Soul Art

A practical leader’s guide to delivering art and wellbeing sessions to the community.

In a gentle and wise way Shaeron Caton Rose has brought together her wealth of experience in community art to offer us this practical guide to leading groups. Behind the clear step-by-step instructions that take us through leading a group – from making an agreement to reflecting on the process – she unlocks joyful possibilities of discovery. She encourages us to ‘have a go’ at creative activities, but also to sit within the process so that what the art is revealing to us is shared and loved. Shaeron shows us how to slow down, how to value our bodies, how to pay attention to the world around us, how to be calm and positive and also to recognise and value our brokenness and incompleteness. Using inexpensive resources and practical suggestions, this book is a gift from Shaeron’s treasure trove of ideas, taking us to a place of playful adventure and profound transformation.

Rev Dr Barbara Glasson, former President of the British Methodist Conference

and team-leader at Touchstone, Bradford

This is a daring book. It dares us to help people engage with the deep spirituality that comes from getting your hands dirty. Art is not just an ‘add on’ to life. It is essential to helping us articulate where we came from, who we are and who we hope to be. Art ‘interrupts us’, slows us down and helps us to notice something new in the world around us and, perhaps most importantly, in ourselves. Shaeron Caton Rose shows us, with simple step-by-step methods, how to make ‘something new’ happen in our hearts and in our imagination. This book asks you to do something different and enjoy reaping the rewards. Try it. I dare you.

Chris Howson, artist and Chaplain to the University of Sunderland