Do you remember "warm hubs"? It feels like no time at all since last winter's issues with fuel poverty and heating, getting through the colder months with the cost of living spiraling. Now we've changed the clocks once more, summer has gone and we are into late autumn, and the cost of living is still high. As an arts for wellbeing practitioner, I'm thinking at the moment where arts for wellbeing fit with people's struggles just to get by.
These very struggles obviously impact on wellbeing. It's not easy to feel upbeat and positive if you're cold and anxious about bills and the winter's stretching ahead. And art (or music or dance or any of the arts) have all been proven to help wellbeing. But might they feel trivial and a luxury? To someone who isn't sure they can afford to turn the heating on, might the suggestion that art lifts mood seem insulting? Or just insensitive? "First world problems" and "nicer problems to have" are expressions that spring to mind. So too is Marie Antoinette's famous response when told people had no bread to eat: "Then eat cake instead."
Recently I heard about Bassetlaw Action Centre in Nottinghamshire supplying warm packs to struggling households in this former mining area. The packs contain oil radiators and an electric blanket, to heat rooms at far lower cost. Initiatives like warm packs and warm hubs have started gearing up again for another winter. Organisations like the CAB have announced soaring levels of people requesting financial support or help with mental health – in many places, demand has doubled. The need for mental health care here brought me back to thinking where arts for wellbeing fit in. They won't fix the cost of living. They won't literally warm up winter. But all I've experienced and seen and heard over three years sharing art for wellbeing with people in different situations has lightlighted one thing. That life with art (or craft or drama or music) is far richer and more colourful and stimulating and satisfying than life without. It isn't for everyone, but for most there'll be at least one art form that can enhance life.
People asking for mental health support may have mental health issues because of the cost of living. Practical support with heating and eating will ease these. But the nagging fear will likely remain, and their issues may be deeper rooted. This is where arts for wellbeing can come in, opening up space away from everyday issues. And art can be an economical hobby – drawing with a pencil, or upcycling old fabric scraps to use for craft. You could even try making a draught excluder or knitting or sewing a throw or scarf to fight the cold too.
Wellbeing depends on so many different issues, but confidence, empowerment, inclusion are integral. Feeling excluded, shut out, powerless, unable to do what you want or need to do, all erode mood and wellbeing, whether little by little or all at once. Reducing life to a struggle to feel warm and full shrinks perspectives. Arts throw the doors open wide again.
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