.	Connie Shuster, founder of Artists for Recovery. photo, S. Contracto

For the past 12 years, she has run an arts center for the mentally ill, Artists for Recovery. Across from the Spaghetti Warehouse and a gas station, the storefront base for the group is an oasis of humane charm on gritty block of Spring Garden St. The center's interior walls, covered with the creations of group members, burst out with color and energy after so much dreariness.

But amidst the trappings of an artist, Connie Schuster doesn't create much art. In fact, in a gallery stuffed full of art supplies and works she can direct me to only one piece of her own, a rather gloomy diorama in the back depicting loneliness and love. "My creativity is blocked," she explains, "In art school there is so much competition, so much emphasis on what's good and what's bad it stifles creativity." I'm unconvinced by such a claim; it has no doubt been many years since her scalding education in the fine arts. I suspect that she doesn't want or need to create objects. She is furnishing a different kind of gift for the world.  

There may be no more isolating experience than severe mental illness. Not only are you shut away from other people as you retreat into a disturbing reality all your own, but you lose touch with yourself. The beliefs and emotions you thought to be at your core, your sense of your own personality, can all seem warped and alien during depression or drug addiction. Novelist Andrew Soloman related this self-alienation in his book on depression, the Noonday Demon (Scribner, 2001). "The first thing that goes is happiness…But soon other emotions follow happiness into oblivion: sadness as you had known it, the sadness that seemed to have led you here; your sense of humor; your belief in and capacity for love…Eventually you are simply absent from yourself."

	Paul, a schizophrenic artist, has been a participant and assistant at Artists for Recovery since 1992. photo, S. Contractor

It is only natural then to create art as an antidote to this estrangement; it is an exercise in self-analysis and understanding. Art puts your inner life in front of you, for you or anyone else to see. "It is a way of saying that what I think and feel matters." writes psychologist Richard O'Conner in his book, Undoing Depression (Berkeley P.G., 1999). Great, and greatly disturbed, artists throughout history must have intuitively understood this idea. From Rothko to Hemingway, the list of mentally ill artists is staggering in length.

Artists for Recovery is a place to help disturbed Philadelphians communicate. While providing supplies and encouragement, the group fosters some of the relationships and social supports that the troubled desperately need.

The community is the first thing Keith mentions to me as I ask him about the group. "It's like a family atmosphere, nothing but support. There's no negativity; it's all positive energy." Despite some palpable wariness, his face lights up a bit as he speaks about the benefits of the group. "Everyone is here to listen, it's a beautiful thing. There needs to be more places like this," he says with muted enthusiasm. This emotional display is a departure from his usual wariness. Speaking of his past he is more guarded. "A long time ago I was in a mental health facility and it really never did anything for me. I kind of lied my way through it… If I'd have told them really how I felt inside, they'd put me on medication instead of giving me the counseling and support I needed." What was he in the mental hospital for? "Violent outbursts," is all he would volunteer. Were there family troubles? "When I was younger, sure."

Keith and The Sun. photo, S. Contractor

Keith's goatee and glare lend him a grizzled look, but for a vendor with a troubled past he is remarkably effusive when speaking about his creations on display in the gallery. When asked for a particularly important work of his, he pulls off of a shelf what appears to be some sort of orange and yellow aquatic plant. It is a setting sun. "It kind of represents the light of life. Fire to me means power, it means energy and that's the energy that keeps us going, like our life force. That's what this resembles to me like "never give up." The sun burns eternally even when life on earth passes every day the sun is constantly burning."

Paul meanwhile, is even more eager to display his creations. He has been helping out at Artists for Recovery since 1992 and has a substantial collection of sculptures made from materials found on the street. But as motivated as he is to show me his all of his works, he is equally inarticulate in describing them. "Certain things you look at just a little bit, other things have a deeper meaning." Does anything of his have a deeper meaning? "I don't know. I don't think so, not really." After showing drawing after drawing containing crucifixes, and wearing my patience thin, Paul calls me over to him again. "All they have to say is I'm delusional, imagining plots. But the police shot me twice." Later he tells me he is in fact the clone of singer Neil Young.

Other group members are lucid, if perhaps a bit melancholy. There is a soft-spoken poet, Betty, who sits silently behind the rest of the group. Though she is somewhat neglected by her grown up children, it isn't just isolation that brings her to Artists for Recovery. "When I was a teenager I would rather have a pen and pencil to write than lunch," she says emphatically. "It is my catharsis. It saves my sanity." The center on Spring Garden is a place where she can act on her compulsion to write. "You need a place where you can feel creative."

While these group members chat and draw, Connie Schuster looks on attentively, offering materials or commentary. I ask her how her group members are healing. She is vague. "People somehow keep their creativity alive... I see and respect the process." It is a surprisingly inarticulate description of an essential function of Artists for Recovery. Being creatively "blocked," she can't seem to express the therapeutic value of art. But she knows exactly what the group exists for, beyond self-expression. When asked about the best part of her work, tears seemed to appear in her eyes. "I'm honored people trust me enough to confide in me. That's the best part because that's what I really want to do, support people."

Artists for Recovery is located at 1041 Spring Garden Street and can be reached via e-mail at artistsforrecovery@hotmail.com and via telephone at (215) 951-0330, extension 106.

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