Every Monday from 4.30pm – 6.30pm a mindful, community space is open to all in the reading room of The Old Library, Bodmin.
The Word originally started within the Bodmaxx creative hub by Holly Lovelock and Fin Davis, who wanted to create a social space that enabled anyone and everyone in the community to think and create freely, without the pressures and distractions of everyday life.
However, the group is now run by one of its regular attendees, Robin Treasurer.
Robin explained that it is a very relaxed and welcoming space where people can work with mixed media to create anything they wish, to the prompt of a single word which they pull from a hat at the beginning of the session.
He said to Bodmin Life: “It’s a chance to create, with nothing to pull you away from the space. And if you don’t like the chosen word, you can choose another one, or if you don’t like that, you can just do your own thing. It’s very formless.”
The group offers not only a space to create, but also a chance to chat and meet people over a free cup of coffee or tea.
Bodmin Life attended one of these lovely afternoons and spoke to Paul, a regular to The Word. Paul told Bodmin Life that although that day he wasn’t feeling like he wanted to create, he highly values the space as a chance to ‘sit down and be myself, and not have other things going on’.
Across the table, a member of the group, Heather, was busy skill sharing with another attendee, Kyle, as they worked on a printing technique to the word, ‘Hurricane’. Heather said she enjoyed ‘being in the company of like-minded people’ and also liked creating in the conversational atmosphere as it relieves the creative pressure and prevents overthinking.
Whether you believe you are creative or not, why not pop along and allow your mind to be free and open for a couple of hours a week in this friendly and supportive environment!