Blog 4, December 2011

Meeting Joan Erikson in the spring of 1989 was an immensely important milestone in the development of my ideas about the value of using art forms to help people with psychiatric illness connect and find a place in the world.  We started communicating by letter about a year before and I finally worked up the courage to ask if she would be part of a film about her work.  My partner Les Nirenberg and I invited her to Toronto in June to shoot it - produced and directed by our company Mental Health Library.

Joan was born in Canada, had been away for over 70 years and relished the thought of a return visit. Her father had been an Anglican clergyman in Napanee and Joan’s early rebellious nature led her to run away from Bishop Strachan School in Toronto (she asked if we could drive past it on our way to the airport before she left) to explore the world of modern dance.  She met Erik, who was studying psychoanalysis with Freud, at a masked ball in Vienna and they married in 1930.  They came to the US in 1950; Erik taught at Harvard, Yale and University of California at Berkley, and for many years they led a bi-coastal life, balancing three children with their work. During the time spent at Berkley, they worked together on their eight-cycles of human development. which has maintained a central position in subsequent formulations of psychological theory.

In 1951 Erik was appointed Director at the Austen Riggs Centre in Stockbridge Mass and soon after, Joan became Director of Activities. In her characteristically modest way, she describes it ” Well, I was a wife and my husband went to work there so I looked around for something to do.”  Her humility didn’t in any way lessen her strong belief in the dignity of people with mental illness.  She always loved to say that in the studio sessions, “they aren’t patients, they’re artists, they shouldn’t be observed and diagnosed, they should be allowed to experiment, explore and enjoy themselves.”

At the time we met, I had been working on the inpatient psychiatry unit at Toronto General Hospital for about five years, involving students from the Ontario College of Art, writers through a Canada Council program and dancers from York University in sessions with our patients.  I was establishing my ideas about the value of what these individual artists contributed and defining the difference between what we were doing and art, dance or music therapy - valuable disciplines but not what was needed in our setting.  Meeting Joan Erikson not only introduced me to the pure joy of her wonderfully generous and imaginative spirit but also provided me with a very solid framework of support for the use of creative activities so I could move ahead with energy and confidence.

The wisdom of her perceptions lingers with me from many of the conversations we had both on and off camera.  She spoke often of the importance of play, how we as adults need to maintain our ability to play in order to be creative, and how children must be allowed time to play so they can develop the strength and potential of their imaginations and their inner worlds. She also had very clear notions about the value of art forms in and of themselves, not as diagnostic tools, but as a way to make connections with the environment by exploring colour, shape, form and technique, and most of all, as a way to have fun.

As well as fostering creativity in other people, Joan was a practicing artist; her jewelry has been exhibited at MoMA; she wrote poetry and was the author of seven books… and she always moved with the willowy grace of a dancer!  My last visit with her was in the summer of 1996 at her home on Cape Cod.  She died in 1997 at 95, leaving all of us who were fortunate enough to know her richer for her friendship and inspiration.

Les Nirenberg died in January 2010, I miss both his collaboration and his formidable sense of humour.

This blog is dedicated with great fondness to them both.
Thanks once again to John Bilodeau.

Blog 3 November 2011

Frozen Assets, Diego Rivera, 1931

In 1930, the newly opened Museum of Modern Art in NYC invited Mexican muralist Diego Rivera to be its second featured artist - the first was Henri Matisse. Because Rivera’s pieces weren’t portable, a studio was set up for him and he was commissioned to create works for the exhibit based on the recent stock market crash and resulting social conditions in the US, New York in particular.  A current show at MoMA reunites the gallery and the murals, with an ironic twist as real figures create a living reflection of economic disparity a few miles south in Zuccotti Park.

From the moment last summer when Adbusters threw down the gauntlet in Vancouver and mobilized people in New York, Toronto and 1500 centres around the continent and the world, much of the news has been animated by the unfair distribution of wealth in an inequitable global economy. In parks and public spaces people gathered, set up tents and civilizations were created overnight.  They struggled for consensus democracy in a version of the Greek agora – a public space that is always open where people can participate in a talk about ideas at any time.  They created horizontal structures with no official leaders, rotating facilitators and no fixed stated demands.  A grass roots combustion gave an urgency and passion to the discussions that policy-laden meetings about income distribution usually lack. Shock waves swept round corporate boardrooms and government circles.  Everyone began to realize that “They’re not going away”…for now anyway. 

