The Healthy Art Club
What do I offer?
Time for enthusiasm and curiosity.
“My purpose is to guide you towards feeling improved through artistic encounters. To discover your capabilities and communicate them with soul and through art.” — Amaya Ledesma del Fresno —
I guide you in the search for personal well-being and help you connect with your most creative side. The main objective of our meetings is to participate in artistic activities in order to learn more about ourselves, and thereby discover and release emotions that might be untapped or difficult to express.
I do this using two complementary methods:
In the first, we use our hands, and according to the material used, we connect our body and mind in a tactile and welcoming way. Whether it be clay, pigments, watercolour, charcoal, coloured pencils or ‘sacred geometry’, our hands help us to balance our inner selves.
In the second, we approach the History of Art and the most intimate aspects of its artists. Avoiding pretension or grandiosity, we go straight to the heart by observing Art as though it were a mirror of our feelings.
We normally meet in groups, as listening and seeing fellow participants in a healthy social space is a richer way of working.
The objective is not to become artists or Art historians. Our goal is to learn more about ourselves by connecting through artistic creativity. It is not the destination that matters, but the journey.
Because being creative means continuing to look at life with wonder.
About me
I am the founder of The Healthy Art Club, in addition to being an Art Historian, journalist, communications expert and specialist in Hauschka artistic techniques.
For over 20 years, I worked as director of communications for major luxury brands such as Carolina Herrera, Prada fragrances and Loewe fashion, among others.
A regular lecturer in design and aesthetics for postgraduate courses, I actively participate with human resources teams and educational forums to implement programs that favour the development of human talent in schools and companies.
Having spent my adult life living in France, Switzerland, the USA, Mexico and Spain, I speak five languages.
With an organised mind and tenacious spirit, I consider myself to be a lively and curious human being.
My first memories relate to colour, and to the emotions felt while visiting Madrid’s Prado museum when I was six.
This led to Art History Studies in Switzerland where I wanted to further the idea that Art is humanity’s most dignified means of communication.
Somewhat disillusioned with the pretentiousness of the Art world at my first gallery job in Zurich, I enjoyed a corporate career with an active travel schedule culminating in what I consider my most intense line of work: being a mother.
The arrival of my first daughter in 2006 sparked an enormous curiosity for personal education where I soon discovered a new educational methodology based on Art that is an accessible tool for wellness.
Amaya continued her work as Director of Communications at Carolina Herrera while pursuing her research and developing therapies that harness Art as a tool for communication.
Keen to share these discoveries, I created groups that offer calmness and tranquility via artistic encounters, either face-to-face or online, and with the overwhelmingly positive response that they received, shifted my focus and vocation to be able to reach more people.
Accompanying individual journeys of self-improvement and communication through Art has given Amaya a passionate sense of purpose and is how THE HEALTHY ART CLUB was born.
.
Discover what we can do together
Experiences and workshops for company
A company that is a source of well-being becomes more profitable, with more committed, healthy and empathetic employees.
Our wellness programs are focused on taking care of human capital, whether it's within an internal team or working with external talent, which is vital for the positive functioning of a company.
When employees and collaborators feel looked after and positively perceived, they are more likely to care for the company and optimally execute their tasks, which in turn leads to better results for the business.
Personal experiences and workshops
If you are keen to gain a clearer vision of yourself, appreciate your emotions, digitally detox, break
your routine, channel your inner artistic expression and rediscover your essential self, come and
enjoy The Healthy Art Club.
The Healthy Art Club offers one-on-one meetings as an opportunity to recover your well-being through art. Artistic notions are not necessary.
To experience the Art of Wellness, what matters is to work with our hands or to contemplate Art. As a consequence, our minds and bodies incorporate these concepts quickly, and we create new habits that invite us to be well with what we have.
Benefits
Making artwork and contemplating healthy art requires concentration and focus, leading us to what is known as a state of “flow” and being able to enjoy an assimilated challenge. This is when our brain produces Alpha waves, an optimal state of relaxed alertness. Alpha waves improve neurotransmitter levels in the brain, and as a consequence, an improvement in mood.
We use a methodology based on "balanced" artistic processes, which move our rhythmic system to a balanced state between inhalation and exhalation. It is not about altering but generating a state of harmony of the optimal respiratory system.
The primary impact of Art is on our emotions and the effect it has on our soul. We often speak of ‘bad’ or ‘good’ emotions, when really we are avoiding them and getting stuck in our ways. Art allows us to understand, identify, and thereby recognise them. This frees us from many accumulated tensions and rebalances our soul.
In a world saturated by haste, by the digital and virtual, working with artistic processes or contemplating healthy art allows us to ask ourselves questions of vital importance to understand who we are and what our virtues are. Each human being is unique: we are not born standardised. Standardised perfection is constantly presented to us in the media, as a result of which we lose our true unique selves. Working with artistic processes and understanding art and artists helps us rediscover our individuality, our capabilities, as well as the fears that threaten us.
