Lost For Words: Bereavement & Creativity
This time last year, using creativity to help others express loss and grief after bereavement was not something I’d considered. During my time as an art for wellbeing practitioner, I’ve focused on how art can boost mental health, mood and wellbeing more widely, in a range of different ways. But things change.
The new direction my practice has taken has grown out of personal sadness. Almost as soon as I lost my wonderful Mum in 2025, journalling (writing and illustrating) became a vital expressive outlet, a space to vent, to remember, to regret, to reflect. An outlet I’m now starting to share with others. Lost For Words is the name I’ve given to this new initiative. I’m planning an activity resource and workshops, held directly with participants and/or to train practitioners in using the ideas with clients. My first, training workshop is taking place within Creativity & Wellbeing Week – on Tuesday 19 May, at 1 pm (https://medley.live/grief )The initial focus is journalling, but I’ll also be sharing how the activity ideas can be adjusted for other artforms. And soon I hope to collaborate with a shadow puppeteer as well. Lived experience has shown me just how powerful combining artforms can be, & how you can never predict which will help most, or when and how.
How might this new direction reflect this year’s Creativity & Wellbeing Week theme of Critical Hope? In the darkness of loss, when it can feel like the world has been drained of colour and light, yet hope endures. Faith gives many hope for life beyond. And here and now, hope shines out in the everyday, in creativity and community that give purpose, even joy, while the loss in no way lessens. That, I feel, is one essence of Critical Hope hope that is active and productive and empowering. Bereavement and loss (personal or collective, like eco/climate grief) can make you feel helpless, while a creative response is enabling – whether that response be journalling alone or in a group, drawing, puppetry, songwriting, photography or drama. I also remember the expression “storm of hope” taken from a poem by Daniel Berrigan.