When I went down to St James Park in Toronto I found a calm, benign, tidy setting, pretty different from what I remember of gatherings in the 60’s and 70’s.  It was friendly and accessible (more so than our city officials, as one local restaurant owner observed).  As well as the activists (I prefer this to protesters) there is a Diaspora of people like me -and maybe you - who support the cause of a more equal society. What we all seem to share is a wish to change the channel, without a very clear notion of how to do it. People gathered in St James Park, expressed themselves quietly and peacefully against the status quo in the financial industry. They don’t have ready answers to the losses of jobs, homes and retirement savings…but neither does anyone else.                                        

"What comes next?": an idyllic day in St James Park

The Occupation has given rise to some common responses   People have been frustrated with the lack of clarity of purpose and demands, Democracy is uncomfortable, sometimes messy, and anxiety provoking. We’re not good at tolerating uncertainty or ambiguity and patience isn’t our long suite (not mine anyway). My friend Ron Shirtliff (fellow admirer of Marx…both Karl and Groucho) sent around an urgent reminder recently to “be thankful for youth…who may succeed where our generation has failed.”  It’s an uphill battle to change a system from below when most regimes operate on a top down model and the people in charge have an investment in the status quo. The Egyptians are discovering that the transition to civilian rule is made difficult by not having a group prepared to guide it…the old order eviscerated or abolished the institutions that could do so. The Occupiers don’t have any solutions, but at least a process has begun, the channel has been changed. If Marshall McLuhan was here he might say, “Their presence is the message.”  And I think this movement is too big to fail!

Some people saw our homegrown Occupiers as copycats, feeling that our Canadian system had somehow escaped or avoided the recent and more long standing disparities and chaos that exist in the US.  It’s a question of degree rather than difference though and if you have any doubts about that, take a walk along Bloor Street and look at the homeless people gazing wistfully into the windows of passing BMW’s.  Just this morning I saw a young dude getting out of his sleeping bag in the doorway of Tiffany’s.                                                                   

There’s no economic farness here and there hasn’t been for many years.

The Occupiers have a mammoth job on their hands to keep the enthusiasm and momentum that was galvanized by being in a group with people’s eyes and ears tuned to their agenda. The movement is more an idea than a location and staying in a public place as a group was beginning to be a problem anyway for many reasons, not just complaints from neighbours and the wish of city officials for control and hygiene. The need for housekeeping began diluting the effectiveness of the group. Adbusters’ editor Kalle Lasn said, “the chessboard has been overturned and now a new game begins!”   

What’s next? Will the Occupiers disperse and things go back to where they were before? I sure hope not. Let’s trust that this is only the end of the beginning.

Still depending on John Bilodeau for technical help...thanks John

Blog 2 October 2011
Meet Camille Winchester, artist and teacher extraordinaire - a person who has re-invented herself many times so far and may need to do it again before the game is over.

Born in Trinidad, she was a flight attendant before coming to Canada in 1987. Settling first in Toronto, she supported herself with jobs in the financial sector while studying at The Ontario College of Art and Design. Vancouver was next for a couple of years, spent working and doing art. Returning to Toronto, she bought a kiln and ran a studio on Dundas West for several years teaching ceramics to both children and adults as well as creating and selling her own work.  An involvement with The Creative Force (a project that took artists into treatment settings, supported by the Ontario Arts Council) introduced her to artists working in communities with women, work she began and continues to enjoy in several locations in the city. Although her specialty at OCAD was ceramics, work in fabric art was available, so she's turning her hands and her creativity in that direction for the time being.

The women using the centres are on fixed incomes; some are immigrants, some were born here, many have worked but are without pensions, some live in shelters, others are homeless... in other words, the lower end of the 99% that Occupy Toronto speaks for.

Although the work that Camille does with the women involves fabric, the relationships she creates with them are far deeper and more significant than the sewing that goes on.  Being marginalized for many years, sometimes a lifetime, has left these women without many of the skills we gain as we go along and tend to take for granted. They’ve been too busy surviving to explore art and the world around them. Many of them lack self-confidence, their attention span may be short, often their eyesight is poor, their fingers arthritic. Camille told me about one woman who had lost several fingers to frostbite.  Despite these handicaps and limitations, they come and they create, often having no experience making choices because of the highly controlled environment they live in.  They hesitate to choose colours or shapes and have huge difficulties with the fear of failure…something all too familiar in many of their lives.

