Volunteering with Project Ability

From January to March 2018, I have been volunteering with Project Ability and helping in their Aspire programme.

Aspire helps adults with learning disabilities realise their creative potential through art making workshops. I have been thoroughly enjoying my time there and have met so many wonderful people Much of my time has been spent working with individuals on a one on one basis which has allowed me to really get to know them and their processes of making. Although I am there to help people, I feel like I have gained so much from witnessing ways in which the group makes art and in a sense it is them who have truly helped me.

Rules, boundaries and limitations do not exist within the Aspire workshops. Creative processes are impulsive and immediate, and do not need explanation or justification in any sense, which I find completely fascinating and liberating to observe as an artist. It is all to easy to get caught up in the rights and wrongs and fiddly details within your own practice, and by attending the Aspire workshops I have learned so much about the value of art making as a therapeutic process in it’s own right.