Arts Sisterhood 

Really surprised at the comments below. I completed the course in December 2023 and had a wonderful time. Ali is great, provides a perfect setting and gives just enough guidance for the group to feel supported and inspired. Some people might have found friendship with other participants. For me this was a very personal experience, I did not come to make friends. Luckily Ali did not push for personal connection. She really holds a very beautiful facilitator role, complementing the book. It must be said the course is not a magic life changer: your results will depend on how much work you put into it. But Ali provides exactly what I expected her to. Super grateful to have found this.

Like so many I also fell for the scam and purchased ‘The Artist Way’ 12 week course facilitated by Ali Strick.

I was unable to attend the course start date so asked to be rescheduled which Ali Strick initially agreed to.

I received an email saying the rescheduled session had been cancelled as Ali was sick and then thereafter zilch.

I’ve DM’d and emailed multiple email addresses but to no avail. Ali has rather conveniently turned off the comments on all IG posts. At present, she’s running a competition in collab with Julia Cameron- so that particular IG post still has the live comment feature.

Please avoid Arts Sisterhood UK at all costs. If anyone’s interested I’ve done some digging and found the address for the private London studio is 2 Culford Mews, N1 4DX. However, based on the reviews there’s probably no point in going there as the sessions seem disorganised and non-therapeutic to say the least.

This is a money grab scam. I agree with the other reviews, some sessions were cancelled 10 min before the start of the class when people travelled in the freezing weather, no explanations, no refunds. I dropped off as I wasn’t getting anything from it. I did the whole 12 weeks before in a different place and it was so life changing and deep. This was shallow, lazy and inconsistent. Better to go trough the book by yourself than this joke. I can’t believe she’s still scamming people in 2024, comments in instagram have been disabled so we can’t share our experience and warn others..

Dry, uninspired and arbitrary
The host, who had her camera off for most of the 12 sessions, literally copied and pasted (onto a word document) questions from the original text.
She added nothing to the course itself so I'm unsure why there's a £65 charge for a course I could have done myself.
Thankfully another member had the insight to set up a whatsapp group to keep us motivated (that the host was actually against us doing). If it wasn't for that I would have dropped out as I actually began to dread the sessions (out of boredom)
I have no idea how such an exciting course, with such motivated and eager attendees, could have the joy and life sucked out of it. But there you go.
Definitely Not Recommended

I really wish I had read these reviews before signing up to the course. I fear the same is happening again. This practitioner must be stopped as it’s really not ok to do this to vulnerable women, especially under the guise of wellbeing, women empowerment and safe spaces. Our session was cancelled last minute without any explanation, refund or rescheduling and now the website has been taken down again. I’m worried the course leader may need more support and like other reviewers I’m concerned for her safety and the safety of others on the course. My emails are being ignored. I will be forming a group and seeing what we can do via Citizen’s Advice because no refunds have been offered again.

Please feel free to get in contact if you’ve also been affected by this.

I am writing this as a warning to other women to steer clear of this course.
I started this course in May 2022 but unfortunately never got to finish it.
The course is advertised as theraputic & creative, as a safe place for women to reconnect with their creative selves, be empowered and create a strong female community.
In the first email corrospondance from Ali, who runs the course, she expresses how passionate she is for everyone to complete the course and says she is trained in counselling and encourages everyone to stick it out to the end to gain the full benefits.
Sadly after a few weeks Ali's availability and commitment dwindled, at quite short notice she cancelled due to, covid contact one week, then migrane, then she moved course online due to trainstrike and then again for reasons I cannot remember.
One of the zoom sessions went ok but two consecutive ones were marred by "bad internet connection".
Following this we managed to meet in person again for a session or two but with 3 or 4 sessions still outstanding Ali dissapeared and was nowhere to be found.
Most of the women, including myself, tried to contact her to check in and see if she was alright and find out dates to catch up and complete the course but she didn't reply to any emails.
The messages I sent her initially were messages of concern, as I was worried something had happened to her, but it then became apparent we were being ghosted by her and I felt very let down.
She didn't reply to emails or instagram or FB interactions. To this day I have had no contact, no reembursement or explanation around what happened.
Alongside all of the distruptions (some of which may obviously have been genuine) there are 3 weeks outstanding that we never got to do, Ali repeated on a number of occasions how important it was to see the course through to the end, I am left baffled by the whole thing.
Overall very unprofessional and lacking in concern for vulnerable women who were trying to engage in self discovery and better themselves.

This course was a present from my mother. It was sold as a 12 week in person course of Julia Cameron’s Artist Way, facilitated by Arts Sisterhood (A.k.a Ali). I found the course and the Arts Sisterhood through Instagram. Ali chooses to use #mentalhealth #therapy #wellness all over the adds used to promote this utter scam.

I began to feel a little off at the beginning of the course when ‘all course materials provided’ became a £1 paper back journal from tiger and ‘refreshments provided’ became me feeling uncomfortable asking to fill up my water bottle.

