First Fortnight 2018: Inside Out

First Fortnight is a charity that challenges mental health prejudice through arts and cultural action. It aims to make the First Fortnight of each year synonymous with mental health awareness, challenging prejudice and ending stigma.

On 11^th January 2018, Creative Spark, in association with Inspire Wellbeing, hosted a free event as part of this project with the theme of bringing the artist inside out, inviting everyone to bring their art and creativity out of the home or studio and into the community.

AAEX members were actively involved in preparing the event and provided a good number of the contributions by various speakers, artists, photographers, songwriters and poets, which made the event a success. In particular:

• Selfie Expression: complete your self-portrait and post a selfie with it (Heather Cassidy, Rachel Burke)
• Treasure Hunt: mingle and identify contributors by random facts (Rachel Burke)
• Meet the Artists: Presentations about personal arts practice and mental health (Bernhard Gaul, Barry Finnegan, Úna Curley)
• Zentangle: A mindful drawing activity (Jean Marshall)
• Presentation of work (Michael Stafford, Úna Curley)
• Music (Barry Finnegan)
• Collective Poetry Activity (Úna Curley)
• Perpetual Drawing + 2 Landscapes: Collaborative drawing project (Bernhard Gaul)

Selfie Expression

Setting up

Perpetual Drawing + 2 Landscapes

Zentangle

Zentangle

With photographer Billy Smallwood

With photographer Billy Smallwood

Music

Music

Perpetual Drawing + 2 Landscapes

Perpetual Drawing + 2 Landscapes

Perpetual Drawing + 2 Landscapes

Selfie Expression

Collective Poetry Session

Collective Poetry Session

Collective Poetry Session

Presentation of Work

Our Poem
Of Happiness, Intrigue, and Power Animals

If I was a cat, I would roam a city
painting a picture
beach, sky balloons colourful free
Swallow, agile flyer
hardly seen alone
Loving.
Local social history
Old abandoned House
Who lived there?
When?
Why?
In the Louvre looking at the Mona Lisa
a fluffy koala bear cute and cuddly but
with claws, roar!
A spider, So I could scare people just by
sitting on the wall
Jumping from a height
Wise as an Owl
Swimming in a blue sea.
Loyal Dog, Lion, skate-boarding
Hawk,
flying through the air in the sunshine
A seat, drinks with friends
A tree, Giraffe, because they are tall unlike
Teeny tiny me.
Stones, celebrating
Leopard, The mind.
Gazelle and Owl  a Gazowl
Slim & Lithe & Fit & Beautiful & Wise
& doesn’t need much sleep.
Fossils of Dinosaur Poop!
History
Rock from sand.
Making the song ‘Imagine’ come true
John Lennon
Turings “Colossus” computer
Spending time with the love of my life
An old vinyl player
(the ones with the big funnels)
Koala, I would be a tiger
furry and run like the wind.
A Whale, swimming in the sea
Donkey, Odd shaped pumpkin
A wooden vessel, hold tea,
its warm and intermittent touch to the lips.
Hands held tightly around
Falling from the sky (Skydiving)
Sloth
Running up a mountain
In Rain and Sunshine
My favourite weather.
Swimming in a warm sea
under the blue sky.
Deer, strong and confident
Walking the hills
An Alsatian dog
Attractive, clever, loyal, fierce and taking no nonsense
The clouds in the sky
Cat, Mouse,
A giraffe with lovely long legs
Creating stuff
Copper Wire
Making love
Other people
A spider with small worlds unexplored
A cup of steaming hot tea
to stare into
Drinking with my wife in a vineyard in the South of France
Klimt The kiss painting
Writing poetry to my favourite music
Xylophone
to be with family
at ease and accepted or
to be in world without technology.
Walking amidst a forest
A dolphin cheerful, friendly
Elephant
Relaxing and listening to music
and reading a comic
A Dog
Intelligent and well behaved – generally
Painting
Leopard
Laptop, internet
Stones, Antique urns,
A Dog
Coins, Rubix Cube, Dice
All my family together,
I need a superpower to help my family get on together again
I am Happy
When I am being Creative
Gliding through the sky

A Creative Collaboration by