The surprising ways my own wellbeing improved through making art with others

Photo credit @timetobephotography

I started Community Art Clubs CIC (a Community Interest Company) in 2024 to support people in rural communities to create, experience, and enjoy art while combatting growing issues like social isolation. 

What I didn't expect was how well it would make me, too. My own wellbeing improved through making art with others

Drawing from my 20+ years of experience in Norfolk Museums' learning and engagement team, I always say I launched the social enterprise based on several well-reasoned business-for-impact motivations:

• Combatting Social Isolation: I recognized that more and more people in rural areas like Norfolk were experiencing social isolation. The clubs act as an accessible, affordable way for people to "drop in, make art, and make friends" right in their own village halls and churches. 

• Building Stronger Communities: I firmly believe that making art does not just benefit individual artmakers; it actively fosters social cohesion, nurtures a sense of identity, and builds healthier local communities. 

• Boosting Health and Wellbeing: As an art life coach, I view art as a powerful tool for healing, happiness, and mental well-being, using regular activities to keep people feeling safe, grounded, and focused.

• Unleashing Inner Creativity: After transitioning to full-time painting and teaching, I wanted to use my own journey to prove that "it's never too late to start creating," helping people of all ages and abilities build confidence and skill. 

The surprise to me was that I really needed it, too.

Once it was up and running, with hindsight I can join up the dots in a much more personal way.

In the preceding five years I'd been going through a lot; nothing that other people my age haven't dealt with, but still, a lot.

• Bereavement - my parents died within a couple of months of each other.

• Personal relationship stuff - ugh, what a cliche.

• Two house moves, one including subsidence issues.

• Perimenopause - oh my goodness isn't that fun.

• Outgrowing a long and treasured career.

• Caring responsibilities for my terminally ill aunt.

• Normal 'mum' worries about my teenaged son.

I hadn't realised how much my soul was longing to feel settled, to put down roots, and to live in a way that felt true to me. In short, I needed a break.

But more than that, I needed a community.

I thought back to times when I had felt part of a community, travelled back forty years, and landed in my teens when I was a member of a youth club, the Girl Guides, the school choir and the local amateur dramatics group.

Membership of these groups had opened doors to friendships, responsibilities and experiences I would not have otherwise found; I was taught unforgettable lessons for life through simple things like manning a tombola stall at the village fete, painting scenery and generally operating as part of a team.

These groups meant so much to me because my home family life was not always easy (I've written about that in my Orange Carpet blog). The groups offered a regular escape hatch to a place of stability, reliable role-models and fun activities.

Forty years later, I was unexpectedly in need of that sense of belonging again. I really wanted to feel part of my new village. As a non-sporty, non-religious type of person there wasn't an existing club that appealed - so I soon worked out that if I wanted an arty community, I would have to make it for myself.

There’s a lot of evidence (relevant studies are listed and summarised here) that ‘third places’ in communities - somewhere people meet that isn’t home or work, help everybody. These places don’t have the demands of either, but you mix with a range of people you wouldn’t meet otherwise. Often it’s the pub or church and it doesn’t have to be formal, although it can be. For me, growing up in the 1980s, it was Girl Guides and the local amdram group. 

It resonated with sociology research that I’d read at university about how those kind of spaces are disappearing fast, and communities are the poorer for it.

So in January 2024 I hired the local village hall, set up six tables with art supplies and hoped my facebook posts and leafletting had done enough.

A year later my little club had regular attendance of 25-30 people each week and became Community Art Clubs CIC. As I write now in September 2026, I have two more clubs up and running with further expansion in the pipeline, funding from The National Lottery, and a focus of getting the CIC available 'on prescription' as part of Norfolk's social prescribing network, very soon.

I feel fulfilled and my confidence has grown. I meet lovely people at my clubs and classes week in, week out, and I get to draw and paint all the time and call it work. I've discovered I'm a teacher - and a good one, if you'll allow me a boast (see, I told you I'd got more confident).

I feel settled. I know the people I live near. As I offer safe art spaces to others I find I'm able to regulate my own pace of life.

And importantly, my own journey allows me to offer real empathy to my students, giving them their best and most accessible art club experience I can for two hours, making art with a cuppa in good company - after all, who knows what they may be escaping from?

If you'd like to make art and make friends, why not drop in to one of my Community Art Clubs? They run Sept - July at various locations in Norfolk, UK. Dates and times are published tri-monthly on our Facebook page, and you can DM or email me for details any time.

Rachel Duffield is the Founder of Community Art Clubs CIC. Her podcast Art is Good For You is available on YouTube & Spotify. Her signature Creative Reset: Art Life Journalling c

ourse runs twice yearly and information about this, and her partnership working with and for museum, gallery and school communities can be found here on her website. You can contact Rachel on WhatsApp 07943476788, via email rachelduffieldart@gmail.com or by DM on Facebook.