Photo courtesy of ArtPlay
By Emma Castleberry
NAMI (The National Alliance on Mental Illness) Western North Carolina in partnership with ArtPlay Gallery & Creative Studio presents a new exhibition, Hope: Healing is Possible, opening at the gallery on Saturday, October 5, with a reception at 6 p.m. The exhibition will be on display through October 28.
Into the Natural Light. Dawn Dominique, artist
The exhibition will feature art made by NAMI peers—a term for people with lived experience of mental health conditions—during a series of collage workshops at ArtPlay. “Keeping the theme in mind, participants are invited to create a visual display of hope, however that feels for them,” says Barbara Francois, a local artist and one of the workshop facilitators. “They will do this by gluing materials that they cut or tore from magazines and other media, and affix on paper in any arrangement that feels good to them. It is an intuitive, non-judgmental, personal, process, guided by their own inner wisdom.”
Collage is an accessible art medium for all skill levels that also lends itself to storytelling. “This approach to art can incorporate color, texture, images, designs and shapes in really impactful and visually rich ways,” says expressive arts therapist Julie King Murphy, who will also be facilitating the NAMI workshops at ArtPlay. “For example, through choices regarding the placement of the elements of a collage, the artist can show a relationship between concepts, provide visual appeal or interest, express a particular perspective, highlight an experience or even depict a process of growth and healing.”
According to the NAMI, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), one in five Americans has a diagnosable mental disorder—a ratio that is even higher (one in four) for young adults ages 18 to 25.
“Such struggles don’t make these individuals or their art ‘different,’” says Murphy. “A better word is ‘authentic.’ This program is about acknowledging that life can be difficult for all of us, and is even extremely difficult for some of us, and yet in everyone’s life there’s the possibility of a better future. These artists will show us what that possibility looks like by actively engaging in artmaking and, through their creations, inspire viewers of their art toward our own visions of hope.”
ArtPlay Gallery and Creative Studio is located at 372 Depot Street #44, Asheville. For more information, visit NAMIWNC.org and ArtPlay-Studio.com.
