overall impression of a picture’s style and subject, and maybe that’s what you are most likely to remember. You might glance at the painting’s label to see when it was painted or who by. Even a quick gaze around a whole room in a gallery might direct you to just one painting you want even to see close up. Something will stand out, the others you may dismiss. And if time is limited, you want to feel you’ve seen all there is to see. I know I’m more likely to take my time not in a gallery or exhibition but at home, flicking through an art book. Even then, slow looking would not be instinctive to me. I like to move on.

But more and more, taking time is found to boost wellbeing – time to be in the moment, mindfulness, slowing and stilling ourselves. Once it becomes a habit, it can help calm a racing mind, and become a way to recharge, fuel for the journey on. As life gets busier there’s ever more searching for quiet and calm. That’s partly why there’s growing demand for meditation, and slow looking can contribute to this. It’s about taking time out to reflect and go deeper. And looking can be a more inviting way in. If silence feels too raw, gazing at nothing too blank, then art becomes a focus. Accustomed as we are now to constant stimulus, with endless content only ever a tap away, suddenly shutting all that down to be still and reflective can be too big a leap. Using a painting to dwell on can be a halfway house.

Events, talks and exhibitions are all fostering slow looking. At the moment, the National Trust is touring a Rembrandt self portrait to allow more audiences to connect with the painting, encouraging slow looking as they do so. I also heard about a university professor in the USA who asks her students to spend three hours looking at a painting. Now that takes slow looking to another level! It may well be very productive, but I do think it could also become something of an endurance test. It makes me wonder how long an artist would want someone to spend looking at their painting. More than a few seconds, yes, but maybe spend too long and you could lose that first impression, the painting’s essence.

How could slow looking most help wellbeing? Taking time to enjoy the painting’s colours, brushwork, style, to look at light and shade, to reflect on the picture’s mood and atmosphere and its choice of subject. All of this is absorbing and stimulating, drawing you in to new thoughts, drawing you out of yourself for a while. Whatever painting you choose, it is something that stands alone, out of time, and may be totally new to you. Different styles or genres may have distinct impacts – a colourful abstract might be more restful, or a crowded genre scene more stimulating. Maybe simply looking at the picture is most mindful, or maybe learning how, why or when it was painted would help you dwell on the painting for longer, and open up more to think about so that slow looking becomes more of an escape from everyday life.

Or maybe another form of slow looking is about exploring what the painting might have to say about life issues – how paintings express mood or feeling, or how they make us feel and respond. Conversations About Art https://medley.live/conversations is a course I’ve produced that encourages people to reflect and/or talk about life, wellbeing and mental health through looking at famous paintings.

Another alternative for slow looking is to try copying or reproducing the painting yourself (once the law allows, seventy years after a painter’s death). Where someone struggles to concentrate or slow down, making this a creative activity is more likely to hold attention. I usually prefer to draw or paint my own ideas, but when I do copy occasionally, I know I spend longer with the painting and observe far more.

What do you think? Would slow looking help your wellbeing?

The Magic Of Music

Just one year, 1935, produced two of the most legendary musical superstars of all time. Elvis Presley was born in January 1935 and Luciano Pavarotti that October. One burst on to the music scene and shook it all up, the other brought new life to the classics.

I don’t play music or sing, and I spend a lot of time being creative instead with art or craft. Yet music lifts my spirits like little else. Music like this is high octane, dramatic, literally all-singing and all-dancing. Where life might feel dreary or humdrum, music sprinkles stardust. Listen to Presley’s Hound Dog on a dark autumn morning and the day has a new rhythm. Or hear Pavarotti sing La donna e mobile and rediscover a zest for life. Music like this throws tedium out the window and switches on the lights. It’s larger than life.

Why else would the 1990 football World Cup be remembered for the Three Tenors’ opening performance? New crowds and audiences were experiencing opera in a new way, as it added high drama to a tournament that was full of drama all its own. And why else would Elvis Presley still be revered as the king of rock ‘n’ roll, almost fifty years after his death at the age of just 42? Graceland, his Memphis mansion, continues to draw immense crowds and to develop new immersive experiences and light shows. The recent Elvis film brought him to a new generation, but even before that his music was threaded through many layers of entertainment.

Just how is the music of these two musical giants so positive for wellbeing? Elvis Presley came to embody the American Dream – endless possibility, a fairy tale of (relative) rags to riches. He’s celebrated for breaking new ground, experimenting & innovating, at a time when music and art alike were in flux and shook off tradition. There’s no doubt that hope, possibility, dreams, lift our spirits and raise morale. And deep down, the very heart of Elvis’ legacy is all about the music – not the fame, the wealth, the glamour or the ups and downs of the rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle, but about songs that get you to your feet every time, and give life rhythm.

