Art as therapy:
Studio Downstairs
Stories by Robin Tierney
Photos by Julie Wiatt |
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Artworks on view
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Ann Kip's artwork (above) will be on display. |
Mental illness as a muse? Through the ages, emotional difficulties and life changes have
inspired creativity as well as blocked it. Tucked in a subterranean space in downtown Silver Spring is Studio Downstairs, an innovative art therapy program of CREATE Arts Center that helps its members confront fears, work through debilitating issues, and boost self-esteem while developing their art skills. Working there one recent Friday were several members whose work will appear in nearby Gateway Heliport Gallery's upcoming exhibition "Out Of Your Frame" from April 7 through June 5.
The exhibition's solo artists are collagist Ann Kip, who has confronted cancer and manic depression, and Elizabeth Henderson, whose sketches and watercolors depict a "Divine Mother" who guides her through childhood memories and chronic depression.
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Artists at work
The Studio Downtstairs has an open-door attitude.
The artist-members are welcome to come Wednesdays and Fridays. But they have the choice to skip days, weeks, months--assured that they can return when they desire the creative and emotional support of art therapists Heena Genti and Sally Brucker, director of the Silver Spring-based mental health program.
As artists worked on pieces, mostly for their upcoming group exhibition "Out Of Your Frame" at Gateway's Heliport Gallery in Silver Spring, one remarkable quality united the diverse personalities: their ability to focus on their art while practically elbow-to-elbow in the intimate space. Evident is the drive to create—and communicate.
Read the rest of "Artists at work." |
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“One of the things that I was trying to capture in this show was a deeper understanding of how art can bear witness to the inner workings and wrangling of the soul and mind,” explains curator David Fogel of Gateway Georgia Avenue Revitalization Corporation.
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“Art is the great equalizer; a vehicle through which people can talk about touchy subjects,” says program director Sally Brucker. She found inspiration for Studio Downstairs at Studio Upstairs, a visionary therapeutic program she encountered in England a few years ago.
This hybrid model is “less medical, more experiential, more holistic,” she said.
Brucker launched Studio Downstairs three years ago as part of CREATE. Both programs moved from Bethesda to Silver Spring two years ago.
In contrast to the traditional dichotomies of normal versus abnormal or sane versus insane, mental health has increasingly been viewed as a continuum. Brucker’s approach meets the individual where he or she is on that continuum. |
"I am a fellow artist/traveler going down a road of self- discovery," says Sally Brucker, director of the Studio Downstairs. "The vastness of the human psyche and creativity amaze me daily." |
“Whether it’s moderate depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, it’s still something the individual has to deal with in daily life,” says art therapist Heena Genti. “It’s not always about illness. It’s about life.”
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Elizabeth Henderson is a featured artist at the Gateway Heliport exhibit. |
Studio Downstairs art therapists have seen changes in members’ self-awareness, self-confidence, and the way they relate to people in and outside of the studio.
“One day, Elizabeth, who had been feeling a strong creative block, suddenly exclaimed, ‘I’m going to paint what I want and I don’t give a [darn] about what anyone else thinks.’” recalls Brucker. Everyone burst out laughing because Elizabeth was usually very soft-spoken.
The rich conversation that day, Brucker said, “tapped into so many common issues such as feeling misunderstood, labeled, rejected, and dismissed,” and some admitted feeling afraid to make anything other than a “pretty piece of art.”
After this exchange, Brucker noticed “a loosening up in the artwork and a freer flow of dialogue in the group. This pushing of boundaries, which art often compels us to do, seemed to open up areas of our members’ personalities that had been dormant for years.”
The group, often numbering 12, meets for three hours twice weekly. The art therapists stay available to offer technical assistance or simply talk. Understandably, artists have some anxiety about exposing themselves to the public through their work. Heliport’s juried show also meant dealing with acceptance and rejection.
As at a previous exhibit at Mayorga, artworks at Heliport will be for sale. But Brucker’s mission is to facilitate creativity as an outlet for feelings that are hard to express verbally.
