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conscientiously engage with the art, artists or participants. Consequently, some
authors demonstrate a narrow understanding and interpretation of the work and all
that surrounds it. One example is the Australia Council for the Arts publication Art and
Wellbeing. In the description of how case-studies are used to explore four themes, the
words artist, art, creativity, making, participant (or similar) and wellbeing are all
absent, while the bureaucratic language of strategies, policies, action and social
capital, and expressions such as “cross-sectoral, whole of government approaches” are
all too present (Mills and Brown 5). This document, typical of similar publications, is
devoid of any meaningful engagement with the art practice, participants or artists,
whose voices are rarely heard. When they are included they are usually insubstantial
and unenlightening about art or wellbeing. This is a missed opportunity to address the
inherent themes of art and wellbeing, or offer insights into the creative processes,
relationships between artist, participant, art-making and artwork or the
transformations that occur through a creative engagement. As this is the only
document to date published by the Australia Council for the Arts on the subject of art
and wellbeing, it is especially disheartening.
This concern is shared by Macnaughton, White and Stacy, who draw attention to the
infrequency of participant and artist voices in the literature. They state: “Inherent to
the success of any art and health project is an acknowledging that they are very much
a product of their specific community and the individuals within it” (338); to grasp the
impact of these projects, the voices of those involved should be heard in all their
complexity. As testimony, participants’ voices can present some problems as there are
those who believe it can “be readily dismissed as soft” (Macnaughton, White and Stacy
336). In noting that is not the art project alone that provides health gain, these
authors recognise that its delivery is also important; they claim that project partners
need to see “that artists may have a greater understanding of the potential benefits of
their work and appreciation of the context in which it might be effective” (336).
Little research appears to be undertaken by community arts practitioners, and even
less by practitioners who, in addition to facilitating community art projects, have a
studio practice; nor is there significant research undertaken by others into the artist’s
practice as it relates to art and health and/or wellbeing. This suggests there are gaps
in understanding what the practice and thinking of the artist is and how it relates to an
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