That’s true of Pavarotti as well. Alone or as part of the Three Tenors, he travelled the globe and sold out concerts and albums. He too hit the big time after everyday beginnings in his father’s bakery.

Any music style or genre can lift mood and boost wellbeing, whether it’s folk or songs from the shows, and I know I like different music at different times, and I know that sometimes I don’t feel drawn to something like opera. Elvis just feels more life-enhancing, more lively, more fun – but once I start listening to Pavarotti, that too can raise life to another level, with its sheer power and otherness. It can become a time away from issues, a refuge where rhythm and beat absorb you.

And what stands out is the empathy. Surely most moods will find an echo in one or other of Elvis’s hits or Pavarotti’s songs. Longing, pain, hope, joy, fear, adoration, they’re all there. It just shares some of the weight. Others feel that way. Onwards.

Glimpse Something Deeper

Over the last few weeks, one word has cropped up time and again as I’ve spoken with participants in my art for wellbeing activities. It’s something they say they’ve found very beneficial, or that they would like to start – but they say demand is high, and they can’t always find local or online groups. The word? Meditation.

Yes, I’ve known for a long time that there’s surging interest in meditation and mindfulness for wellbeing, and I know meditation can be recommended for anxiety and depression, high blood pressure and pain management, to name but a few. But hearing these people share their thoughts and experiences, I’ve started to wonder. Why is meditation so helpful, so positive, so worthwhile? Am I missing out? Why do people instinctively feel drawn to a practice that is unfamiliar to many of us these days? What does it reveal about our innermost needs? And how might it complement creativity and art for wellbeing?

Everyone may interpret meditation in a different way, or come to meditation with different goals. It may be about slowing down, setting aside time to be, to think, to feel. For many, it will be a way of searching for something beyond, something other – for purpose, for hope itself. Meditation can be about being attentive and aware, present in the moment. Thinking deeply, or on the other hand, not thinking at all, but clearing and cleansing the mind. Meditation can be described as a form of prayer. It can be about listening or reflecting or being. Feeling held or feeling open and liberated.

I want to discover more about the diverse forms meditation can take. It may be guided meditation, where a leader talks you through, maybe visualising a scenario and inviting you to make choices as you go or to think through how you would respond. It can be indoors, outdoors, alone or in a group, or using an app. There’s meditative walking, music-making or dance. There’s lectio divina, meditative praying over the Bible. And yes, visual arts can be used within meditation. This might be a simple way to ground yourself, such as drawing a line each time you breathe out, the lines getting longer as you breathe more slowly. Or you could use art to respond to meditation, drawing a motif or symbol to represent something in the leader’s words or in your own mind. I like ideas like these, uniting meditation with action. An active response can help with concentration, which might be a barrier to meditation particularly if anxiety is robbing you of your powers of concentration, or you dread overthinking. And meditation & contemplation are “not only” about reflection, silence, stilling ourselves. Rather, they can become a spur to action, a time to prepare or fuel ourselves so we start back out renewed.

So many of us search: for truth, for purpose, for rest. Meditation can be part of that search, and it can draw on traditions such as the Christian tradition, which shares how meditation can help us rest in God, contemplating God as seen in Jesus, in awe, wonder and mystery. And that’s not all. It can change perspectives, how we see ourselves and the world. Today, initiatives like Contemplative Fire (www.contemplativefire.org) reinterpret these traditions for new generations, questioning and exploring meditation as an embodied spirituality, along with many other ideas. There’s a long tradition of Christian meditation, after all, rooted in Celtic Christianity and in the writings of mystics like Julian of Norwich and the authors of The Dark Night Of The Soul and The Cloud Of Unknowing. Maybe meditation will come more and more to the fore as a distinctive practice for a world that wants to (re)discover truth and faith its own way, to explore and experiment – and a way back in?

As I wonder about using meditation for wellbeing, I think a form of meditation that draws me out of myself would be the most helpful. That’s where I feel Christian meditation adds another layer, making the experience richer and deeper. Knowing yourself, knowing God, knowing what is all around us.

I know so little about meditation that I’ve only scraped the surface. But maybe that makes sense. It’s all too easy to live on the surface of life, to shut out thoughts and content ourselves with the everyday. Meditation is a glimpse of something deeper.

