In this powerful episode of ‘We All Need Nature’, host Neil Hickson sits down with Cecilia Holmes, a pottery teacher and former nurse, to uncover the profound mental health benefits of creativity. Journey through a conversation that reveals how working with our hands—be it clay, paint, or craft—can be a transformative antidote to modern stress and digital overwhelm. Discover how reconnecting with our creative selves can heal, restore, and bring joy, one pottery wheel turn at a time.

In our fast-paced, screen-dominated world, we’ve lost something fundamental to human well-being: the simple act of creating. Cecilia Holmes knows this intimately. A nurse-turned-artist, her journey reveals a powerful truth – creativity isn’t just a hobby, it’s a critical pathway to mental health.

The Digital Disconnect

We live in an age of passive consumption. Smartphones, laptops, and endless streaming services have transformed us into spectators of life rather than active participants. Cecilia describes this perfectly: “We’ve grown up now, especially the young ones, with something that’s inactive. Watching television, you’re being fed information, you’re being fed entertainment.”

But there’s a remedy, and it’s simpler than we might think.

The Healing Power of Hands-On Creativity

Working with natural materials like clay offers something digital experiences cannot – a tactile, absorbing experience that grounds us in the present moment. “When people come to pottery classes,” Cecilia explains, “they’re very engaged with one thing. They’re touching something natural, the earth, and they’re creating a form.”

This isn’t just about making art. It’s about the process of creation itself.

Breaking Free from Perfectionism

One of the most profound insights from Cecilia’s work is how creativity can help us unlearn the restrictive beliefs about “good” and “bad” art. We’re conditioned from a young age to judge our creative outputs, but children approach creativity with pure joy and freedom. “Before you’re six, you just sit down and do stuff,” she notes.

Her approach? Forget what you were told in school. Forget the judgments. Just play.

More Than Just a Hobby

For Cecilia, creativity was a lifeline during her own struggles. As a single parent in London, suppressing her creative side led to what she describes as “low-level depression.” Returning to art wasn’t just enjoyable – it was healing.

Practical Benefits of Creative Expression

The benefits of creative activities extend far beyond personal enjoyment:

• Stress Reduction: Engaging in hands-on activities like pottery can help people completely disconnect from external pressures.
• Social Connection: Art classes create community, especially for those who might feel isolated.
• Emotional Expression: Sometimes, emotions are easier expressed through creation than words.
• Mindfulness: The focus required in creative activities acts as a form of meditation.

A Holistic Approach to Well-Being

Cecilia’s work at Burscough Community Farm demonstrates that healing isn’t about clinical interventions alone. It’s about creating spaces where people can reconnect with themselves, with nature, and with each other.

Her vision? Workshops that integrate multiple creative experiences – working with clay, exploring colors, using farm materials – all designed to nurture mental well-being.

The Invitation

To anyone feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or disconnected: your creativity is waiting. It doesn’t matter if you haven’t picked up a paintbrush since childhood. What matters is the willingness to play, to experiment, and to reconnect with the joy of making.

As Cecilia beautifully summarises: “It’s about getting back in touch with your inner child and just enjoying.”

In a world that often feels fragmented and fast, creativity offers a path back to ourselves. It’s not a luxury. It’s a necessity.

Host – Neil Hickson

There’s something deeply primal about working with our hands, feeling clay between our fingers, watching the shapeless lump transform into something beautiful. For Cecilia Holmes, this connection between creativity and well-being isn’t just theory. It’s her life’s journey. Today in ‘We Are nature.’ We are exploring how art and craft can be more than just hobbies. They’re lifelines to our mental health. Cecilia’s story weaves between nursing therapy and pottery teaching, showing us how creativity isn’t just about what we make, it’s about what it makes us. From her pottery workshops at Burscough Community Farm to her classes at Bolton College, Cecilia has witnessed firsthand how working with natural materials can pull people back from the edge of burnout, lift them from depression, and provide an anchor in our increasingly digital world. In this episode, you’ll discover why the simple act of creating something with your hands could be the antidote to our modern mental health crisis. You’ll hear how elderly individuals find community through art, how children remind us to embrace creative freedom, and why those wonky, imperfect, handmade gifts often mean more than store bought perfection. Whether you’re struggling with your own mental health, feeling disconnected in our screen dominated world, or simply curious about the healing power of creativity, this conversation might just change how you think about art, nature, and well-being. I’m Neil Hickson, and this is We All Need Nature.

