Lucy Burscough
For almost fifteen years, Lucy Burscough has designed and delivered ambitious arts for health projects collaborating with hospitals, museums and galleries, educational establishments, and charitable organisations.
Lucy creates art with medical, scientific and social themes in public and clinical spaces with the intention of boosting health and wellbeing and telling patients’ stories.
Previous projects have been given an award for ‘Outstanding Contribution to the Promotion of Arts for Health’ from The Royal Society of Public Health, have featured in national newspapers, and won a Manchester Culture Award. Lucy has spoken internationally about her work with museums and galleries at the invitation of The British Council. Her paintings are held by corporate collections and have been exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery and on London Underground.
Lucy has worked with Lime on many different projects over the last year and regularly delivers creative wellbeing and team-building workshops for MFT staff. These are fun, informal and relaxing workshops where staff have a chance to get creative and share some laughs with colleagues. Lucy offers very hands-on activities for these sessions, such as clay work, so that the groups leave feeling that they have learnt something new and feel proud of their creative endeavours.
Lucy is also one of the lead artists delivering workshops for Lime’s pioneering Create+ – a referral programme specially designed to benefit those who are returning to work after long term sick leave or who are in work but are experiencing high levels of stress or anxiety. As Create+ is a six week programme, it allows the artists and staff time to get to know each other, and create an open and trusting environment, as well as some more ambitious artworks. Regarding her approach when working with Lime, Lucy explains:
“Having a creative hobby is proven to be beneficial to good mental health and it’s certainly a great way to find a bit of time for yourself, and that in itself can make you, and often your relationships, feel happier. I’m very aware that a lot of people don’t have creative outlets in their lives and that is often due to feeling that they weren’t ‘good at art’ as a child at school. In order to get over these concerns, I make sure that the workshops I design for Lime are process-based, that they have steps to follow like a recipe, and a series of simple techniques to pick up along the way, as well as lots of opportunities to bring you own creative flair and imagination into the finished artworks. Having said that, perhaps the most important ingredient is a welcoming, warm and friendly environment, something that Lime has at its heart.”