Either/Or

Can wellbeing initiatives such as befriending, arts and crafts or gardening be just as beneficial as a talking therapy like CBT? On the one hand, demand is constant and CBT has boomed, within the NHS and beyond. But on the other hand, doubts have started to be raised, and it’s now believed cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT, can be negative or even damaging to some patients. Discovering these reports recently, I wanted to learn more – about why CBT might prove unhelpful, and what might be positive alternatives.

Maybe the most interesting report I found was a 2014 review by the Cochrane Group, which compared CBT’s impact with other, more informal and everyday approaches, such as befriending. It concluded that these alternatives could be equally beneficial. To me, that suggests that what many patients seek is the gift of time, of connection, of stimulus, of sharing, and that these can be of profound benefit in themselves.

Yes, the human brain is massively complex, and so is the variety of individual thought patterns. But within that complexity, there are also common threads, and the simplest, most instinctive experiences can be the most positive.

CBT can be wonderful: recharging, setting thoughts in new directions, enabling and encouraging. It too gives time and space for sharing and connection, only it focuses that time and space on issues, difficulties, problems. For some that can feel intimidating or oppressive. For others, it’s just what they need. CBT addresses thought patterns head on, so it can be concrete and specific where wellbeing initiatives might feel too vague. Sometimes suggesting befriending or art to someone can look like you’re brushing aside whatever they may be going through. But they are flexible alternatives, and they won’t ask you to change how you think. Instead they open up time and space in a different way, giving perspective.

Then there’s life coaching as opposed to therapy or counselling. I offer life coaching, as well as being an art for wellbeing practitioner. Life coaching is more of a shared experience, setting goals together as you encourage someone to discover and think more about themselves and how they live – not giving answers.

I like to compare and contrast the different ways that visual art can benefit wellbeing too – whether it’s used to express thoughts and emotions directly, or rather as an escape, a refuge, a stimulus, for rest, calm, fun, respite. Confronting issues head on, or recharging – or combining the two. Expressive art can feel negative and fuel overthinking or depression, like CBT. But it can also encourage someone to think through an issue in a new and creative way. Non-expressive art on any theme can feel irrelevant, but can also root someone in life and shine a light.

For any intervention, there’ll be doubters and naysayers. ADHD is one issue where doubt is being cast on the use of CBT. A 2024 University of Nottingham study identified negative experiences for a majority of 46 people with ADHD surveyed, with reports of feeling inadequate or distressed. One theory may be that CBT lags behind the rate at which people with ADHD think, and that’s where the very flexibility of other initiatives such as mindful gardening or painting could prove more absorbing, even as a balance with CBT.

What stands out is the need to experiment with an open mind, to see what helps any one of us as an individual. And not to assume that therapy will always be more beneficial than practical, tangible experiences. But it isn’t about either/or.

Express Yourself

What do the words “comic book” or “graphic novel” conjure up for you? Do they awaken nostalgic memories of comic strips you enjoyed as a child, or do you read them here and now? Maybe you are contributing to the recent boom in comic books and graphic novels. All the time they’re becoming more varied and more successful, for all age groups. As I share art for wellbeing, I always like exploring different ways in which visual arts can enrich life and improve mental health, so I’m intrigued by the growth of graphic novels.

The graphic novel was born about 200 years ago, and during those two centuries has ebbed and flowed. Although known as novels, they’ve also diversified to cover non-fiction. Usually graphic novels will be longer, while comic books come to 32 pages at most. So thriving is the graphic and comic scene that there are many comic conventions (known as cons) across the UK, such as The Lakes International Comic Art Festival and MCM Expo) and the world.

What I think stands out about the genre is the way comic and graphic novels combine & interweave word and image, or make art the main or only driver. Book illustration has a long and wonderful history, but in many illustrated books, words build the narrative while illustration becomes an add-on. Comic or graphic novels level the playing field, or dispense with words altogether so that visual art alone becomes narrative. It’s a powerful storyteller! And while I enjoy most book genres, I don’t like long digressions or descriptions. Graphic novels cut through all this, never losing momentum.

What particularly interests me about comic strips or books and graphic novels is how central they could be to art for wellbeing – a perfect space for expressing thoughts and feelings or for exploring an experience, real or imaginary, through visual art. They could help as an activity – creating your own sequential art, as it is known – or as a stimulus – reading a comic book that delves into an issue important to you.

It was Roy Lichtenstein’s Pop Art masterpieces that first set me wondering about using comic strip style within art for wellbeing. Enjoying the bold line art, I came to see how Lichtenstein was using the genre to explore diverse experiences, like family conflict or growing up. So why not use comic art to express personal feelings too? I’ve started out, and would like to do more.

