Best for Emotional Recovery Support - West Midlands, SME News Award Winner 2020
'Building emotional resilience after loss'
Grief and Art Workshops
Art & Ashes Project March 2025
A few photos of the Art & Ashes sculptures with the participants’ feedback on what was a creative & extremely meaningful project. Collaborating with artist Tracy Elson was such a wonderful experience for me and such a huge privilege to deliver grief support to all who took part. Thank you to all of those who confided in me and who shared elements of their grief journey with me in that short space of time.
Tracy was an inspirational facilitator and the ‘buzz’ in the group workshop was delightful to witness.
A big shout out to George Downes for capturing so beautifully the uniqueness of this project in his film and to Gemma Johnson of Ladies Lunch Networking, where the magic for Tracy’s community project all began. Thank you.
I love facilitating 'Grief & Art Workshops'. These specialist creative sessions provide an opportunity for those who are struggling to come to terms with an emotional loss to express their feelings via the mediums of drawing and fabrics. I have been delivering these workshops since the year 2000.
In one workshop I facilitated a year 6 group in a local primary school. I was asked to support the children who were struggling after the death of an incredibly popular and much loved teacher. Each child was invited to share their feelings and their personal memories and this culminated in each of them creating a textile piece (with some drawing) that expressed a magnitude of emotions. The individual sewn pieces were then machine stitched in to a large, colourful and incredibly poignant wall-hanging.
I also delivered a Grief & Art workshop for a small number of school children who were struggling after the tragic death of their very dear school friend. This time I helped the group to create their very own 'Friend Buddy', inspired by the memories they had of their school friend. Helping people work through their grief, with the help of art, can be incredibly therapeutic.
In 2021 I was invited to deliver Grief & Art workshops as part of the Hereford Knife Angel Event. These were available to any bereaved child in the county who wished to participate. This was my first Community project and the generosity of the public in donating art equipment and fabrics etc made these workshops unique from any previous ones - it was a huge privilege to be part of this extraordinary event.
Please call: 07928110041 or email me: dawn@dawnford.co.uk if you would like to book or know more about these workshops.
A very special way of drawing out the difficult things while promoting the positives.
Dawn worked with us over the course of a year on a very specific project relating to memories and thoughts for the future during a very emotional and difficult period in the schools life. We were all grieving over the loss of a treasured member of school with our oldest children particularly affected. The Art & Grief workshop led by Dawn became an instrumental part of the grieving and the recovery process. She has the most incredibly passion, kindness and thoughtfulness and a very special way of drawing out the difficult things while promoting the positives. Art was the medium but this alone would not have had the same affect. It was Dawn’s personality that gave it such a vibrant and positive feel and one that the children gained so much from.
The adults who worked with Dawn were also supported and taken on the same positive journey to being able to celebrate the past and the present and look to the future.
Dawn is certainly a talented artist but much more. It was a pleasure and a privilege to have worked with and alongside Dawn.
School Art & Memory Workshop