Talking therapy is often an effective path to mental health, but people can find it hard to put their feelings into words. Sculpture can be a tool to express the hitherto unexpressed. It can be a tangible expression of the intangible, an opportunity to say 'See that? I feel like that sometimes.' While my mother was in the house slowly dying of cancer I sometimes found refuge in my workshop. Working out how to combine shapes, materials and textures into my desired outcome was so absorbing that I could escape, for a short while, the dreadful events unfolding indoors. I was so traumatised by my mother's death that I developed anxiety that prevented me from working. I am largely through that difficult time and back in work. I want to help others who are facing similar struggles. I hope to find a way to make my sculpture available to people, possibly through a virtual reality gallery, so that they can find work that speaks to how they feel, and then express those feelings to others. I don't know the first thing about virtual reality, so for the moment I'm making the sculptres.