Comic art is so exact, clean, everything in its place, yet it captures brilliantly the messiness of life, the little everyday dramas. It raises the personal or individual to stand alone, to become a narrative that has something to say to everyone. Reducing thoughts or experiences to a handful of words to fit a speech bubble, or to a few lines of drawing, helps you sum up how you feel and highlight what matters most. Every word or stroke of the pen counts. It’s also a useful tool for visualization, picturing how a scenario might develop, taking it in different directions.

Comic books and graphic novels have developed far beyond the superhero story or children’s comedy – although these themselves can also be useful wellbeing tools. Sit down with a blank sheet of paper, forget rules or traditions, and improvise. It might just become another creative way to think, and to unravel those thoughts.

Changing Minds

What’s the first thought that comes into your mind when you hear the words creativity, the arts, music, dance, drama, art or craft? Do you think “wonderful, enriching, fun”? Or do you think “boring, scary, not for you”?

Many of us do have an instinctive yes or no response to lots of things in life. Dismissing the arts, or sport, or skydiving, or growing your own fruit and vegetables, can become a habit or limiting belief. It can reflect low self esteem, feeling you are not good ebough or don’t have the ability or skills needed. Particularly true with art – since becoming an art for wellbeing practitioner, I’ve heard lots of people dismiss drawing with a laugh. “But I can’t draw!” End of story. But is it?

Shutting off an entire area of life feels negative. And all the more so when it’s about creativity, a fundamental human outlet and a way of being present and active while expressing ourselves. How can we become more open to creativity and new forms of being creative? How can we also encourage others to be more open, and foster creativity?

Behavioural change is an uneasy term. It feels like coercion or pressure, as if someone feels they know better than you and want to bend you to their will. No one’s wellbeing is likely to benefit if they feel they’re being pushed to change. It’s more likely that we will dig our heels in. Maybe that’s why the Cabinet Office’s behavioural change unit is known as the Nudge Unit. After all, a gentle nudge sounds harmless enough. And central to encouraging behavioural change is to make it easy and to make it obvious.

How might that fit the arts? Make it easy to experiment with creativity – such as highlighting quick, simple art ideas, which I like to suggest and share, ideas that take only ten or 15 minutes to complete – but can be just as beneficial, and are likely to fit more easily and sustainably into your life. Drawing is also easier to set up and clear away than all the messiness of painting. Or try watching short plays streamed online to get into theatre. Or try a xylophone or tambourine or other widely available & inexpensive percussion instrument to get into music in a new way. And make it obvious? The more the wellbeing benefits of the arts become widely known, the more likely we all are to give them a try. All the more so if we get into creativity in childhood, so that it becomes an obvious pastime to come back to in later life – which is why the decline of arts in schools needs to change in itself.

One theory of behavioural experts is that most people are more likely to pursue an activity if they identify with other participants, if it fits their self image and if they trust the person suggesting the activity. Most of us do like to be in the majority, so the more popular an activity becomes, the more likely we are to join in. Making all the arts as mainstream and as inclusive as possible is vital. So is highlighting that creativity is hit and miss, that we will all be dissatisfied with what we create sometimes and that it’s more the experimenting that matters.

No behavioural change is straightforward, and many limiting beliefs have deep roots. All any of us can do is open our minds to possibilities, even if they still feel a long way away.

Communities That Care

Creativity plays an important part in many care homes – and so too does community. With care homes running varied activities most days, alongside the quizzes, outings and bingo there are lots of music, arts and crafts. This week is Care Home Open Week, and I’ve heard people sharing how they feel about the prospect of living in a care home, the positives and the negatives. Feeling supported, safe and understood – or feeling shut away, closed off, dependent. Out of sight, out of mind. Of course any care home is a community of its own, and dedicated staff use real imagination & initiative to boost wellbeing. But it’s also so important that events like Care Home Open Week highlight and reinforce the community links that most care homes do foster.

None of us like to feel left out or left behind, at any age. Research by the Campaign To end Loneliness and Sanctuary Care this year showed that feeling connected to your local community gives a sense of belonging, safety and support. And while you might think loneliness is unlikely living in the communal setting of a care home, it’s an under-researched issue, and there are indications that it can even be more of a problem among care home residents than older people who live independently.

That’s why throwing care home doors open wide is so positive.