Guest – Cecilia Holmes

My name is Cecilia Holmes. I’m a pottery teacher at Bolton College and I run pottery workshops at Burscough Community Farm as well. I’ve also been a therapist. I trained in reflexology and massage. So, I also look after a lady who has some paralysis. So, I do a bit of both, my art side and my therapy side.

Neil Hickson:

Can you share with me how you became involved in art and what role it’s had in mental well-being and things like that?

Cecilia Holmes:

Well, I started off when I was 18 and I trained as a nurse. So, I trained for three years and by the time I was about 24 be honest, I was quite burnt out from the difficult job that nursing is emotionally and physically. So, I went to art school when I was 24 and spent quite a few years at art school and explored my creative side. Um, because I’ve got the two sides. I’ve got the practical nurse therapy side to me and the creative side. But I if I was leaning too far over into my uh helping and therapy side, I I found and I got burnt out. So, I switched over into being more creative and I trained as an art teacher after art school. Uh, still mixing and matching both. I worked part-time as a nurse and I worked in the community doing some pottery. I had a little girl. Um, and it was difficult to make money from it because community projects in those days, we’re talking late ‘ 90s, uh, weren’t as prolific. now. So prolific then. So I just couldn’t get by on teaching ceramics and I couldn’t really work as a teacher cuz I was a single parent. So I just did my own art stuff at home, let it die back and just do it as a hobby. Did it as a hobby. So scroll forward four years ago. Strangely enough, I got picked to be a pottery teacher finally, you know, um I think because there’s more need for pottery teachers now and crafts is on the rise again. So I’ve got back into my creative side teaching it, working at it, but also uh working at the farm doing workshops. So I’m really pleased that I’ve actually come back into my creative side a lot more and I’ve taken up painting again myself as a hobby. And I think all those years when I was a single parent dumbing down my creative side, I think I did suffer with a low level of depression. I was living in London. It was tough going because it’s an expensive city and I didn’t have much money and I was working as a therapist from home. So, it was isolating and I wasn’t doing enough creative stuff. So, these days, especially in the last four years, I’m a lot happier because I’ve come back into that creative side of me. I still work one day a week as a therapist, but it’s balanced now. So, that’s how it’s helped. me balance myself as well because I was always fighting one with the other this practical therapy side of me and the creative side and it does help you can make some money out of being creative because in the old days before I got a pottery job I didn’t feel I could just sit around painting at home and then try and sell my paintings there was always this excuse that I had to make money and that stopped me doing my creative stuff where cuz now I do work as a pottery teacher and I’ve started doing workshops at the farm. So I’ve got that side coming in and it’s all linked, isn’t it, to cuz you know our our system is to do with our self-esteem is to do with our money status. So now I feel I just feel more balanced about what I’m doing. And I am a really creative person in in several different ways and not doing it um looking back now led to some low level of depression.

Neil Hickson:

In your experience, what are some of the most notable effects that creating or engaging with art has on people’s mental health?

Cecilia Holmes:

It’s very absorbing. So, we’ve got the crazy outside world and the world of of digital craziness. We already got a lot of phone stuff, haven’t we? And laptops and working on computers. And the art side of it is is the polar opposites. So when people come to pottery classes or a workshop, they’re very engaged with one thing and they’re using their hands. They’re touching something natural, the earth, and they’re creating a form and then they’re going on to use colour and painting it. So the process is engaging in a very different way to, you know, flicking through a phone or I suppose it’s more proactive whereas we’ve grown up now, especially the young ones, with something that’s inactive. Watching the television, you’re being fed information, you’re being fed entertainment, suppose getting

Neil Hickson:

It’s more of a passive thing really, isn’t it?

