May 4 – June 1, 2007
WORK exhibition space, 306 S. State Street, Ann Arbor

WORK exhibition space offers up an exploration of those dealing with mental illness through imagery and accompanying words – from practicing artists and those using the visual medium as the only means to get something inside of them out into the light. As Laverne, an artist in the show, describes it, “I feel as if art is my only way to express myself without all of my silly gibber gabber.”

It’s a wide range of imagery from the illustrative to more conceptual approaches, all linked by a common need to express and share something too often left unsaid and misunderstood. An artist named Betsy Jo, talks of her dyslexia, which had, “overwhelmed me with my study of anything that involved reading.” She represents this with a wonderful ink drawing depicting ominous book shelves and books flying off of them at a female form huddled and cowered on the floor below. Kristen Hodson’s work is a black and white quilt of two empty chairs, representing the aspects of her life that she was absent from while dealing with her illness.

While many of the images are often strong, it’s the addition of each of the artist’s individual words that make them truly strike home. It’s the honest, courageous, and ultimately very human nature of their words that makes this a completely engaging experience. Through this combination of imagery as a means of expression with words of explanation, a very full picture of the artists, their illness, and that very real struggle begins to emerge. It’s a window into the individual artist’s lives, allowing the viewer to briefly connect with that person and learn from the interaction.

Working quite directly and primitively, Linda Rama’s drumming figure is accompanied by these words: “Having a mental illness can be very frustrating. … I beat wildly on a drum until at last the hundredth beat helps me to cope another day until my life is lived to its fullest.”

The show offers a couple of works where the individuals never were able to cope – tributes to those lost to suicide as a result of mental illness. The terribly sad and very real subject matter heighten the already emotional depths touched by the works, and stress the importance of coming to understand such illnesses and those afflicted in order to offer them help.

Hodson’s (mentioned above) words: “I feel that mental illness is not something that people easily talk about or disclose. … I hope to transform that experience of shame into an affirmation that is public and positive.” Furthermore she writes, “I am not ‘bi-polar,’ I am a person, a woman, a sister, a daughter, a friend, a student, and an artist. I urge you to look past the labels and try to appreciate people for who they really are.”

A line in Neal Stephenson’s “Cryptonomicon,” offers a clever synopsis of this destructive harm of labels and the benefit of using descriptions instead, with a character stating his preference for, “adjectives modifying Bobby Shaftoe, instead of a noun that obliterates Bobby Shaftoe.” This exhibition helps us see the individual behind the label, with all the complexity that makes the individual who he or she is.

Show organizer and curator Darren Jorgensen’s piece consists of long shelves of empty pill bottles from the medications he’s used over the years to treat his illness, and a color coded list along the left side (making the entire piece look almost cheerily flag-like) with the name of the drug, usage, effects, and other information written in the colored bars. In his text, he describes his feelings after being diagnosed with Manic-Depressive disease: “My heart sank. Terror rushed over me. My fingers went numb. How could I be sick? How could I be mentally ill? This made no sense. I had always prided myself on my ability to think quickly, to be charming and influential. I had prided myself on my intelligence, and my creativity, and my gift to talk with just about anybody. Sure, I had had scary moments.” From there he proceeds to talk of sleeping on the roof of his building after seeing a man in dark raincoat approach him with a knife in his bedroom, and other similarly scary episodes over the years. “How could I possibly be sick?” … “It took a long time for me to accept that I have a mental illness. … I guess I still struggle with it, but the shame and the fear is slowly dissipating.”

At its heart, art is about communication – of an idea, a feeling, a perspective, a different reality, what it’s like to look through another’s eyes. Here, the art, and the words that accompany it, help remove the labels, the layers of miscommunication that separate us from one another. “Uncle Art” (along with his alter-alter ego “Anti Art”) displays one of his signature playful clock images, split in two to represent the swings of bi-polar disorder. In addressing the nature of the illness head on, the artist also explains the keys to his health: “A happy marriage, two cats, good friends, working with art students, listening to jazz and occasionally making some art have all been extremely helpful.” … “Most people have no patience for what they don’t understand to be an illness.”

In raising their voices to be heard through their images and stories, the artists gathered in this exhibition help us better understand mental illness, raising awareness and acceptance – the beginning of the process of healing. In spending time with them, we can’t help but be touched and changed by the experience. – Nick Sousanis
ws@thedetroiter.com