The Value of Art for Consumers Like Me

Or Why I Attend Recovery In The Arts Workshops. 

By A. Miryam Israel

As a consumer of mental health services, I am often categorized by my symptoms and evaluated for my deficits. However, at the annual gallery opening of the Recovery in the Arts Exhibit, I am categorized by my creativity and evaluated for my talent.

I have lived with a psychiatric diagnosis all of my adult life and this has left me with the insidious belief that I have nothing of value to offer.  So, I don’t think I can adequately express how different it feels to have people look at me with admiration because of something I've created, or actually value something I have made. 

In fact, this occurs so rarely in my life that each summer I eagerly attend the art workshops. I have learned, that if I apply myself, there is more than a good chance that I will produce something of artistic value. I will have created something that other people deem good enough to hang on the walls of a busy office building in the middle of downtown Miami.  That’s an accomplishment I never would have dreamed possible; a dream that would not be realized without the Recovery in the Arts Project.

Thank you Fresh Start Consumer Network of Florida. Thank you Department of Children and Families. And a special thank you to the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs.  You have no idea what projects like this mean to people like me.

A. Miryam Israel learning to paint at a Recovery in the Arts workshop.