Art and Mental Health Interview with Photographer/Painter/Writer Terry Lee Nelson

"I worked and wrote and drew a little and survived over the next six years completing 35 works on canvas and six books in the Franklin Diaries."

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Terry Lee Nelson was generous enough to share their story with me about the relationship between art and mental health in their life. Sometimes I edit pieces like this for conversational flow but I was really moved by the stream of thought sharing that Terry offered. So, in Terry’s own words:

“I started photographing at seventeen by then I was already hearing voices arguing with me in the back of my head. On my first outing I broke two cameras. Fast forward thirty five years and you find me. You see I was raped at twelve and as it would turn out that would slowly drive me into madness. I’ve been in and out of the hospital seven or eight times. That’s where I got my diagnosis schizo affective I’ve seen things you wouldn’t believe exist in this realm and others. All along the way I was creating art. This story is really better with illustration. The first drawing of mine was a pastel where I started drawing ones and filled in with a blue background when i looked at it I saw a self portrait. It hangs in my bathroom to this day. I continued photography first in portraits then in commercial photography and found acclaim and was able to make a living. I’m internationally shown as a photographer. I managed to stumble through life thanks largely to the my discovery of marijuana at sixteen and my continued use till this day. Then in 2000 my girlfriend wanted to break up with me and in desperation I told her I was raped to get her to stay. She stayed for another day a breakup I can handle what came after the confession I wasn’t ready for. The first effect was that I started biting my teeth so hard at night that I crushed all my back teeth out. I also had mania mixed with depression those manic feeling made me make some bad decisions and I lost my job. I had to move back home paranoid and manic I spiraled back and forth landing in the hospital for the first time. There I got to rest and delve into medicine and experimentation as the doctors tried to put a label on it. Released and back home on January one 2010 I started painting my first painting the king meets the rabbit is an abstraction and when I hung it on the wall I immediately saw the story of a king sitting in his throne and a rabbit coming into his presence. My second painting done the next day was completely different awash in blue the storm it’s name is about what comes with love. You see I had recently fallen in love with Azure her name for our purpose. And during our romance I created fifteen works still photographing all the way then I went manic and ruined everything by asking Azure to marry me in the most psychotic way. All the paintings show the same pattern of two characters interacting one usually on the right is male on the one on the left is female I managed to have a tenuous relationship with my parents because i was living in their basement and cycling between depression and mania until they kicked me out I wandered the streets for a couple of hellish months as I struggled to keep a grip on reality landing in the hospital again there I was allowed a journal and this little wiggly pen. I wrote something I did since 2010 about life a mix of short stories and poetry then one day I drew a little sketch of entertwineing circles this element is important as became a dominant motif in the works to follow. Out of the hospital and back to homelessness I lived at the shelter for two months and got a sketch pad of watercolor paper a pack of pens a watercolor pallette and a brush. Manic I created work after work all 8.5 x 11 I drew a lot of circles. I spent two years on the street working the whole time.I camped squatted in an abandoned house for awhile stayed in hotels and shelters until I wound up in hospital again here they found my correct medication a shot once a month. Out and homeless again I stayed in shelters until I found a charity willing to pay the deposit on an apartment it was in the worst neighborhoods in town and it was cheap for a reason crackheads prostitution dealing extortion homeless these were my neighbors. I spent twelve years in that cock roach infested place. I got on disability and started getting an income after saving up in 2016 I bought a canvas and painted my first painting of the mercury movement series. Still the two characters appear in the works of a certain style I do. But I try to make each painting original and go from technique to technique between paintings my circles still playing a major role. In 2015 I had filled my sixth journal and went and bought a new one. I sat on the porch and tried to decide what to write and that’s where the Franklin Diaries came into existence a chronicle of my journey from hell to heaven it currently stands at seven books written in one page prose completely train of thought. I wander through how I deal with the issues at hand from my rape to my Godhood. I worked and wrote and drew a little and survived over the next six years completing 35 works on canvas and six books in the Franklin Diaries. Then I got a letter saying I was getting kicked out by the new owner best thing I could’ve ever asked for I spent three and a half months homeless living with my parents until I got on hud and got my own apartment in moving I got rid of so much trash and my new place turned out to be the best thing that could’ve happened it the perfect size clean and well lit and I’ve been exploding my creative process and starting to have some success I’ve been stable for twelve years as long as I have been on this medication even though I continue to struggle with depression and the occasional mania.”

And in Terry’s Own Images:

What does the term mental health mean to you?

What does your own history of mental health look like?

What does creativity mean to you?

Connect with Terry Lee Nelson on Instagram.

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