Arty-Folks

"I've put so much time, money and effort into my career but it's making me ill. Or maybe it's just me? Should I walk away now after I've put so much into it? And then what?"

Sometimes a job, a relationship, just doesn't fit anymore but it's all we know. Sometimes staying in a bad place feels more familiar and less scary and risky than the unknown.

"I kept going and going, silencing that little inner voice that kept telling me to stop and change direction, until my mental health caved in and left me without a choice. Change was going to happen one way or another! I wish I had listened to that inner voice..."

Long gone are the days when Psychology believed mental ill health was a hereditary or genetic condition, thank goodness!

Today we know that our brain is able to make new and lasting changes across at every stage in our lives. Our nervous system is able to adapt to new environments and situations by forming new connections or modifying and strengthening existing connections.

We have an amazing piece of kit on top of our shoulders, but it can get a bit stuck in repetitive thinking. To get it to move and flow naturally again we have tried acrylic pouring, a fast flowing process that is also extrermely messy and quite costly as you waste a lot of paint.

But it was fab! A release for anyone who is stuck in perfectionism!

"There's no way you can predict the outcome and I just had to go with the flow. It felt so uplifting and exciting! I made the three canvases all separate and yet at the end they seem to fit together perfectly. I could never have done it with my controlling mind. This felt like such a breakthrough for me!"

Shocking and depressing, but not surprising!

A 2025 study by National Voices charity found 37% of people with a long-term health condition did not feel supported by the NHS to manage their physical health,

More working‑age adults are reporting long‑term health conditions than ever before and healthy life expectancy - the years in which a person can expect to live in good health – has fallen in the UK in recent years, while it has increased in most other wealthy countries!

While life expectancy has stagnated, in more than 90% of areas, healthy life expectancy has dropped below the state pension age, with Britons now living about a quarter of their lives in poor health.

Across the country, healthy life expectancy in 2022-2024 was 60.7 years for men and 60.9 years for women, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS) which is well below the state pension age!

The UK is one of only five of the world's richest 21 countries to see healthy life expectancy decline.

Is the UK really ranking below Slowenia??? 🤯

We live in a culture that celebrates self-improvement or 'self-optimisation'. The pressure to become your "best self" is relentless and overwhelming because until then - we are simply not good enough!

There's nothing wrong with wanting to grow but the problem begins when we believe we need to be our best version before we're allowed to feel happy, content, satisfied.

"I really don't know what my best self looks like. But I feel this isn't it! I always feel wrong, out of place, awkward, outside, damaged.

Everything I've tried so far hasn't really worked, so here I am!
I have never done art like this before and it has blown my mind!"

In this project we listened to music by J.S. Bach and used the artwork as Wassily Kandinsky as inspiration. Very relaxing as well as energising. Give it a go!

The BBC recently reported that the NHS Trust wants to spend £30m on a mental health inquiry looking into the deaths of more than 2,000 people under Essex NHS mental health services between 2000 and 2023.

Is this going to be another very costly mental health inquiry into NHS wrong doing that is going to amount to nothing?

Baroness Lampard who leads the inquiry said that "systemic failings in mental health inpatient care are being identified in other parts of the country too". She gave Northampton, Sheffield, Nottingham and Manchester as examples. The Lampard Inquiry is expected to finish hearing evidence in the autumn of 2027, with Baroness Lampard's recommendations not expected until 2028.

It would be great if we could see some results for all that money spent and not just 'recommendations'. How about prosecuting those responsible for negligence and terrible decision making?

There are endless number of studies now that report people who feel lonely or are socially isolated are much more likely to experience poorer mental health and worse general health.

"My physical health really started to get bad when I lost contact with friends because I couldn't go out with them anymore. It got me so depressed and hopeless and my GP put me on Serotonin. I felt completely written off.

Luckily, I had a good Social Prescriber who connected me to a few projects including Arty-Folks. My mood is slowly lifting but I now I've got a long way to go before i can start working again.

Acrylic Pouring was so much fun but also full-on energy! It completely wiped me out creating these three canvases but I loved every minute!"

Research suggests that painting engages multiple brain regions simultaneously, making it one of the few activities that combines creativity, memory, focus, problem-solving, and emotional processing all at the same time!

Join our 3-week Art for Mental Health painting course starting Wednesday 12th August, 1pm-3pm
🧠 learn new skills builds and strengthen neural connections
✨ nurtures imagination and self-reflection
💡 improve decision-making and problem-solving
🎯 reduce mental clutter
😌 and lower your stress hormones after just 45 minutes!

Even if you aren’t the best artist, know that you are still creating a healthier brain! 🎨🧠

To find out more and book your place:
https://arty-folks.org.uk/events/art-for-mental-health-120826

So sad Julie is leaving us after facilitating our community groups in Lillington for the past 9months - you will be so missed!
Thank you so much for your passion and enthusiasm, we all wish you every success in your exciting new chapter and hope you won't be a stranger - you will always be a part of the Lillington family 😍

So happy to introduce you to Angela, our new Project Development Officer working across our Coventry and Lillington projects. We first met Angela in 2022 during lockdown when we were running workshops online - and now she's working with us!

Here you can meet our amazing team of staff and Trustees https://arty-folks.org.uk/about-us/meet-the-team/

We are always looking for new Trustees with skills and expertise that will help us design the next chapters in our development. If you want to find out more please get in touch [email protected]

We're over the moon!

The National Lottery awarded us nearly £20k to extend our online Art for Mental Health programme of workshops and courses that will support those who are housebound by poor health, caring responsibilities, financial hardship, as well as those working from home.

A huge thank you to also to National Lottery players for making this possible. We are looking forward to share with you how this funding is helping to change lives.

Experts are talking about a "lost generation" as more than 1 million under-24-year-olds are without a job even if they've achieved high grades

One of our young people said:

"The application process is just vile! You do your best to tailor your application to an AI bot but you never get to see a real person. I am open to any job really, I just want to get started on something. But AI seems to have just replaced us in a whole load of jobs.

The amount of rejections is getting me down and it's humiliating!

I feel rejected and everything I've achieved so far, all the hard work to get high grades, just means nothing. I feel useless."

We feel your pain, sadness and confusion, and we will stand by and do what we can to keep you motivated, until one day - a door opens and it will be the right one for you! 🌼

https://arty-folks.org.uk/events/canvas-to-change-july26