New makerspace with therapeutic emphasis opens in Fall City

A new makerspace in Fall City is promoting mental wellness through art creation.

Local artist Ashley James started Works from the heART LLC one year ago after many years of work as a recreational therapist. She officially opened her own studio Dec. 7 — located one block from Redmond-Fall City Road — where she will host art classes, craft workshops and private events. James also hosts women’s art retreats a few times a year.

“What I’m hoping for is just for everyone in the community to feel like they have a safe space to go and explore who they are and feel accepted for who they are,” she said. “So often I hear ‘I’m not an artist,’ and the way I reframe that is, ‘You’re not an artist… yet.’”

James, who went to school for psychology, has a long history of working both in art and mental health. Her junior year of college, she found out her best friend’s husband, a Marine, had died in Afghanistan. The news pushed James to specialize in working with veterans and their families.

“I saw what was the first kind of image of what grief looked like. I never experienced that in my life before,” she said. “That was it for me. It was like, OK, how can I give back to the military community?”

James spent more than a decade developing recreational therapy programs for the Wounded Warrior Project and other organizations across states and countries, since her own husband was in the Army.

James’s last stint before starting Works from the heART was as an arts therapist at an inpatient program for teenagers. When the work began to take a toll on her own mental health, she started searching for her next venture.

“How do I blend this passion of recreation therapy, mental health and art all into one?” she said. “I’d already been teaching on the side for about six years, unofficially, and decided, well, let’s take the next risk and start my own business.”

The studio is intentionally small, seating about 16 guests comfortably. It’s important, James said, for her space to have a sense of intimacy and connection.

“I really want to build meaningful relationships, especially having gone from being a military spouse and seeing what it’s like to move from place to place, and how hard it is to connect with others,” she said.

James said the studio doesn’t have a set schedule, but guests can go to worksfromtheheart.org to see upcoming classes and purchase tickets. There are two events James hosts regularly: ladies’ night out and women’s art journaling.

Women’s art journaling is a program James designed for a former employer and took with her after seeing its success. At each class, guests have a chance to create anything they want with the materials provided, as long as it aligns with the day’s theme. At the end, everyone has an opportunity to share.

“I blend acceptance and commitment therapy into it, which is a form of cognitive behavioral therapy, and we utilize a certain topic or element based on that, talk about it, and then I give them a prompt,” James said. “The whole intention is to be able to look inwardly, connect meaning to our experiences where it’s not just good or bad. What is something that we can learn from that experience and apply to our lives?”

Not all of the Works from the heART programs are as therapy-forward as art journaling, but they all give guests an opportunity to explore their identity through art, James said.

“My hope would be for people to explore what is really speaking the most to them and their identity and it be their thing, where they can find their niche,” she said. “That’s what recreation therapy is all about, is trying new things, taking risks, getting outside of our comfort zone, to find what really speaks to us.”