“It’s about people healing through art, the product secondary to the process,” she said.
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Bill W creates expressive artworks at the Studio Downstairs. |
While at work in the studio on a new watercolor, Elizabeth Henderson describes one of her pieces in the Heliport show. An “earth woman”—archetype of the feminine aspect of nature—emerging from a niche.
“It’s a symbol of my psyche...breaking out of something blocking me,” she said.
Having endured a devastating period of artist’s block following electroshock treatments two years ago, Henderson credits resumption of her creative flow to art therapy. Much of her current work “expresses the liberating things going on in my life.”
The Heliport exhibition will also feature a group installation by Studio Downstairs members. Probing preconceived notions of mental illness, the installation includes large painted folding screens on which viewers can add drawings of their own. Computer and audio components challenge viewers to question their perceptions. Then atop a chest sit black boxes containing intimate glimpses into artists’ memories, fears, and desires.
Heliport is intended to provide a venue for underexposed artists, including those working in Studio Downstairs, Fogel said.
Brucker’s art therapy practice has evolved over 30 years.
“I approach each session like a painter facing a blank canvas,” she said. “This is what the Buddhists call a beginner’s mind. This allows the therapist to stay in the moment and notice details.”
Helping others realize this can entail a painfully slow walk through daily struggles, says Brucker. “But eventually it does happen.”
Studio Downstairs is located at 816 Thayer Avenue in Silver Spring. Studio member fees fund work space, materials and support, and are based on a sliding scale. Other funding sources include grants and tax-deductible donations. For information call 301-588-ARTS (2787) or visit www.studiodownstairs.org.
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"Artists at work" continued.
Since joining Studio Downstairs two years ago, Miriam Yarmolinsky has been coming once a week. This Friday, she's painting a large folding screen. She enjoys engaging in rhythmic motions of blues and greens, using oil pastels and watercolor, letting the colors and forms flow intuitively instead of "overthinking them." She herself works full-time in the mental health field.
"My severe depression is in remission partly due to expressing my feelings through art," Miriam says.
A few feet away, Bill W pencils a preparatory sketch for his portion of the screen. He describes casually past concerns about being watched— a “paranoia” that interfered with daily life until Bill learned to transcend his hobbling thoughts.
“I now express through my art, instead of dwelling,” says Bill, at work on a waterfall of eyes that “express that small part of me that hasn’t gotten all the way past feeling watched.” Bill points to his own hand-shaped version of Rodin’s classic sculpture, “The Thinker.” He brought it to the studio for inspiration.
Nearby, several small black windowed boxes reveal scenes created by Studio Downstairs artists for the Heliport show. Bill is working on two boxes, one of which “addresses the alienation of our spiritual lives in the context of our technology-driven society.”
A close look reveals a Jesus-like figure, his head wrapped in a crown of computer wire instead of thorns. Trapped in the computer-box, the figure “is praying at the altar, worshipping the deity of the computer god,” explains Bill, making a reference to Joseph Campbell’s writings on Creative Mythology.
Perhaps Bill’s piece points to higher powers hidden within us, unobserved because “we’re always surfing the web, talking on our cellphones, creating distractions ... [as if] looking for the guru on the internet.”
Luly Stegmaier proudly describes the inspiration for her box: treasured Christmas ornaments that an aunt made for family members.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Henderson works over a depiction of a woman rooted in the ground, breaking free. To accomplish this, she advises to “listen to higher power within yourself.”
At the studio, Henderson draws as she truly wants.
“I start with a concept, let it evolve, let it...dance with the colors and the imagery,” she says. “The piece of art draws me along.”
Though always a solitary person, Elizabeth discovered how much she enjoyed working with other people in the secure, nonjudgmental space of the studio, talking with fellow members as she resurrected her creative spark temporarily lost after electroshock therapy.
“An important component of art is its ability to shed light and expose us to emotions, thoughts and sentiments that we otherwise might not get to explore,” notes David Fogel at Heliport. “These artists provide us with that opportunity.” |
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