Cecilia Holmes:

Passive. Yes. So, this is engaging and creating something for yourself. And with ceramics, the the bonus is that you can make something you need for your house. It’s not just sculpture or form, but if you want to do figurative sc you know, you can do many things with it. So, but it’s also got the practical side. So, Yeah, it’s very absorbing and engaging and it’s textural. So that’s the other thing. We work with a lot of flat stuff now, flat screens and phones and not much texture. So I think that’s the part of the brain that needs stimulating and it is through the workshops. So mentally I’ve noticed people just totally relaxing for 2 hours and it goes really quiet in the class and it’s not because it’s an awkward silence. It’s just an absorption of what they’re doing and the time passes really quickly for them. So, um it’s a great way to switch off from the world of politics and madness.

Neil Hickson:

I always like it when you see the tongue sticking out the corner of the mouth because you know that then they are totally absorbed and concentrating on what they’re doing. 

So, have you witnessed art bringing people together or helping reduce feelings of social isolation?

Cecilia Holmes:

Yes, it has. I’ve had elderly people in my class who live alone and people who don’t have great health but they’ve managed to get to the class and my classes actually even at Bolton College are quite small so people do end up chatting to each other and many people are at different levels so you can because it’s adults we help each other out so that forges more connection and it gets quite lively at times people throw up topics and everybody joins in um but at the same time they go back to the focus of working on their piece. So if it’s it’s a natural process you know as time goes by I have people rebooking and coming on several the same with the workshops people rebook once they really enjoy it and find out about it and realise there’s no pressure it’s just about playing and experimenting and there’s no exam or anything then they just come back for more of that relax ation. So it happens naturally. Yeah.

Neil Hickson:

How do you think art enables people to express emotions that they might struggle to uh articulate in words?

Cecilia Holmes:

Art is another version of communicating. So sometimes people struggle to say it in words which they could say visually. So making a piece even if I mean it’s homemade and it’s wonky but you give it to the person that you love. It’s touching you know. It’s not a perfect pot or people make some really cute things. Like my last workshop, people were making these little men and it’s saying I love you on them. And I know it’s soppy, but it’s also instead of giving a card, it’s somebody spent time making something with the hands and then given it to the person they love and the family. I mean, I did that last year because I was being a bit of a cheapskate. I just um glazed loads of pots that have been left behind at the college and I gave them to my family. I mean, I did the colour side of it. But they were really pleased and half of them weren’t finished very well, but it was just a little pot to put your earrings in. It’s quite it’s very charming really. It doesn’t have to be an amazing work of art that ends up in a art gallery. It’s um handmade stuff has got a charm of its own. So you were saying about releasing your emotions through what they’re making and and people do make what’s in their mind. So I’ve noticed in the classes that um The chaps are quite structural in the in the stuff that they make and their probably their making of putting together of clay is more thought out. I’m generalising now. And women make lots of pretty things, you know, we like lots of tat, don’t we? So, there is a difference there between the the sexes a bit in the way they approach uh what they make. Also using colour. Colour is emotional. Each colour has a has an emotive feeling to it. So, you know, they’re literally putting it onto a 3D object, even if it’s not conscious. We’re we’re releasing emotions through art. And uh it doesn’t have to be prescribed or worked out very specifically, but it it is an expression of yourself. Yeah.

Neil Hickson:

And I think the other thing for me is it’s it’s so we get hung up on what the the end product. There’s some swans flying over there. very low spots. We we get hung up about the end thing, you know, this thing being a work of art or it’s some kind of uh you know has got some value and things like that. And that misses the point to me because to me it’s a lot about the process the process of doing that is as if not more important than than the end product. Would you agree with that?

