My wife has a painting hanging on the wall above her desk of three women dressed in African garb, dancing. She bought it here in Forest Park directly from the artist because every time she looks at the painting it brings her joy.
She acquired the painting before I ever heard the term “social prescribing.”
Social prescribing, the King’s Fund website explains, “generally refers to health-care professionals connecting people to a range of non-clinical support such as the arts.”
In other words, the medical profession is beginning to officially recognize that the viewing and doing of art can promote healing and wellness and are prescribing it for their patients.
Many of the artists at the annual Garage Galleries event I talked to had never heard of the concept stated in those terms, but when I explained it to them, they immediately understood. In fact, four of them emailed me stories or testimonials regarding how creating art affects them emotionally and even spiritually.
Joel Heinz is an artist who works primarily with clay as a ceramicist, and also pen and ink on paper. He said he gets into a “zone” where time ceases to exist and he is fully engaged in what he loves to do.
“While working on projects I stream music to help transport me to the zone. It feels as if my blood pressure decreases and any nerves I have to deal with during my life are left behind as I engage with the physical creation and the discoveries I encounter.”
He was a freelance graphic designer for 38 years. He always wanted to stay freelance because it gave him a lot of time to work on art when he wasn’t busy making enough money for his family to survive on.
Bret Juliano is a cartoonist, author and illustrator. He has been creating his comic “Dust Bunny Mafia” for more than 10 years, along with other comics and illustrated projects that combine humor and history.
“A lot of my recent work,” he said, “takes real stories from Chicago and Mafia history and retells them through cartoons, finding some humanity and absurdity hiding inside history.”
He doesn’t think of cartooning as “therapy” but does acknowledge that there is a “mental shift” that happens when he sits down at his drawing table and becomes absorbed in what he is doing.
“Creating art,” he says, “gives me a place to focus my attention and energy on something entirely my own. There’s also something valuable about humor in particular. Much of the history I research can be pretty dark, but cartooning lets me approach it from a completely different direction and find the strange, funny or ridiculous moments within it.”
Natalie Steinmetz creates sculptural and functional ceramics.
“I’m able to lose myself in my work,” she says, “and feel a strong sense of purpose and accomplishment when I’m done.”
She also talked about how viewing and using the work of other artists affects her emotionally.
“I own lots of other artists’ artwork,” she explained, “and have a large mug collection from other ceramic artists. Each day I choose a mug that brings me joy to have my coffee in the morning. Each mug has a story behind it and memories of when I acquired it.”
She talked about a way she had found to loosen up and have fun creating art. “I started making whimsical monster sculptures. It was a great way of connecting with others and letting go of being so serious.”
Pat Battle, who creates multimedia analog collages, said, “I find creating art to be profoundly cathartic as a means of processing the rapidly paced contemporary media landscape, which itself often resembles an assemblage of patchworked elements comprising some larger idea ripe for individual interpretation. It empowers me by allowing the creation of cohesion from chaos, even if the bigger picture is an ugly one.”
Battle said she didn’t always fancy herself being an artist. What changed her was a visit to the Museum of Contemporary Art as part of a course she was taking at Harold Washington College.
“I wandered into the New Chicago Comics exhibit, where I was made captive immediately by a rather large black and white drawing by Anders Nilsen depicting a military jet actively crashing through a cabin home. It unveiled something I hadn’t anticipated: access. I was learning that accessibility to art was not limited to some narrow, prestige-defined binary. I could make of it whatever my experience and personal growth brought to the table.
“I carry the weight of that self-discovery with me to this day and it informs the composure with which I find myself capable of channeling my own ideas and philosophies through the works I conceive. I have a profoundly deep desire to establish and maintain that same energy and relationship with my own audience.”
The Garage Gallery 4:
Pat Battle, sightsampler@gmail.com
Natalie Steinmetz, www.windycityceramics.com
Bret Juliano, http://comics.dustbunnymafia.com
Joel Heinz, jheinzart@gmail.com
Check out Tom’s ongoing substack posts about the fictional life of Pastor Walter Mitty at https://tomholmes10.substack.com.