And creativity can be one way to help strengthen and restore community ties. There are music initiatives where choirs and performers go into care homes to sing or play. There’s an organisation that gets primary school pupils to read stories to care home residents. And this year I’ve started the Make To Give initiative, arranging for community groups and children’s clubs to make handmade greetings cards to give to care homes local to them (https://medley.live/mtg)

Creativity can become common ground and a tangible way to share and connect. But of course there are also many other ways to open up care homes, whether that’s with therapy animals (likedogs or even Shetland ponies!) or befriender visiting, like YOPEY Dementia Befriender’s wonderful work.

Care home residents may be frail and unwell, and need support and care – but they also need stimulus (proven to be particularly important for people who have dementia) and something to do when they are unable to spend time on usual everyday tasks. The more communities remember the care homes in our midst, the more positive an experience care home living can become.

I remember a lady saying that when her husband’s Alzheimer’s progressed and he moved to a care home, he became more relaxed, because he felt understood and wasn’t having to play a part. That shows just how care homes can be a haven, a port in the storm. And that haven needs community to be the best it can be.

Serendipity

Even the most reluctant gardener (or rambler) is more likely to venture out at this time of year. Many plants and flowers emerging, fresh leaves on the trees, roadside verges high with cow parsley. Yes, gardening can be fun, but also back-breaking, frustrating, a losing battle to stop weeds and bugs taking over – or maybe the secret is to think again. I discovered a piece of RHS research which last year found that one way to improve wellbeing might be to garden more naturally and sustainably, allowing wildlife to thrive. Gardeners who let wild flowers and grasses grow, who weeded rather than spraying, and who encouraged wild creatures, were found to have better levels of wellbeing.

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Maybe the luxuriance of grasses and wild flowers taking root, like during No Mow May, lifts mood as you see nature’s fulsome exuberance bursting out. Maybe doing something different with your garden in this way is a welcome stimulus – think the serendipity of seeing what grows when you loosen your hold. And maybe it’s that very letting go that’s positive, even liberating. Let nature do its thing, stop fighting. Not giving in, but giving back. Actively choosing to let nature in, not passively feeling you’ve failed to rescue your garden from nature. Seeing it from that different perspective makes cooperating with nature an empowerment.

Or maybe it’s the sheer time spent at nature’s level that helps, as you weed and tend. Another 2024 study found that how we perceive time slows when we’re outdoors interacting with nature. With time anxiety now a common issue, overshadowing more and more lives, it has to be good news that being in nature slows us down. The research was entitled “Time Grows On Trees” and conducted by Canadian researchers, who concluded that walking in a park felt slower than walking in a city street. This helps improve mood, lessen tension, and make people more reflective, thinking ore deeply and longer-term, so that they are more likely to plan and attain goals. It’s surely all about perspective, nature opening up different perspectives, where our everyday tasks and worries fade into the background for a little while. Nature’s time patterns feel very different, with none of the rush and bustle of traffic or phone notifications, and that may gradually rub off on us the more time we spend with nature.

Other research has compared the diverse impacts of particular natural environments or settings or ecosystems. For example, walking along country roads can boost wellbeing as you see wild flowers and grasses in the verges (like in a sustainable garden) but also by encouraging rhythmic, steady walking, which is known to improve memory and learning. Walking by the sea is thought to lessen depression and other inflammatory issues and conditions, by breathing in chemicals that sea air naturally contains.

Maybe variety and diversity in the garden is important too. Any truly sustainable garden will be varied and diverse, simply because that’s the best way to encourage as many species as possible and to foster a balanced and healthy ecosystem. Different plants will all have different impacts on our wellbeing too, creating a rich whole.

A Past That Endures

Creativity, art, music, might feel a world away from the very brutal realities of war: mud, death, rubble, bomb craters. 80 years on from VE Day, which saw many countries emerge from World War Two, this week has seen crowds gather once more to commemorate and to celebrate. Those six long years of war are distant now, but paintings, sculptures, songs and music survive, transporting us back to a past that endures.

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Image, word and sound are how we react, how we record and remember, how we express and lament, persuade or oppose. The visual can be all the more memorable – which is why so much wartime propaganda used cartoon and caricature. But there was also very different war art. It is largely images of the First World War that have become the most famous, as with poetry. But Paul Nash for one was an official war artist in the two Wars, and his Battle Of Britain (1940) and Totes Meer (Dead Sea (1940-1) explore the wonder and ferocity of battles fought in the skies overhead. One (Battle Of Britain) is a skyscape, but the other (Totes Meer) tells a very different story, with downed German planes reduced to wreckage.

