A chance encounter
Gladstone Carer Hub peer facilitator Lisa Lowe was about to head off on a holiday to Japan when she ran into local artist Katrina Elliott at the airport.
The artist had a stand with a big display of arts and crafts that caught Lisa’s eye.
Katrina is known in the region for her murals at Gladstone hospital and advocacy in promoting arts for health.
Lisa approached the stand looking to buy some art and decided to have a chat with the artist.
“Katrina had a stall set up with artwork local to our area, so I went over and struck up a conversation,” Lisa said.
“She asked me what I did and I explained, and she was quite interested, and I said, “We can come up with a really great collaboration”.
“She lit up, she said, “I think it would be great”. I wasn’t planning to talk about Carer Gateway and the Hub, it just happened.”
The project takes off
In Lisa’s absence, Katrina reached out to Debbie King, the Gladstone Hub Navigator, and an unforgettable art collaboration began.
They called the project The Coats We Wear. The name represents the roles, responsibilities and emotions that carers carry each day.
“The idea was to work with Cosmos Arts for Health where she is project manager and Topology – a music and arts organisation that helps people express through music,” Debbie said.
“After running it through Wellways we got it off the ground.”
Through May, dozens of carers gathered at the hub for art sessions with Katrina and songwriting sessions with Topology.
The aim was to put carers’ experiences into design and song.
Carers designed colourful patches with messages that they sew into a coat and wrote a song about what it means to be a carer.
The project’s final piece was a black coat that carers filled with patches they designed with messages about the challenges of being a carer
With support of the Topology team, carers wrote a song reflecting their experience called Ode to Carers
“The coat represents the many roles, responsibilities and emotional layers carers carry each day,” Katrina said.
“Through fabric, colour, stitching, words and shared conversation, carers reflected on their own experiences with care.
“Each section of the coat holds a small story, forming part of a larger shared artwork that honours the voices and lived experiences of carers in our community.”
Gladstone comes together
The project became a uniting force on a local level.
Initially it was only the Gladstone Hub and Cosmos Arts for Health collaborating to help carers voice their experience and connect with other carers. As time went by it became a community effort.
“Magic happened in the month of May,” Lisa said.
“What she (Katrina) was able to bring and the opportunities it afforded the carers was amazing, we had life-changing experiences.”
It didn’t stop at the coat and the song; CQUniversity got involved, offering an auditorium for a showcase event to wrap-up a collaborative experience for the Gladstone community.
Carers, service providers, locals and the art collectives joined the event.
“I think community investment and exchange are key to make carers feel like they are part of the community,” Lisa said.
“People love to help, we’ve lost our connections to community, and people want to feel connected again.
“Having a space like the Carer Hub has allowed me to keep that door open for people in my day-to-day conversations.
“I always say to people, “Come in, visit the space, look at what we do”.
“Because we’re the carers’ spokespeople out in the community.The more people out there know what we do, the more people that can identify themselves as carers or say, “What can we do? We’d love to be a part of this”.”
The team at the Gladstone Hub say this experience has inspired them to continue collaborating with local organisations to bring more experiences to carers.
“We have the coat in a case and the song framed in the hub and it’s a talking point,” Lisa said.
“We can’t wait to see what new conversations it’ll help us start.”
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