'From mentally ill to an artist' - NYC's Living Museum showcases healing power of art

Record ID: 1815332

  • Title: 'From mentally ill to an artist' - NYC's Living Museum showcases healing power of art
  • Date: 10th May 2024
  • Summary: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES (MAY 8, 2024) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF ARTIST PAULA BROOKS PAINTING AT THE LIVING MUSEUM, AN ART STUDIO AND MUSEUM DEDICATED TO PRESENTING ART PRODUCED BY PATIENTS AT NEW YORK CITY’S CREEDMOOR PSYCHIATRIC CENTER (SOUNDBITE) (English) ARTIST, PAULA BROOKS, SAYING: “My inspiration is a lot of flowers and all types of other stuff. Waterfalls, bir
  • Embargoed: 24th May 2024 13:47
  • Keywords: Creedmore Psychiatric Institute Living Museum art creativity mental illness therapy
  • Location: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • City: NEW YORK, NEW YORK, UNITED STATES
  • Country: US
  • Topics: Arts/Culture/Entertainment,North America
  • Reuters ID: LVA001073607052024RP1
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:Nestled within the extensive mental health campus of New York City’s Creedmoor Psychiatric Institute is an unlikely hub of the arts: The Living Museum.
    It’s both a working studio and a gallery space displaying the largest collection of artworks by people with mental illness in the United States and possibly the world, according to its director, Dr. Mitra Reyhani Ghadim.
    The creative oasis was founded in 1983 by Creedmoor psychologist Dr. Janos Marton and Polish artist Bolek Greczynski. Today 70 or so artists work at the site, a two-story building that formerly served as Creedmoor’s cafeteria. Many of them, primarily Creedmoor outpatients, have no professional training.
    Among them is 45-year-old Paula Brooks. Entirely self-taught, she’s been coming to the Living Museum regularly since the 1990’s.
    Brooks told Reuters she painted “to free herself” of negativity or violence.
    “When I come to like this studio… it’s like a relief day,” she said, standing by her work-in-progress—a canvas colored with cascading bleeding hearts, roses, and other flowers.
    Brooks’ works can be found displayed throughout the museum, which showcases more than four decades of paintings, sculpture, murals and installations.
    Artists can drop in and work where they like: in the large, central open space, or in hidden nooks and rooms off to the sides. Tall windows let in light, and music from a rotating playlist floats through the air. They can also participate in Thai Chi classes, a dance group, gardening and a film club—activities that Ghadim introduced since taking over the museum's directorship two and a half years ago.
    Creating a sense of community and fostering an identity change is behind the Living Museum's mission.
    “We focus on this change of identity from a mentally ill to an artist,” Ghadim explained. “That can be healing.”
    Brooks said it was a gift to be able to come to the Museum to paint five days a week.
    “When it’s finished it means like, wow, I created this," she said, referring to her artwork. "This is from me. This is from inside of me. And then I date it. And then the dates means like I can look back at it, that I actually started a new life, to enjoy life as an artist."
    The Living Museum is open to the public by appointment Monday through Friday.
    (Production: Soren Larson, Christine Kiernan)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2024. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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