Ali takes role of the ‘facilitator’ by reading her cherry pick of Julia Cameron’s words off a PowerPoint that she later may or may not upload to our Facebook group, which none of us have permission to interact with, unless your comment is first approved by her.

Then came the last minute cancellations and then, absolutely nothing.

We were left completely in the dark. We attempted to reach out via Instagram, Facebook, we have even sent letters.

When I say we, I mean the many other women who have been manipulated over many groups and now it seems spanning over many years.

I would love nothing more than to understand what happened. The women in the group we created to try and get answers were so empathetic, taking into account - as is widely publicised - Ali experiences of mental illness. We decided to move on from all of this and continue supporting each other through our own creative journey. However we could not stand back when we saw the Arts Sisterhood was yet again advertising a scam dressed in the hashtag “#artstherapy” to vulnerable people.

This can not go on.

Ali did not finish the course with us and has not communicated with the group why, provided a refund or given any explanation. Very strange.

I had high hopes for this course which were all dashed. Leaving the biggest problem to the side for the moment, the sessions were just very low in energy, lack lustre, uninspiring and formulaic. Ali’s delivery of the course is lazy. She reads a paragraph from the book and then tells you to do an exercise (from the book) then we work in silence in our notebooks while she stares at her laptop, the blue lighting up her face and I would wonder what she is doing. Writing emails? Facebook? Playing solitaire? She isn’t doing the exercise with us. It’s as if she is not in the room.

Everything was just done from the book (which you can get for a tenner on Amazon and work through yourself) The course leader did nothing to enrich or help my experience of the Artists Way.

The only reason I kept coming back was because of the other women.

Doing the check-in at the beginning of the session, hearing everyone’s stories giving and getting support was the only reason to keep going.

Then we would go to the pub afterwards and, I often joked, that that was where the real session happened!

Many women drifted off over the weeks and I don’t blame them. I tend to try to stick to things but I think other women would have just thought life is too short to travel to somewhere only to waste 2 hours in a boring space doing work you could do better in the comfort of your own home.

This would be bad enough, but the big scandal is that so many sessions were missed.

About halfway through, Ali started moving sessions online, cancelling sessions altogether and, at the very end when we still had at LEAST two sessions left (depending on whether you thought the ones she cancelled were going to be tagged on to the end or were just lost) and three of us were standing outside the venue (her home) and it was all closed up. We could hear her tv and dog and lights were on. She didn’t respond to emails and she doesn’t allow you to post on the Facebook group (she has to approve the comment- and of course she doesn’t)

She blocks people from Instagram. She has not responded to any of my emails or comments on line and I know that other women had the same experience. Women on my group have emailed and sent snail mail letters too. All ignored.

Now it seems we were not the only group she did this too. Other women have connected with our group saying the same thing. I believe one group lost 4 or 5 sessions. I think that takes this from just a poor quality course to an actual scam. I suspect she had no intention of delivering the full 12 sessions.

It’s outrageous! I’ve never seen anything like it for someone to be so unprofessional and shady and then – THEN - to have the temerity to start advertising more courses! Do NOT give this charlatan your money. Get a few friends together and do the course in one of your houses each Wednesday evening over a pot of tea. Believe me, you will do a better job than Ali does.

Never finished the course as the course leader disappeared with no communication. We later found out she’d done the same to other groups. It was advertised as an arts therapy course so lots of the women were vulnerable / had mental health issues which makes it especially bad that we were just abandoned with no communication or offer of reimbursement for sessions not delivered

This course was a massive waste of time and cost. The course leader disappeared half way through the course. Communication was abysmal and she was not the right person for this course.

Earlier this year I paid for a 12 week in-person course run by Ali Strick following the programme of the Artists Way, a book by Julia Cameron. It was advertised as a safe space for women who wanted to get in touch with their creativity, and build their self confidence. This entire experience has been devastating to my mental health and I am desperate to warn others that this is a scam.

The communication from the beginning was bad, she never replied to my emails despite offering support. Half way through the course - Ali stopped turning up to the sessions. Multiple emails, Facebook messages, Instagram Dms were all not responded to despite many women from my course reaching out to her. My posts on the facebook group were blocked, despite my concerned attitude towards her safety and whereabouts. I soon discovered that many of the women from other courses were being ghosted too and managed to set up a group where we were finally able to share our stories without being blocked. Soon after, we noticed that her website was taken down and we began a formal process of trying to get a response, or a refund from her - of which we never received.

Many vulnerable women have signed up to this course in the hope that it would help pull them out of a bad place mentally. Many women could barely afford to pay the money but believed it would change their life for the better (quote from the website). That it would empower them to build their confidence, rediscover their passions, get in touch with their creativity and take the steps that were needed to change their life (all quotes from the website). The betrayal we feel from Ali Strick is beyond measure. The fact that she offers a safe space and then preys on our vulnerability to take our money and not only not deliver a service that she promised, but also ghost a group of vulnerable women is despicable.

To my disgust, I have seen that she is reselling the course for the new year again. I want to warn everyone to please be wary of this woman. She should not be allowed to sit in such a powerful role, as a counsellor and leader of this course.