Working with artistic processes or contemplating healthy Art opens us to new fields and challenges us to think and act with our minds. This is how we create new neural circuits, preventing the deterioration of our minds and nervous systems as we develop new motor skills.
Healthy artistic processes increase and work on our serotonin system, a neurotransmitter related to mood and emotions, and increase emotional responses as well as support the immune system. It encourages people to actively confront their problems, leading to lasting changes in mindset and long-term relief. The state of mind is more lasting than emotions, so it is important to instil new habits that allow us to change our state of mind.
Performing artistic processes for the first time poses an encouraging challenge. Contemplating and understanding Art from a healthy point of view activates a feeling of enthusiasm and amazement. All this has great benefits in increasing dopamine, the hormone of reward and satisfaction.
"Art helps us to explain ourselves" Alain de Botton. Artistic processes or the use of works of Art allow us to explain emotions that we often do not know how to interpret. Art can help us explain what we need to show or express. Moreover, works of art can also be part of the solution: it is possible to share with others our appreciation of Art, through works that move and stimulate us, expressing ideas and feelings that we usually find difficult to put into words. Art helps us to explain our true selves.
Performing healthy and safe artistic processes, increases our enthusiasm, as we feed new interests and the desire to do different things. It also helps us to delve into our inner self and to understand and recognize many aspects not previously assimilated. In this way, we consolidate a space of inner warmth that allows us to find new and positive motivations to our questions.
Testimonials
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
You don't need to know about Art or artistic techniques, because we approach Art from an emotional point of view and benefit from this. The objective is not to become artists or connoisseurs but to learn via artistic creation. My dream is for society to incorporate Art in daily life, using it to broaden our horizons and become healthier. Because when we question ourselves in a healthy way, we allow ourselves to understand the complex world that we live in.
Our meetings are for groups of 6-14 participants, either for private participants or companies. I have much experience with individual sessions but have found that well-being is increased in groups. We work together for richer listening and observation. Sharing and experiencing empathy via group dynamics and artistic processes help us understand — even with a sense of relief — that we are not alone in living, feeling and thinking. Group dynamics are highly beneficial to our mental health and emotional well-being. In specific cases and when particular aspects of individual processes need to be deepened, individual sessions can be proposed.
Following the recent lockdowns we have experienced, I am convinced more than ever that face-to-face meetings are important. Studies show that real-life versus virtual experiences are far greater, especially when it comes to well-being and facilitating social dynamics. We have access to spaces in central Barcelona and Madrid that are ideal for creating a beautifully calm atmosphere. Other cities remain a possibility.
Since the word ‘therapy’ has become intrinsic to damage and disease, I prefer talking about how I facilitate understanding and health through Art rather than fixing or changing anything. The purpose of our groups is wellness and prevention. I take the point of view of salutogenesis, which is the study of the origins of health which focuses on factors that support human health rather than pathogenesis, which is the factors which cause disease.
The benefits of encounters with Art in groups have been scientifically demonstrated for over fifteen years, during a time where apathy and anguish crop up in societies that seem to have it all. Today, 75% of us claim to feel stress or anxiety as a result of our fast-paced lives.
The proven benefits are:
1. Calming the mind
2. Balancing the breath
3. Helping to manage emotions
4. Improving mood
5. Strengthening our mental health
6. Allowing us to understand ourselves
7. Allowing us to explain ourselves
8. Reinforcing our self-esteem
9. Reducing apathy
10. Humanising ourselves
The World Health Organisation recently published a report showing that Art is able to improve health and well-being. The survey of over 3,000 Europeans is convincing: attending Art exhibitions or participating in Art has a positive effect on humanity.
As no two human beings are the same, listing how participants feel after our meetings is not easy. But rest assured, everybody comes away having given themselves an intangible and very personal gift. This is because in our workshops we allow ourselves to listen to each other, to work with introspection, but also to develop a respectful and loving perception of others through and with Art. The feedback I most often receive includes the following:
- Discovering the human side of Art.
- Work without judgement and expectation to allow individuals to be themselves.
- Participants receive dedicated time surrounded by beauty and understanding.
- New aspects of Art and how to apply them to daily life are learned.
- Opportunity to explore, pause, reflect, be curious and apply personal interpretations of anything that arises in our meetings.
A workshop can vary in time, rate and cost. As it is a personalized service, we adapt the prices to each specific case. Contact me with no obligation.
No associated negative effects have been found, it is not invasive, it is not cathartic and does not cause side effects. The methodology is based on working from individual resources, to connect with the possibilities of health that we all carry within.
Contact
We have spaces in both Madrid and Barcelona to offer greater wellness benefits.