Healing Arts 2023 – Harbour Gallery Jeresy
We’re delighted to be involved with another of the Harbour Gallery’s brilliant exhibitions – ‘ Healing Arts ’ which displays artwork centred around the positive effects of art on mental health.
This theme really resonated with us – the connection between the often slow and repetitive nature of our craft, and the stillness it provides for the brain. We know many other artists feel the same about their own practise too.
We submitted two purple pearl necklaces, part of our colour theory collection (focused on exploring colour theory and it’s effect on mood) – hand tied one pearl at a time – highlighting the repetitive and gentle process of making.
It can be wonderful to lose yourself in the cathartic nature and repetition of completing the same movement over and over again. From a mental health perspective, when the hands are busy the mind can often find stillness. Many of the pieces I make exist as a physical manifestation of the need to create a mental comfort from the pursuit of repetitive movement. Jewellery particularly lends itself to repetition, creating the perfect environment for that all elusive mental stillness, that can lead to calm and a soothing of the edges.
Writing about colour itself brings a particular comfort, as when I started the series of essays, prompted by a body of work created for the Gate House Gallery in Guernsey in 2017, I realised that colour was a huge part of my artistic journey, and something that I clung to in times of confusion or need. Interesting that I hadn’t previously realised this, and I hadn’t intended to write, but once I started, the floodgates well and truly opened. It then dawned on me that I attributed colours to the people around me, and perhaps unknowingly used my perception of the colour as a means of attempting to understand the person. The exploration of colour through my nearest and dearest has led to a greater understanding of self, and has proved to be a cathartic and healing process.