15 Comments

What a wonderful piece to read. I don't know anyone else who edifies people who are struggling with mental health. Thank you!

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Thank you so much for that comment. It made my heart happy to feel seen.

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Thank you for the mention! I really enjoyed our interview, because it was an opportunity for me to look inward and think about my "why" around art. That process is usually subconscious.

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I always hope that is what comes out of it. I was actually just introduced to an academic methodology called organic inquiry that’s rooted in the idea that the interview can be mutually transformative.

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Nice!

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Thank you for the mention, and for letting me participate! I found the interview very thought provoking. A lot of your questions made me have to articulate certain things in a way I hadn't previously.

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I really always hope it’s as helpful for the artist as it is inspiring for me

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Hey Kathryn, thanks for featuring my interview in this post :) It was a pleasure to work with you on this and helped open my own eyes to what my writing means to me. Hope you're doing well <3

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Wonderful to hear that. I really loved looking back at your interview and thinking over some of it again.

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This was a roundup of excerpts from interviews that I conducted with people already. Thanks for sharing your link, though - I'm excited to check this out since it obviously relates to so much of the work I'm doing. As you can see at the bottom of this post, interviews are open again; there are links there if you're interested in more info.

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Incredibly interesting. So much talk of healing. I have a disorder and healing isn't something I try to achieve. Being bipolar is something I try to live well with.

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I live with double depression so that makes a lot of sense to me. What’s interesting is if you read the original interviews we talk a lot about the impact of mental health in creativity which includes many challenges but then when asked at the end of interviews about the relationship between art and mental health most people do return to a comment about healing. I think the idea is more often that art soothes, connects, offers self expression, adds joy rather than healing in the sense of not being challenged any more. If that makes sense?

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Art for me is kind of meditation. One with the drawing. Good for not just my mental health but also adhd and asd.

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I practice a lot of mindfulness crochet so that resonates for me for sure

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