Sarah's Sanctuary Western Isles

By Sheena Crichton Mckenzie   Our last workshop ahead of the exhibition was a flurry of busyness, conversation and questioning. There was the last- minute completion of art pieces, the start of new, the preparation of a brochure to give exhibition attendees the necessary background and the teasing out of arguments (friendly) with husband around worth and suitability of poetry. We also did a lot of soul searching around whether the exhibition matched the initial brief and whether we were hard hitting enough with our message. Jane mentioned the previous week that I still ought to do a tea towel and as I walked along the shore with my dog, Nellie, that morning I thought about how I could print the tea towel in such a way that a message about my son’s life could come through.  I decided on printing fish going along in one direction and there was to be one fish that was different and going against the tide. Of course, that was Hugh. He was always a little different. I liked that....

  June Graham This is a hard blog to write because I like to be nice to people. I don't like to ruffle people's feathers, but some of the things which happened to my sister when she was suffering from a mental illness were not nice, and so today I am writing about that. I won’t detail all the missed opportunities which occurred during the last months and weeks of Liz’s life. All I’ll say is that when I heard she had taken her life, I knew something had gone very, very wrong, because Liz was a fighter. She loved her children very much and was doing her best to be well enough to be with them. And Liz’s case is not exceptional. I have heard from other families, bereaved by suicide, who feel that if their loved one had received even half-decent medical care then they wouldn’t have lost them. About 6 or 7 months after Liz’s death, the NHS issued a Local Adverse Event Report. An adverse event is a huge understatement for the devastating loss of someone who was a daughter, wife, m...

  by June Graham Picture of the sea by Liz Rule During our second workshop, we printed sea-related images on fabric. Jane asked us to make an image of a fish or other object which would symbolise the person we lost I chose a mermaid. Why? I think I chose a mermaid because Liz was and still is, in my memory, someone beautiful. Tall and striking-looking, always making a effort with clothes ad make-up, I feel I have to represent her with a beautiful image. If I dig deeper, I realise that there is something elusive about a mermaid. She is a mythical creature. Did a sailor ever let his heart be stolen by a beautiful woman perched on a rock with her fish tail skimming the surface of the water, or are mermaids just stories from the imagination of lonely travellers? I know one thing: I want the mermaid to be real just like I want Liz to still exist somewhere, somehow. She has become like a mermaid glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. When a memory stirs my bruised heart into feeli...

 by June Graham When you do something creative there is a sense in which you have to let go and take a step into the unknown. That’s how I felt before the first Sarah’s Sanctuary art workshop which was held in An Lanntair on Wednesday 1 st May, funded by SeeMe Scotland as part of their campaign against stigma in mental health. I lost my sister Liz to suicide in 2019 and it has been hard to see anything positive or productive coming out of that experience. It was like losing a stone in a wall that was supporting many other stones in unseen ways and when that stone is taken out, all the stones around and above it lose their place. By taking part in this art project, I hope that something positive will come out of it, even if that isn’t immediately obvious to me. Liz was an artist and my hope is that taking part in an art project will help me remember and appreciate Liz for who she was and not just how she died. The workshops are facilitated by Jane Harlington of Blue PigStudio . ...

  Sarah's Sanctuary are delighted to announce that we have received arts funding from SeeMe, Scotland’sNational Programme to end mental health stigma and discrimination , for an artsproject which will challenge stigma around the topic of suicide and suicide bereavement. Artist Jane Harlington of Blue Pig studio in Carloway will run a series of workshops open to anyone who has been affected by suicide bereavement, whether that is the loss of a family member, friend or colleague. An initial round of workshops will take place in the art room at An Lanntair from 7 to 9 pm on Wednesday 1 st and 29 th May and 26 th June. Meetings of Sarah’s Sanctuary suicide bereavement support group will take place between the workshops. These will be held from 7 to 8 pm in the Western IslesCounselling and Family and Mediation Centre on Bank Street Stornoway on Wednesday 15 th May and 12th June.  Another series of workshops will follow in the autumn. The aim of the workshops is to use art...