This morning, I heard from Camille that one of the women had approached her on behalf of the others to say they were offended by the use of the word poverty in the announcement of their annual art show and sale.  She said it’s not the poverty that they mind it’s the loneliness and isolation…they feel as if they’ll go crazy by themselves day after day, that’s why they come to the programs.  Camille felt that part of what they were saying was that they didn’t want to sound pathetic when “in reality they are a colourful, vibrant, boisterous, sometimes rambunctious group of proud women who don’t see themselves as victims or creatures needing pity.”

 

There’s been lots of focus lately on what constitutes happiness - conclusions are that it’s feeling connected to other people.  These women are no different in this respect and the most important part of coming together in the art groups may be combating some of the loneliness.  Sure the chances to improve communication, build skills and self-confidence and discover talents all have a huge impact, but the women’s voices speak to the power of providing a gathering place for people who are isolated. 

This blog is a shout out to Camille and all the artists doing this work, and to the women whose creativity isn’t limited to what they do with a needle and thread or paint and paper but pervades each moment of their lives.

Again, thanks to John Bilodeau...
Next post will appear in November, topic will be a surprise.

Blog 1 September 2011

Welcoming artists into out-of-the-way places has been on my mind and in my heart for about a quarter of a century - measuring time in fractions of a century is a useful worldview in many ways. This brand new blog is going to take you to a different place each month to visit artists bringing their art form to people who wouldn’t have the experience otherwise.  Our times are getting leaner and meaner and I’m feeling like a shove back is in order to support and promote this kind of program - inspired a bit by Jack Layton, so here goes…

Every Friday morning the usual hospital sounds in the halls of the Toronto Grace Health Centre are mingled with the sounds of the guitars, keyboards and voices of Improm2Crew, the Grace’s small, dynamic house band.  Made up of young musicians, some formally trained, some students in other fields, the Crew members bring both their enthusiasm for engaging the Grace patients and for making music together. “For a few moments, a small world is created where people sing, laugh and are carefree…a welcome break from the realities of hospital life…and from the stresses and strains of University,” says Danny, who’s preparing to study medicine.

Residents at the Grace receive long term, complex care, rehabilitation and palliative care. Music is just one facet of Arts at the Grace, the brainchild of Michael Fliess, Director of Volunteer Resources.  Michael trained as an artist and brings his creative sensibility to making use of the many and varied skills present in the volunteer group.

Of all the art forms though, music seems to be the one that touches people’s souls most deeply regardless of language, cognitive or physical difficulties, age or background.  “That little band has meant so much to John – and to me” a woman told me after one of the sessions.  Her husband had lost the ability to move most of his body and to speak, but his face always lit up when the music began. My attention was caught another day by an elderly woman sitting quietly in her wheelchair tapping her fingers and whispering all the words to a romantic ballad along with the vocalist.  I spent a few moments wondering what long-ago dance or party she was remembering and couldn’t help singing along with her. 

                                                                              

“I love to see the smiles on people’s faces…it reminds me that it’s the small things in life that are really important.” says Jong, who began the group three years ago and who hopes to enter medical school next year.
Mee-ju, one of the vocalists, told me about a woman who always asks her to sing Earth Angel, a song her brother used to sing to her when he was a young man.  Music stirs memory, taking people back to a more carefree time and  giving them a chance to feel both the happiness and the sorrow that make up all our lives. 

The musicians love the opportunity to hone their skills at performing for an audience.  Diana found it a huge help in preparing for her Piano Performing exam at the Conservatory, “I wasn’t nervous at all when I stepped into the exam…it felt just like another Friday at the Grace,” she told me. Even professional musicians (a few have come to do guest spots) love the chance to improvise with young musicians and to perform for very appreciative people. Sessions are held in an open foyer, so staff , visitors and family members can stop to listen on their way past.  Visiting someone in a hospital can be difficult and it’s helpful. to have something normal and positive to enjoy together.

Very much a win/win situation, a program like this is relatively easy to begin and administer  and costs very little.  Although the talent isn’t paid in dollars, as the remarks above indicate, the rewards are priceless and the value of having these young people starting out  their lives and careers with a commitment to make the world a better place for a few people for an hour every week gives me some hope for the future.

And how we all need that, see you next month.

Watch for the next post in late October, which will feature Camille Winchester, a ceramic artist working with marginal women. Feel free (in fact obliged) to let people who might be interested know about this blog.
Many thanks to John Bilodeau for his technical help.