Artwork by Virginia Townsend

As an artist I express my experience with mental health and skills through abstract, non-representational art. Clicking Teeth is sensory overload with repeating patterns that remind me of the small movements I at times feel forced to make ever since childhood. If my right biceps tenses, I need to tense the left; if I turn my head to the right I have to turn it the same degrees to the left. Sometimes I click my teeth.

As an artist I express my experience with mental health and skills through abstract, non-representational art. Furiously Pretty, Furiously says that beauty and anger can co-exist without one diminishing the other. A pretty painting can yell and scream, be heard above the crowd, and make as much change as historical color blocking. I painted this on an angry day.

As an artist, I express my experience with mental health through abstract, non-representational art. This painting titled Mine is an exception to the rule. In Mine, a stream runs through the scene from right, through the center, and down out the bottom of the image. This stream is my place of safety I’ve carefully cultivated over the years and visit often to calm my nervous system.

As an artist I express my experience with mental health and skills through abstract, non-represntational art. New Habits came about as I sat on my gray, velvet couch, surrounded by my paints on a weekend. Weekends are notoriously difficult for me: my day program is closed, my mental health team is unavailable, the world seems to close down. As I painted I felt my muscles relax and my mind focus for hours, passing time that used to haunt me, and by the end I knew I’d created the start of a new positive, healing habit.

As an artist I express my experience with mental health and skills through abstract, non-representational art. Most people with experience with mental health programs know what Wait Time means. It’s an important question to ask when you’re calling, desperate for help. What’s the wait time? A week? Months? I created Wait Time while on a wait list for a DBT program.