Cecilia Holmes:

Yes, I’ve noticed that people come to the workshops at the farm and often they don’t pick up their piece And it’s not because they think it’s not good or anything. I I think it’s actually the workshop itself is the end game. It’s they’ve tried it out. They’ve enjoyed it. They might come back next year or try it at some other venue. But it’s the actual throwing onto the wheel as well is really therapeutic cuz it’s wet, it’s glistening, and it’s it’s turning and you’re making a pot really quickly. Um, and there’s lots of sensations there. I mean, I’m thinking that film ghost, you know, but um that in itself is is just a nice experience to try to make a vessel really quickly. I’ve done it with children at a festival and they loved it. Absolutely loved it. They were so excited. Kids are really spontaneous like that. They’re not worried at all about whether it’s not perfect. But the that is the emphasis I like to make when I’m teaching is is about playing and experimenting and not about perfect.

Neil Hickson:

As adults, that kind of creativeness and that playfulness where you’re not worried about the outcome, we’ve kind of lost that and and we’re just concentrating on on the thing and either ourselves or somebody else judges that object that we produce. But really, it’s it’s just a vehicle for for well-being and for mindfulness.

Cecilia Holmes:

It is it is a well-being and mindful task or um you know It it really is because before you’re six, you just sit down and do stuff. Cuz I’ve got a 2-year-old granddaughter. When I do art with her, she starts with the white paper and then it goes onto her hands and then she’s drawing on furniture. I try and limit it, but the art experience with a 2-year-old is not limited to um a triangular bit of paper. Now, I mean, we can’t do well, we can do a little bit of that at the farm, but it’s it’s adults are very tied into we’ve been conditioned um and after about the age of seven we start to worry whether it’s good enough and I think sometimes the schooling system can shut that down as well that creative stuff they can teach us something actually the little children just how to get messy and get on with it you know

Neil Hickson:

Are there any particular art forms or techniques that you found to be especially effective at promoting relaxation or reducing anxiety.

Cecilia Holmes:

I think working with wet clay is is fantastic. Um it’s very earthy obviously and working with colour is I’ve seen that it’s very therapeutic. Working with painting on something that’s three-dimensional has a very therapeutic effect on people. Um they really enjoy that part of it. Um all all the aspects really. And then paint painting on canvas using colours focusing on drawing something focus is another part of your mind and it sends you into another space. So that in itself is therapy. Yeah.

Neil Hickson:

So what advice would you give to people who feel they aren’t creative enough to to try art as a form of therapy?

Cecilia Holmes:

I really encourage people just to forget what they were told at school or what their friend did or whatever. And I mean a lot of people come to me, they say they haven’t done pottery since they were six. since they were at primary school. Well, that’s fine. Go back to that time and work up from there. Remember what you were like when you were six. Um, we used to play, didn’t we, with mud pies and oil tub popping and I used to get really messy. I was a real tomboy. So, it’s about getting back in touch. If you want to talk in therapy speak, your inner child and I’m definitely the sort of teacher that I don’t I love it when people experiment. So, I encourage that and, you know, get get free with it. it, take a leaf out of the little children’s book, you know, and just enjoy. Yeah.

Neil Hickson:

And that’s something that has amazed me really about the classes that we’ve had here and part of our courses is that the willingness that some people you’d think wouldn’t embrace that idea, the willingness to return to that inner child and do something just off the top of the head or it it’s just amazed me how engaged that people have been with that.

Cecilia Holmes:

Yes, they have. And it’s obviously something that even if they’ve not realised that they need to bring back out of them, it’s there. And it’s having permission really, isn’t it? And if you’re in a group and everybody’s having fun and experimenting, then you know, we’re group animals, aren’t we? So, it doesn’t take long to get rid of some of that brainwashing from school just enjoying it.

Neil Hickson:

Just got to embrace it, haven’t you?

Do you see any parallels between the therapeutic benefits of art and those of reconnection with nature? 

Cecilia Holmes:

Yes, it’s tied together. Obviously, working with clay is is a natural material. At the farm, we have a lot of beautiful plants that make great textures. You can put them directly into clay. The environment itself, I think, really helps by the fact that it’s beautiful and we’re in nature is helping. Yeah. Cuz if you’re in a sort of concrete classroom, maybe it would be a different atmosphere, you know, quite a dry sterile. And also the strip lighting, you know, I think does really help.

