The new website launch for South West Art Workshops

Hi Everyone and welcome to South West Art Workshops!

South West Art Workshops was established in 2012 when artist Katherine Bryan-Merrett saw that there was a real need for a platform to help promote artists workshops, after 2 years of work and research…

We are delighted to announce the launch of the brand spanking new South West Art Workshops website, a platform designed to create easy access to art workshops across the region.

From Gloucestershire to Cornwall and everything in between, we have a vast array of skilled, professional art workshop providers that can teach, educate and further the skills of the participant in their chosen medium.  We work with all types of customers from Schools to corporate, individuals to groups and believe that this will revolutionize the way we engage with the arts.

For artists it offers a professional service that generates them business, coordinates and facilitates workshops on their behalf and provides all the administrative and customer service support they would need.

If you offer art workshops, art classes or art courses in the South West, then get in touch. www.swartworkshops.co.uk/become-a-supplier

For the customer it is a professional service that offers access to a wide range of quality art workshop providers and creative services via an easy-to-use online platform. South West Art Workshops coordinates and facilitates the workshops on the customer’s behalf, working with the customer to match their requirements to the most suitable workshop. We handle all the booking, organisation, communications and payment processing. We have fantastic customer services and are always happy to help!

The Arts has always been an enjoyable subject for education, as a hobby or for relaxation and now with South West Art Workshops it is also accessible!

•  No more trawling through the internet to try and find an artist that might be suitable,
•  No more endless phone calls
•  No more uncomfortable discussions of costs
•  No more waiting for a response
•  No more missing out on opportunities
•  No more confusion

It is all about making it easy for the customer

•  Easy to see what’s available
•  Easy to book
•  Easy to learn
•  Easy to meet new people
•  Easy to find exactly what you are looking for
•  Easy to speak to someone to discuss your requirements

We already have over 200 workshop providers lined up, offering tuition on everything from painting, life drawing, and film making to graffiti, creative dance and drawing with yoga!

If South West Art Workshops don’t already offer what you are looking for, let us know by contacting us here, and we can make it happen.

If you have nothing planned this summer, why not check out our Events page and see what is going on around you. Do check back we are adding more all the time!

If you don’t already follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, do so now and you’ll be the first to hear about upcoming events and featured workshops!

A little final, personal note to say a MASSIVE thank you to all the super artists that are supplying the workshops, we have got some truly brilliant ones! I hope that we can work together to make the South West an even more arty place!

Have a good look about the website and do get in touch if you have any questions, but for now….

All the very best and enjoy the new South West Art Workshops site! 

Yours

 Katherine Bryan-Merrett 

Director

The Value of Art in Senior Care

At South West Art Workshops we listen to a lot of Classical music in the office. One piece that never fails to inspire us is Ravel’s Boléro (1875-1937). Having played the oboe for eight long years as a young girl, the oboe d’amore stands out for me, but essentially Ravel instructs the same melody to be passed on across various instruments again and again. Luckily for me the oboe comes twice. In recent years it has been suggested the repetitive, almost hypnotic rhythm of this masterpiece could be explained as a manifestation of Alzheimer’s disease. Ravel was known to have suffered various health problems in the last years of his life whilst writing his Boléro and lost the ability to put his compositions down on paper. It is ironic then, that music is now posited as one of the most progressive and effective preventative measures against Alzheimer’s and Dementia.

It is not only music that is proving a valuable instrument against these degenerative disorders however. A number of artistic and expressive activities such as dance, painting, yoga and weaving have been shown to have positive results in helping patients with Alzheimer’s and Dementia; with some physicians claiming a 70% success rate in improving memory function through utilizing art therapy (arttherapyblog.com- Art Therapy Helps Alzheimers Patients Improve Memory).

Furthermore, the benefit of art therapy programs extend beyond those suffering from degenerative disorders, they also greatly improve the quality of standard senior residential care. Organisations such as the National Association of Activity providers for Older people (NAPA) and the National Care Forum (NCF) both herald art therapy as ‘ integral to the definition of excellence in social care’ (Creative Homes. How the Arts can contribute to the quality of life in residential care – The Baring Foundation). They site a number of key benefits that art therapy can bring to elderly people living in residential care homes.

Firstly, the physical engagement that arts activities such as drawing or dance can provide to senior citizens improves motor function and coordination. The collective and inclusive nature of many arts activities can have immense benefits in terms of increasing social interaction amongst the elderly and provide an outlet for depression and feelings of isolation. Furthermore, the mental endeavour required for activities such as painting or weaving keeps people engaged and promotes not only memory loss, but encourages imagination and creative thinking. Engaging in creative activities can also give people a sense of personal achievement and expression and the notion that they have done something of significance/value.

‘The arts in their widest sense can touch on so many attributes of excellent care and quality of life: the value of active ageing, choice and control, independence and interdependence, creativity, lifelong learning, identity, confidence, friendship, emotional stimulation, intellectual fulfillment, sensory pleasures’ (Harper, S & Hamblin, K (2010) ‘This is living’ Good Times: Art for Older People at Dulwich Picture Gallery, Oxford Institute of Ageing)

Whilst we can’t promise that our workshops will result in a masterpiece as awe-inspiring as Ravel’s Boléro, South West Art Workshops offer an extremely diverse range of art workshops and events that are tailored specifically to inspire and embolden the elderly. Our workshop providers have extensive experience in working with senior citizens and find it immensely rewarding to engage with those often overlooked in the creative industries. We already have over 200 workshop providers lined up, offering tuition on everything from painting, life drawing, and film making to graffiti, creative dance and drawing with yoga.

If you are interested in booking a workshop through South West Art Workshops, you can do so through our workshop page. If we don’t already offer what you are looking for, let us know by contacting us here, and we can make it happen.

(Image of painting Ravel from http://naxos.com)