Art as Therapy: When Creativity Becomes More Than a Hobby
For many artists, creating is about much more than producing something beautiful.
It can be a place to retreat from the pressures of everyday life, a way to process difficult emotions, or simply a few precious hours when the mind becomes quiet.
During Mental Health Week, we wanted to explore the role creativity can play in supporting our wellbeing. For two Creative Connections Whitsunday artists, Michael van Blerk and Debbie Stephens, art has become an important part of how they navigate life's challenges.
When the mind goes quiet
For Michael van Blerk, painting provides a very different space from his demanding and sometimes confronting working life.
"My day job is demanding and, at times, confronting. It asks a lot of me emotionally, and for a long time I didn't have a good place to put that weight."
Michael painted when he was younger but stepped away from it for around ten years. When he picked up a brush again about eighteen months ago, he realised just how much he had missed it.
Working predominantly in oils, often wet-into-wet and completing a painting in a single session, requires his full concentration.
"I can't be replaying the day while I'm working out an edge or a wave breaking in the dark. For those few hours, my mind finally goes quiet."
There is another dimension to Michael's work too. Many of his paintings explore light emerging from darkness, from stormy seas at night to dramatic figures illuminated against shadow.
He doesn't believe that is accidental.
"Painting has become a way of processing the heavier things I carry and turning them into something that holds hope."
Painting has also given Michael something beyond the canvas: a sense of purpose outside work, connections within his community and an opportunity to show his children the importance of pursuing something you love.
His advice to someone who may be struggling is wonderfully simple:
"Pick something up and make something. It doesn't need to be good. It just needs to be yours."
A safe place for difficult emotions
For fellow CCW artist Debbie Stephens, creativity has played an even more profound role.
"Art has quite literally been a lifeline for me."
During some of the most difficult and frightening periods of her life, Debbie says creating gave her somewhere safe to place her thoughts and emotions.
When she sits down with her pastels, her attention shifts away from the things she has experienced and towards what is immediately in front of her: colour, light and the small decisions involved in creating an artwork.
"The noise around me becomes quieter. I can focus on colour, light and the small decisions in front of me, rather than being defined by what I have been through or what I cannot do."
That process has helped Deb rediscover purpose and hope.
Completing even a small artwork can provide a sense of achievement and a reminder that a difficult day can still produce something positive.
"Something beautiful can still come from a difficult day."
Through art, Deb says she has begun rebuilding her confidence, connecting with other people and rediscovering joy.
"For me, art is much more than a hobby or a distraction. It is an essential part of caring for my mental health, and at times it has genuinely helped save my life."
You don't have to be an artist
Perhaps one of the most important things about creativity is that it doesn't require artistic skill.
You don't have to produce something worthy of an exhibition. You don't even have to show anyone what you've made. Painting, drawing, photography, pottery, textiles, writing, gardening, music and other forms of creative expression can all provide an opportunity to slow down and focus on something outside the pressures of everyday life.
Sometimes the value is simply in the process of making.
Michael and Debbie's experiences are deeply personal, but there is a common thread running through both stories. Creativity gives them somewhere to place their attention, their emotions and their experiences. It creates purpose and connection, and provides moments when everything else becomes a little quieter.
During Mental Health Week, perhaps that's a good reason to give yourself permission to create something.
It doesn't need to be perfect - it doesn't even need to be good.
It just needs to be yours.
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