Neil Hickson:

So, how do you think that creating art can help build emotional resilience in individuals facing mental health challenges? How do you think that can help?

Cecilia Holmes:

It can help because they have another go-to activity. As we were saying before, television and and your phone is is very inactive. It’s very passive. This is engaging. You you’re you’re making a piece of crochet. You’re knitting a blanket for somebody. You’re um creating a pot. And you can think about it during the day about how you’re going to design it. That’s what I’ve been doing now. I’m much more creative in my everyday life. I’m thinking about how I’m going to display my plants at home. And it’s quite it’s very fulfilling. That’s what we’ve been missing with this consumer age is the feeling of fulfilment. People running around shopping arcades and running off um looking for clothes. I always used to think there’s something missing cuz you don’t need any more clothes really. But is it colour and shape and texture that we’re missing. So the you saying about mental health, people living alone, you know, knitting and sewing and all the handicrafts that women used to do, they used to do them in groups and chat as well. So they did it naturally and also had a practical use. People had to wear socks. People had needed bed linen mending. There was a purpose to it. It was community. People were talking, but they were also being creative with their hands. That’s what’s lost. And That’s what I think the revival is. This coming back to that um being together. But I mean we’re we are animals, aren’t we? We’re meant to be together in nature sitting around. But if we’re doing something with our hands as well, it’s not just sitting around chatting. We’re doing something. We’re creating something. But you can do it alone at home if you want to. So that that’s definitely going to impact your mental health cuz you’ve got something to look forward to. You’ve got another creative project on the board. you know.

Neil Hickson:

Yeah. I think that’s a big thing with me is is having something at the back of your mind so your mind isn’t idling on on negative things. You feel like there’s something positive. You’re designing something in the back of your head or you thinking or you see a nice art technique or you see something somewhere you think I’d like to try that and you’re kind of planning it out and it’s in the back of your mind. It’s almost protecting you from negative thoughts. I think anyway that’s how it works for me. You’ve mentioned about knitting before. I’ve got one thing which is often a tangent, but my brother’s girlfriend used to love knitting socks. And I’ve got about 10 pairs of hand knitted socks, and they’re the best things ever. They’re actually made for me. They were measured to my feet. And I get a pleasure every day when I put them on.

Cecilia Holmes:

Yeah. And this knitted socks are very, very warm, you know. Beautiful.

Neil Hickson:

I mean, that just gives me a pleasure every day of putting my nice woollen socks on.

So, future vision. If you could design a project or a workshop to support mental health through art, what would it look like? 

Cecilia Holmes:

Um, I try a few different techniques. So, work with the clay, work with colours and canvas, work with the farm materials as well. So, we’ve got a lot of wood here. Um, we’ve made some nice reads as well because the farm grows willow. So, we can, you know, do do several things. Use the materials of the farm, but also mix and match. So, we can use a acrylics and watercolours. I do a little bit of everything. And uh we don’t really need to obviously it is um great for your mental health, but just the doing of it is is the actual mental health release. So I’d try a bit of everything. Yeah.

Neil Hickson:

Yeah. I mean, you know, we don’t do therapy here. We’re not clinicians. We don’t do any treatments or anything like that. It’s almost like um the the being here and Expressing yourself and doing something like that is the therapy. It’s it’s it’s self-contained.

Cecilia Holmes:

Yes, that’s it. It’s We don’t have to make that more of a spectacle. It’s all part of the process. We can go for a walk. We can do some cooking cuz it’s quite nice in a poly tunnel. Get the camping stuff out and cook. You could make a meal. We could do a whole day project. It would be really nice. And keep moving it on, you know, and you wooden spoons and chopping wood and you definitely develop a really nice day or weekend project where people were fully creative for the whole process. Yeah. Lovely.

Neil Hickson:

Great. Thank you very much. That’s brilliant.

Cecilia Holmes:

Thanks, Neil.