Creative experience in a day center for mental health.
Creativity, inclusion, recycling: what do they have in common?
No one is perfect, we all have to deal with our imperfections, our insecurities, our weaknesses, our wounds.
And why not do it by creating beautiful things, using what we have?
A workshop of 6 meetings of 2 hours each, with guests from the community for which I soon volunteer: schizophrenia, depression, mental retardation, bipolar disorder. Each with their own uniqueness, creating beautiful things with the fabric scraps collected by companies.
We started touching the small samples of jeans, then writing with markers and testing them, just like they do in fashion companies! Let’s play with words, with techniques, with colors. What amazes me most is the purity I see in every single word and action. I’m used to working with stylists who need a lot of research before having ideas, I didn’t expect such speed in expressing such pure and original ideas!
Read the words they chose, see how delicate the color combinations are, how much JOY and how much LOVE in people considered by society – not normal. But what does normal mean?
When they handed us the old samples of a well-known furnishing fabric company, a colorful energy overwhelmed us and we started creating color combinations.
What can we do with these beautiful fabrics? I asked each of them what they wanted to create. A big boy with big hands strung lots of beads to create the straps of the small pockets that others sewed by hand. A girl created combinations for patchwork placemats which I then sewed. Everyone expresses themselves and feels joy in a small action, which then together transforms into pure wonder.
Look here!
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FOR THE FUTURE
I would like to create a community of creative people to support mental health. How many wonderful things we could do with recycling and creativity, don’t you think?
Write to me if you think it might be a good idea:
