Sam Lucas, who attends St Christopher’s popular ‘Create and Chat’ group reflects on a recent collaboration with students from The BRIT School.
It can be scary and lonely when you are living with a terminal or life-limiting condition but it’s tough to make new friends when you’re unwell.
Sometimes a place to chat is all you need. Create and Chat is just that. A mix of people, some with life-limiting health conditions and some volunteers, who meet at St Christopher’s Centre for Awareness and Response to End of Life (CARE) each week.
Often there’s more chatting than creating, and few of us would claim any artistic talent but there’s always lots of laughter and we always end up making something.
The end of 2024 found us making masks. I decided on a two-layered mask showing the different sides of me.
I researched techniques for fake black eyes, tears, and lightning to represent pain for one. For the other, I made a Venetian affair with glitter and feathers. I didn’t know I could do the techniques but I’m very pleased with the result.
Then at Christmas, students from The BRIT School came to take portraits of us wearing our masks.
The photo shoot was fun and as we had all gone about the project very differently, the images should look amazing all together.
Although when they showed me the pictures on the camera, I squinted at the tiny image, realised I didn’t have my glasses, gave up, and nodded. I’m looking forward to seeing what I approved!
It would be great if we could collaborate with them more closely on another project in the future.
It was a lovely day to round off my year. I had been increasingly lonely at home alone, beginning to feel isolated without the mental stimulation of social interaction.
When I told my social worker that I wanted to join a social group, to talk to others who understood what my life was like now, she immediately suggested Create and Chat.
I’m so glad she did.
It’s given me the chance to make some exciting art but more importantly, some wonderful new friends.
Friends who make it worth the effort of getting up, dressed, and out into a cab on my own.
Who make it worth staying for lunch, and then for afternoon coffee and a cake because a fascinating conversation is flowing.
Who, ironically, make me feel ‘normal’ again. Busy, thinking, being challenged, sharing knowledge.
These are things my illness had taken from me, and I will be forever grateful to the Create and Chat gang for getting them back.
https://www.stchristophers.org.uk/connect-making-masks-and-making-friend
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This article was originally published in issue 5 of St Christopher’s Connect magazine and is republished here with permission. To read the full magazine, or to sign up to receive future editions, please click here.
Discover more about the mask-making project in this article here.
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