Description
We warmly invite you to join Sandra Barefoot, Executive Director of The Forgiveness Project, and Angela Findlay, artist, author and storyteller, for an intimate workshop exploring how creativity can help us better understand ourselves.
Painting offers a non-verbal way to explore emotions that can be difficult to put into words. Through guided wet-on-wet painting exercises, we’ll use colour as a gentle language for self-expression, reflection and discovery. Together, we’ll explore the tensions we carry within, consider what inner peace might look like, and experiment with creative ways of moving towards greater understanding and resolution.
This small in-person workshop is limited to 8 participants, creating a welcoming space for conversation, quiet reflection and shared learning.
Good to Know
- All art materials will be provided and no previous painting experience is needed, just curiosity and a willingness to explore.
- Please bring an apron or wear appropriate clothing for potential paint spills.
- Light refreshments will be provided.
- We will be recording participant thoughts and feedback for impact measures.
About the Facilitators
Sandra Barefoot
Executive Director, The Forgiveness Project
Sandra has over 30 years of experience in leadership, particularly in creative consultancy, programme management, group facilitation, research, and mentoring, with specialism in multi-disciplinary arts practices.
Sandra’s leadership experience spans a wide breadth of practice inclusive of NHS and community health, national Theatre, Deaf and Disabled Arts practices, Early Years and Primary Education, and Criminal Justice. Over the past 16 years, Sandra has worked closely with our storytellers to lead, adapt, and manage our award-winning prison programme RESTORE. As a joint research fellow with the Griffin Society and Cambridge University’s Department of Criminology, Sandra has researched the relationship between shame and resilience with women of lived experience of prison, and subsequently co-created a training resource exploring how practitioners can develop a Shame Informed Approach in practice.
With a passion to embed grassroots practices in diverse communities, Sandra’s focus as Executive Director is to nurture rich and meaningful collaborations with inspiring community leaders, storytellers, peers, and academics to offer the world hope, restoration and healing.
Angela Findlay
Artist, Author, Speaker and Storyteller
Angela is one of our storytellers and a long-term collaborator with The Forgiveness Project, working in our prison programme RESTORE, and contributing to both live and online events.
Angela Findlay is an Anglo-German artist, public speaker and author of In My Grandfather’s Shadow (Penguin, 2022). Her career teaching art in prisons in England and Germany gave her first-hand insight into the transformative power of the arts in rehabilitation, trauma recovery and education.
It also informed two decades of research into her own German family history and the intergenerational impact of trauma, guilt and shame arising from the Second World War.
For more than a decade, Angela has lectured and written on these themes, as well as on the role of the arts in Germany’s distinctive post-war culture of remembrance, memorialisation and reconciliation. She holds a BA (Hons) in Fine Art and a Diploma in Artistic Therapy, specialising in colour. Her paintings have been widely exhibited in Britain and internationally, while In My Grandfather’s Shadow continues to reach readers around the world.
She is currently studying Systemic Constellations and creating new art, and you can find out more on her websites angelafindlaytalks.com and angelafindlay.com.
What Participants Say
“Thank you each and everyone. I feel soothed and also strong after our discussion!” – Carrie Supple, Forgiveness Café Participant
“Thank you so much for the meeting today. EXACTLY what I needed to save me from the big black hole that I felt I was in. Now I see some light, hope and a glimmer of joy in the essence of being. I really have had a seismic shift in perspective which is allowing me to approach my pain in a totally new way.” – Forgiveness Café Participant
“A safe space held with awareness…where one gathers pearls of wisdom.” – Forgiveness Café Participant
“Beautiful discussion!!” – Lisa Rickert, Forgiveness Café Participant
“It was a real pleasure to be able to participate in the cafe and I look forward to further such opportunities.” – Forgiveness Café Participant
“I am so grateful to have had a short time in this group. Forgiveness to me is a conscious decision to add peace to the world, even when some instincts might ask us to be angry and vengeful. It is a process that I start anew over and over. For me, forgiveness is personal, and it is also radical. I imagine what our society would be like if we all, even sometimes, made the decision to face our hurts with grace, love, and truth telling.” – Perla Carlota Hatch, Forgiveness Café Participant