Not only artwork portraying the events of war showed its impact. Even artists who painted different themes bore war’s imprint, which changed the way they saw the world. Edward Burra and Ceri Richards were two British landscape artists whose work has a mood of menace.

And of course, just as music and art reflect wartime, so too they can express many other events, global, national, local or individual. Creativity can become a tangible and powerful response, a way to recreate or to explore horror, injustice, bravery, or simply what it is to be human and to live in the everyday.

Songs of those war years still stand out. Songs about hope, reunion and the dream of a different future, but also about getting by, with no fuss and with a smile. Songs that have come to celebrate that generation. They’re songs about how to live and about what truly matters in the end.

War inspires public art to be commissioned – music, like Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem, or visual arts. Maybe in memory, such as the pair of stained glass windows of Dunkirk and D-Day in Portsmouth Cathedral, in memory of an admiral of the fleet. Or as communities rebuild – as in Coventry Cathedral, where Graham Sutherland’s famous tapestry is only one of many artworks commissioned when old and new were combined to recreate the bombed Cathedral. Sutherland was another official war artist, and his work went on to reflect this legacy – see his striking painting Thorn Trees (1945). This transforms a nature theme (thorn trees) with a religious reference (Jesus’s crown of thorns) into a mechanical image of steel blades, mirroring the machinery of war.

If the purpose of war songs was to cheer and unite, and war music usually commemorates, what is the purpose of war art? As years go by is it only a historical record? Or can it extend beyond the specifics of time and place? I think that thinking and talking about a war painting can unlock and unpack thoughts and feelings about war, yes, but also about wider human issues like bereavement, life, death, despoiling of nature or regret. So too can most paintings go far beyond their main theme. That’s why I’ve produced a training course called Conversations About Art: How To Share Famous Paintings For Wellbeing. To find out more, have a look at https://medley.live/conversations

Earth Our Home

What is your first thought when you hear the word “earth”? Is Planet Earth somewhere you take for granted, a backdrop to your life that you assume will go on as it is? Can you still enjoy nature unclouded by earth’s issues? Or has dread of what’s ahead come to overshadow that experience? Maybe how you feel differs each day.

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Since it was founded back in the 1950s, Earth Day has been observed on 22 April each year. You could say that every day should be Earth Day, for what is earth if not our home, the planet on which we depend day to day for all our bodies need and demand? But like all commemorative and special days and weeks, Earth Day serves to raise awareness and create a space for debate. As climate and nature emergency have become more widely acknowledged, but net zero proves a divisive issue, Earth Day takes us back to what it’s all about.

One way to focus on what matters most, to reflect and discuss and express, is through creativity. Following climate and nature reports in the media can be confusing, even overwhelming, and there’s a lot to absorb. Creativity turns that around so we become productive and active. For me, that’s one of creativity’s most positive impacts in general: being creative on any theme is something tangible to do and reduces overthinking or apathy. That’s why I think a creative response to climate and nature issues can be so helpful. Time spent wondering about facts and figures or worrying about the latest dire predictions can be just as well spent, if not better, using art and craft to explore these issues.

Take eco grief. Do you feel deep sadness about biodiversity loss, the likely impacts of a warming planet, or plastic pollution? Many people do now, and like any form of grief or bereavement, eco grief can produce feelings of anger, disbelief and despair. It can also be a profoundly lonely experience, if you feel others do not share or understand your grief. Art and craft can help you lament, a traditional word that’s all about expressing and exploring grief, not shutting it away. Giving yourself the time and opportunity to wade through the flood waters, to let the rain fall on you, to face what is happening head on. Visualize what you mourn about the climate and nature emergency – imagine a place, an ecosystem, a scene, maybe before and after – a thriving scene full of life, become a desolate, bare space. Draw or paint or create a collage of what you visualize. Experiment and don’t hold back. You could cut up your artwork when you’ve finished, or throw paint over it, or scrawl all over it, to symbolize and express your anger or bitterness.

Art and craft can also help you celebrate what remains, or what once was, remembering nature’s continuity and beauty, and motivating you not to give up hope that change may come, at whatever level.

And art and craft can become ways to re-imagine. Picture what the change we need would look like. Use this to call and lobby for action, but also to embody this change in little everyday ways. Craftivism gives many people something specific and concrete to hold on to. Make a banner, or an imaginative card to send to local decision makers, take part in a craftivist campaign, make a bug hotel, or get into upcycling, repurposing and support a repair cafe.

Creativity can usher in change we do want, and help us resist the change we don’t want – within and without.