Creating Together: How Shared Making Builds Connection and Belonging
This past week I attended an induction to become a member of Weston Artspace, a community-run space where creatives can meet, work, and explore their practices and offering accessible arts activities to the local community. It was inspiring to hear their vision for the space, and to see the opportunities it’s opening up for artists and makers in Weston.
I’m drawn to projects like this because embedding creative practices into my daily life continues to be a central thread for me . As I continue weaving the ideas behind This Mortal Life into something that feels nourishing and community-building, I’m stepping more fully into the work I love: holding space for meaningful conversations and facilitating opportunities to explore what it means to live in the light of our mortality.
Life is full of transitions and challenges, and they are often more easily carried when witnessed by others. And creativity can be a powerful companion to exploring some of the more challenging themes of life.
Why Creating Helps Us Connect
The act of making something: writing, stitching, collaging, painting, etc. engages parts of us that don’t always speak in clear sentences. Creativity allows our interior world to surface without needing to explain or justify it. It’s a language of colour, shape and texture that often feels safer, especially when touching on grief, identity, memory or endings.
Creating alongside strangers adds another layer. There is something quietly liberating about being with people who have no preconceptions of who we are. No roles to perform, no family history sitting in the room, no expectations based on our past. Strangers offer the gift of a blank page and in that space, we often find ourselves more honest, more reflective, more open.
And when we’ve explored difficult topics within that gentle anonymity, something begins to shift. We often feel more able to return home and have the conversations we’ve been avoiding. Exploring challenging topics with strangers can make the hard conversations with loved ones feel less daunting.
This is why Death Cafe’s and similar types of events are so popular. Hearing strangers talk about their experiences opens us up, gives us language we may not have had before. We can often walk away from conversations with strangers feeling empowered and emboldened to broach topics we may have previously lacked the confidence to raise with those closest to us.
Creativity as a Doorway
When we approach mortality, grief, or transitions through creative practice, we move from the abstract into the embodied. We’re not just thinking about grief, we’re shaping it with scissors and glue. We’re not simply discussing legacy, we’re writing letters to our past selves or mapping the terrain of our lives to see it more clearly.
The act of creating becomes its own kind of ritual: a way to hold and honour what might otherwise feel overwhelming.
In the year ahead, I hope to offer opportunities that sit at the intersection of creativity and community care; gentle entry points into topics that, for some, feel intimidating or culturally taboo. My aim is to turn mortality into something we can touch with both reverence and playfulness and to remind us that grief, growth and change are not burdens to carry alone but universal, ancient, human experiences.
Creativity can often create a path that’s easier to see, and a doorway that’s easier to walk through.
Exploring Together
In community, we’re reminded that grief is not a problem to be solved, but a form of love to be witnessed. That legacy is not defined by grand gestures, but by the small ways we show up. That mortality is not a threat, but a companion that helps us live more intentionally.
Art makes these truths visible. And when made in community, they become shared truths; the beginnings of belonging.
If any of this resonates with you, you might enjoy joining our seasonal gatherings, where we share a meal and explore creative practices rooted in the wisdom of the natural world. You are always welcome. Join the mailing list to be invited to our next gathering and stay informed of creative opportunities to connect with others in North Somerset and beyond.
