Art & Wellbeing
- creativity / art for wellbeing
- creativity / art & spirituality
- creativity / art & health
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There are a lot of terms that are used to describe the many different ways that creativity and art can impact and benefit our health, physically, mentally and spiritually. It is also an area where there is an increasing amount of research catching up with what a lot of artists, indigenous cultures and more have known for a long time.
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At the gallery we have a variety of accomplished artists who exhibit and sell their work, but becoming a professional artist is in no way the only reason for engaging in creative and artistic practices. Creativity is increasingly being incorporated into the health system, aged care, disability care, and therapy. It is also a fundamental aspect of many spiritual practices.
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It is also interesting that of the many artists who show their work in the Art & Alchemy Gallery have personal stories of how creativity and art practices have been vital in their own experience of ill-health or other crises of life.
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A key focus on the Art & Alchemy Gallery is in how beneficial creativity and creative practices can be and we hope to encourage people to engage with creative in their everyday life.
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As part of this we offer several creativity based courses and retreats where the focus is not on teaching a particular skill or technique, but on the development and engagement with the creative process. To do this, we draw on a range of up to date books and articles that reflect the ongoing research being done in this area. Our facilitators also draw on their personal experiences of their engagement with creativity as well, combining personal experience and current research.
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Our creative professional development sessions are drawn from the facilitators experience as well as the same texts and information that our creative classes & courses are drawn from.
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Our key Facilitator: Dr Karly Edgar
Karly's Story
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Karly's path to the gallery has been a varied one where the engagement in creative practices has been a vital part of her experience of chronic ill health and spirituality. She works from the definition of spirituality as not only being faith and religion but as encompassing everything that is most important to us and how we live. ​
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Karly's engagement in creativity was refined after a chronic health diagnosis which limited her ability to physically do repetitive activities due to significant pain (and art making is essentially, a series of repetitive activities). Because of this inability to do anything repetitive for too long without pain, she deliberately began to move between different mediums of art. This inability wasn't just that she did one activity for 1 hour followed by a different one, but that she would do one creative action for 30mins followed by 2 days of recovery, and then she would engage in a different medium. This type of flexibility flowed into her ability to experiment, try new things and to play with the materials, a process that has become fundamental to her art making practice.
Creativity Classes
Currently Art & Alchemy Gallery offers several creativity courses, as outlined below. You can book into the ones currently offered by going to book classes page.
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We aim to have new classes being offered over time.
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We can also provide classes for groups and businesses that are wellbeing focused. See the professional development page for examples. We can offer these sessions for businesses but also for any groups interested.
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Creative Health Workers
Connection List
This is a new initiative so does not yet have defined parameters.
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I (Karly) find that many of our customers are either interested in and/or work in a creative wellbeing field in some way (art, music, drama teachers, art therapists or students, mental health etc.) and I would like to be able to offer some sort of connecting opportunity.
I often end up having lovely talks to those who come in and I thought it would be good to connect us all in some way.
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At the moment, my focus will be on gathering what interest there ma be and an email list. From there my initial plans would be to start offering connection sessions, such as evenings to connect with other workers, and/or to have speakers of some sort, or a session where you as the worker get to be a participant rather than facilitator. It may also end up including training or other types of sessions depending on what people are interested in or find is not readily available.
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You can be involved in any form of health care - I’m keen to reach the whole biopsychosocial-spiritual span of wellbeing and you can be a professional, a volunteer, a student, or even just very interested!
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If you are already on our mailing list, please email us at art@artandalchemygallery.com to also be placed on this specific list. If you are a new subscriber you have the option of choosing to also be added to this list.
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This interest and experience in art and creativity led to a variety of professional positions, including teaching, working in aged and conducting a PhD in palliative care where she researched the highly valued, volunteer-facilitate Biography Program offered by Eastern Palliative Care. She initially applied for the PhD scholarship because of her own exploration of life storytelling through art, in particular abstract and mixed media.
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Karly's personal experience combined with her teaching and academic experiences has resulted in the creative professional development courses, classes and retreats we now offer.
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Read more about Karly's experience here.​