To make a donation or to volunteer, contact Brushes with Life at stepart@med.unc.edu. Patient artists set their own prices and receive 100% of the sale price. To purchase artwork, call 919.966.8990. When calling, please have the names of the artist(s) and piece(s) you are interested in buying.
The Center is proud to announce a new line of notecards featuring works by four of our artists: Sunflowers by Philip Brubaker, Swim A Little by Colette Corr, Ad Lib Monet by Michael Dunne, and Toucan by Bill Wyatt (see images below). The cards are 4.25" x 5.5" and are blank inside. All proceeds from sales of the cards go directly to support the gallery. Cards may be purchased for $3.00 apiece or a set of four different images for $10.00 by contacting Janice Linn via email at jlinn@med.unc.edu or by phone at (919) 966-8990.
Black Eyed Susans by Philip Brubaker
Swim A Little by Colette Cor
Toucan by Bill Wyatt
Ad Lib Monet by Michael Dunne
Supporting Recovery. Challenging Stigma.
With treatment,
what was once a disordered place has become a place of calm. With art, what was closed off gives the promise of hope.
Brushes with Life is a creative arts program for people in treatment OASIS and STEP; members of Club Nova, a local clubhouse for persons with mental illness; and other select community programs in the Chapel Hill area.
Through the creation of visual art, poetry, film, and music, participants find healing and move toward recovery. By connecting with the larger community around their work, they promote a broader understanding of the human side of mental illness.
Artists select a wide range of media to convey their ideas and feelings. They further their talents by participating in program-sponsored art classes. They have opportunities to share their work in the Brushes with Life gallery and in traveling exhibitions.
Gallery organizers include hospital staff, patient artists, family members, community volunteers, and mental health professionals.
Brushes with Life started in 2000 and ever since the program has been supporting recovery from mental illness and challenging the stigma associated with these conditions. To view an interactive timeline highlighting major milestones, click here.
In 2009, Brushes with Life (video trailer below), received an honorable mention from the SAMHSA Voice Awards. The documentary, produced by Brushes with Life artist and videographer Philip Brubaker, featured eight fellow artists and the challenges they face striving for creative recognition in a society that often stigmatizes and/or dismisses people with mental illness.
New Exhbit October 25, 2011
The free exhibit will be open for the next six months, from 8:00 a.m.–8:00 p.m., seven days per week.
NC Neurosciences Hospital, 3rd floor
Manning Drive
Chapel Hill, NC
Parking is available in the UNC Hospitals Dogwood Deck off Manning Drive and in nearby campus lots. We invite you to come by and see the work, much of which is for sale. How to find us: http://www.unchealthcare.org/site/aboutus/howtofindus
Hello. I am Robert Kwami Jackson. I grew up in Raleigh, NC. My hands were (severely) burned at the age of three. I became interested in art by copying pictures out of magazines at the kitchen table at my grandmother's house after school.
I was about seven or eight when I saw a painting by Pablo Picasso called "Guernica." At that exact moment I said to myself, "I can do that." Whether I could or couldn't I believed that I could and, from that moment on, I became an artist.
From childhood to early adolescence I did nothing but sketches; art with no color, no painting, not even shading with pencils. This was not my intention but I do believe this established my art style. That later transformed over into my paintings.
At age nineteen, I found myself studying commercial art. I didn't finish school but I did learn how to paint, which I have been doing for sixteen years. I don't know it all but I know enough to get by. I'm still learning, which makes it exciting. Experiences and life play a major part in it as well as spirituality, and keeping a peaceful mind.
Brushes with Life has been the first gallery to show my body of work. Although I'm getting older, my dream is to become a teacher of art and a famous artist.
(various artists)
Many of our nation's people living without housing have severe mental illness. But it's anyone's guess how much of that is by choice rather than being due to illness-related factors or larger, system-wide issues. For example, many factors can play a role, including disorganization, cognitive deficits, poor impulse control, paranoia, burnout or alienation of family, deinstitutionalization, and lack of adequate low-income or supported housing, or residential treatment services.
NAMI's Housing Fact Sheet states, "According to a 1999 HUD report, nearly 40 percent of the nation's homeless are single adults with severe mental illnesses. In addition, a new report "Priced Out in 2000" reports that SSI income amounts to only 18.5 percent of median income nationally and that the average rent for a modest, one-bedroom apartment consumes, on average, 98 percent of a person's monthly SSI check." (http://www.nami.org/Template.cfm?Section=Issue_Spotlights&Template=/TaggedPage/TaggedPageDisplay.cfm&TPLID=5&ContentID=15943)
An exciting resource in use in many states is SAMHSA's Stepping Stones to Recovery: A training curriculum for case managers assisting adults who are homeless with Social Security Disability and Supplemental Security Income Applications. This process is designed to reach people who really need income support and the services it affords, but are unlikely to be able to access it without help. In North Carolina, this effort is called NC SOAR and is coordinated by the North Carolina Coalition to End Homelessness, www.ncceh.org.
Click here to read more about housing options for people with severe mental illness.
Founded in January 2009, the Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health is part of the Department of Psychiatry in the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Addressing quality of care and workforce development issues in North Carolina's mental health system, the Center and its clinical programs are supported by a three-year grant from The Duke Endowment, as well as Cross Area Services Program (CASP)
funds. The program operates in conjunction with multiple university, state, and community-based partners.
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