On first glance, it would be easy to assume, that Open to All Training focuses purely on providing mental health and social inclusion awareness training for museum and gallery staff. However, there is a lot more to Open to All Training than just that..! One particular, example of this is the opportunities that we provide for Assisting Artists. An area that Jenny and myself (Jim) have been working on a lot this year.
What is an Assisting Artist?
An Assisting Artist is someone who identifies themselves as an artist and sees that their experience of being an artist and/or visiting museums & art galleries has helped them with their mental health recovery.
Role of an Assisting Artist
The role of an Assisting Artist is to be part of Open to All Training in a supportive and positive way. This includes putting images on the website, writing for the Blog, taking part in workshops, working with Jenny and Jim as a co-facilitator and sharing personal stories about experiences of art, mental health and recovery.
The concepts of Assisting Artists came about as a way to model what Open to All training sets out to achieve. Open to All training was developed across a partnership of organisations including people who are artists and have experienced mental health issues. The role of an Assisting Artist continues this ethos. Research has shown that people with mental health issues, participating in museums and the arts can help in many different ways including helping with isolation, focusing on interests rather than problems, increasing confidence/self belief and help with mental health recovery. The role of Assisting Artists models the underlying values and approach of Open to All training, both within developing it, delivering it and its main aim.
Developing a pool of Assisting Artists
This year, we decided that we wanted to expand the number of Assisting Artists we were working with and so have been spending quite a lot of time on this. In January and February we sent out a series of emails inviting people to get in touch. In February we provided an Information Session for people interested in getting involved with Open to All Training as an Assisting Artist. All those who had shown an interest were invited to submit a brief application form, providing information in various areas including their interest and background in art, experiences of going to museums/galleries and benefits would they gain from being involved with Open to All Training.
Following the application process, Jenny and Jim met each person individual at a new gallery which is also a social firm, called ‘the gallery on the corner’. The informal interview process gave us the chance to get to know each other, for them to share some of their art, learn more about Open to All training and to tell stories around recovery. All the art that was brought along and shared was very inspiring and interesting. We also really enjoyed meeting everyone.
In June we provided some training with the Assisting Artists, which today we finished. The training provided an opportunity for everyone to get to know each other some more, look at Open to All Training and the process of sharing personal stories. We (Jenny & Jim) have really enjoyed working with everyone in these sessions and all those attended seemed to get a lot out of it. We are really looking forward to working with all the Assisting Artists in different ways in the future.
Looking Ahead
Jenny and I are both passionate about how Open to All Training has been developing this year, especially working with Assisting Artists. Often, training simply has a business focus; however Open to All Training focuses on so much more. For me, sharing and modeling my own learning and experiences is something I always strive to do. The role of the Assisting Artists gives me the opportunity to do this, which can so often help people develop new skills, confidence and knowledge, as they move forward in their mental health recovery and well-being.
