Thanks to a successful application for a Creative Bursary for #Let‘s Create Art 2022 we delivered Craft Den workshops.
Craft Den workshops took place across three consecutive weeks (Wednesday 19th October, Monday 24th October, and Monday 31st October at our premises.
Inspired by The Craft Councils’ making crafts can be good for your mental health, our social crafting well-being initiative was designed to encourage and support collaboration, problem-solving, and mindfulness. Craft Den was developed to provide opportunities for local home-based crafters to share creative ideas, connect, reduce isolation/loneliness and develop new working partnerships and friendships. For this pilot study participants were introduced to papier-mâché and needle-felt techniques. Craft Den is our first of many well-being craft initiatives that will connect artists and craft makers with the local community. It is hoped that these connections will facilitate/encourage social enterprise through the exploration of Grimsby’s untapped potential.
The target audience for the sessions were home-based local crafters that wanted to connect and share their ideas and experiences with the community while developing their own practice through collaborative working. Due to the sessions taking place during half term, the sessions were open to everyone. OBP had a small selection of toys that were made available if parent crafters were attending with their children.
We commissioned local artist Mandy Day for the sessions. Mandy has an extensive background working with challenging young people and those who may need more support to gain confidence in order to achieve their goals. Mandy has qualifications in Health and Social Care. Mandys’ crafting is working with fibres -creates needle-felted crafts based upon her creative ideas that she sells at events as well as running her own felt workshops in the community. For many years Mandy has worked as a support artist for local organizations.
Craft Den will continue to be an important part of our arts and heritage programme. It will be sustained through further funding opportunities that we can secure as well as exploring securing funding from local businesses
