Allison

Image of Ally

Allison is a Second Step Bristol Wellbeing College student who has enjoyed studying the Poem Brut course. She likes to paint with photograph editing and has developed a series of i.see.mic pictures based on asemic patterns viewed in nature.

Her work makes reference to her time under section of the Mental Health Act and warns of the new pandemic of mental health to come out of the current Covid pandemic.

Allison has also played with collage and pen and ink to express her views on the representation of women in the media as ‘flights of fancy’ and to express this in pen and ink, referring to her recent diagnosis of Bipolar. Allison has other images in the online anthology and places the viewer as interpreter of her work.

Allison's testimonial

I became so indulged in the course due to the careful planning, research activities and generation of creative ideas that I forgot my ongoing issues as I pressed in to the course. Tailored to individual needs yet enabling high quality learning is the master stroke of the course. Elevating people with mental health issues into poets and artists takes them out of an isolating and isolated experience into a collective of shared stories and the interweaving of lives in this way is powerful.

Overall this has been a high quality learning experience and the highlight of a tough year and to be brought out of myself and my issues has been a key testimony of the course’s success. I believe my longer term wellbeing would benefit by continuing this course on an ongoing basis to achieve key wellbeing outcomes that would not be achieved elsewhere within or by any other means.