Our History

Written by Studio Manager, Mark Cremmen

In 1995 David and I were working at the Vale. A light industrial workshop for about 70 people and part of East Surrey’s adult mental health services. The Vale had been a workshop at Netherne – the psychiatric hospital in Coulsdon.  As part of Margaret Thatcher’s Care in the Community initiative, Netherne had been closed a few years earlier and wards and departments had been moved out and into the ‘community’. 

The Vale, like many, retained the same names, staff teams and patients. Apart from David and myself, the staff team and patients at the Vale had been together for many years at Netherne Hospital. With so much change at that time, patients must have felt reassured by familiar people, work and routines. However, the public’s understanding of mental ill health, which had been as removed as the closing institutions, was developing, as was a community mental health sector. Netherne had pioneered Art Therapy in the 40s and 50s when more than 2000 people resided there- but the lights were going out, and the Vale felt like the end of an era. 

With an eye on the future, East Surrey LD & MH Services NHS Trust sent out an open memo to the mental health practitioners asking for new ideas for services – particularly aimed at younger people and early intervention.  In the few months we’d been working together, David and I had talked about the benefits of creativity, and we share these ideas with the OTs at the Vale. They supported setting up a small workshop area to make and decorate craft items. 

There was general interest in what we were doing, and a small number of patients joined us making and decorating boxes, flowerpots and lampshades. We attended out first craft fair – at East Surrey Hospital – and sold and promoted our work. Within a few months we gave a large presentation to a large group of professionals. Feeding back out experience of the new craft initiative. The ideas were well received and from that meeting, an NHS Property on Monson Road, Redhill was provided as a studio.  Before the leasing the Vale, we carried out a ballot for a new name for the service. One literal suggestion was Hughie Green! The name Craft Matters was settled on. 

Tony Blair won the 1997 election, and the labour party put mental health on the national agenda. In the new studio Craft Matters received referrals, attended and ran craft fairs, was accepted by the local community and became established within mental health services. 

As the studio evolved there was a move from making craft items to making art and our reputation as a participatory arts project grew. We worked with mental health group NIMHE and SEDC and business including Pfizer, Unum and Kuoni, promoting positive images of mental health and running interactive art events. We also ran an art library scheme where business could rent artworks for set fees. The value of the arts and creative on mental wellbeing was accepted and celebrated. To reflect our changing identity the studio changed its name, around the time of the millennia, to Art Matters. 

The workshop was a vibrant, busy, safe environment. One afternoon, however work stopped as we all gathered around the radio to listen to the news from America.  The twin towers and the Pentagon were under attack. One of two of those gathered around made comments but a silence, a sense of doubt, settled on the studio. Following these events Art Matters marked 9/11 for a number of years, traveling into the country or to the sea to make art, to remember. 

There had been a long campaign by local resident and neighbours to stop the developers from moving in on the Art Matters studio but in 2005, we received notice and had to relocate.  Surrey and Boarders had a building in Horley, and with the help of everyone attending, we packed up and moved on. The building in Horley was twice the size of Mondon studio and the space offered artists opportunities to work at a larger scale. 

In the same year, East Surrey community mental health services transferred to Richmond Fellowship. Change happened quickly, clinical support was withdrawn and a social/recovery ‘model’ adopted. With Service User’s a new working framework was designed and agreed including a statement of service, two-year residencies, referrals and an enrolment protocol. Art Matters also made budget decisions and created two new staff posts – one in Admin and the other a creative role overseeing textiles and printing. 

We were obliged to move from the NHS building in Horley and again set about relocating. Two attending Art Matters artists, Trevor and Nick, mentioned an empty looking church building in Earlswood. David and I visited, peered through the windows of this building into a dusty grey interior thrilled at its potential! RF Property Services manager, Ian Reynolds, rode from London on his motorcycle, and we met with members of the church at a small table in the hall to agree terms, Ian was a tremendous support during negotiations and instrumental in organising for work be carried out. £40k was spend on the building including a new floor, kitchen and lighting. 

That was in 2009 and we’ve been here since! The current Art Matters studio team is made up of around 110 including artists, peer tutors, volunteers, artists in residence and 5 Staff, Mark, Natasha, Ama, Michelle and Jalia. All work together with the Surrey arts and mental health communities.