Knoxville First Friday

Contact: Ashley Ogan
865-977-5646

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. , 2008

Knoxville art exhibit showcases local art therapy work

The Mental Illness Awareness Coalition is joining Knoxville’s First Friday Art Walk in October to showcase the impact of art therapy on Friday, Oct. 3 from 5-9 p.m. at 108 South Gay Street in Market Square in gallery space donated by Dewhirst Properties. The show will feature art created by consumers of mental health services through local art therapy programs.

Art therapy uses a variety of mediums, including collages, markers, watercolors, oil pastels, chalk pastels and clay, all of which will be on display at the exhibit.

“Art therapy uses many different art experiences and places more emphasis on the art process than the art product,” says Blount Memorial Emotional Health & Recovery Center art therapist Ray Evette. “It helps patients get in touch with their feelings, identify feelings and express feelings. It’s a different way of doing problem solving.

“Art therapy can benefit individuals in any age group who are dealing with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, addictions and eating disorders,” says Evette. “It’s different than just talking about issues and problems, it tends to give people more objectivity by allowing them to step back and look at something they’ve expressed on paper.”

Art therapy incorporates numerous experiences that are designed to help patients sort through feelings and look for answers.

One common art therapy practice involves decorating a plaster mask. “This is one way to symbolize taking off the masks that patients have been wearing to hide their emotional pain, stress and low self-esteem,” Evette says.

Patients work in teams to put plaster on each other’s faces which creates individual masks. Then in another session, patients can decorate their masks any way that they want.

“Some patients decorate the masks the way they were feeling before they came into treatment, some split the masks into before and after sides and some decorate the masks like they are feeling now, after treatment,” says Evette.

“You can tell the patients that have been in treatment longer,” he adds. “There’s more color, more symbols, more hope; which gives the new people hope, and reminds the people who are farther along where they’ve been and gives them a sense of gratitude.”

The first Friday event serves as an early kick-off for the Sunday-Saturday, Oct. 5-11 observance of Mental Illness Awareness Week, which focuses public attention on mental illnesses, their human cost, the underlying causes, new medical advances and the availability of treatments.

Information about local mental health resources will be available, and light hors d’oeuvres will be served.

Additionally, the Damon and Stella Foundation for Mental Health will have artwork on display that is available through an online auction at www.thedasfoundation.org. The Damon and Stella Foundation For Mental Health was founded in 2006 by survivors of suicide, and is an alliance of artists and health care professionals dedicated to expanding our cultural awareness of mental disease.

For more information about the exhibit or about available mental health services in the Knoxville area, call Blount Memorial Emotional Health & Recovery Center director Anna Shugart at 865-981-2306 or St. Mary’s of Campbell County community education manager Erica Troutman at 423-907-1227.

You can view photos of our first show here.