Winnie Czulinski –
Almost every inch – the walls, tables and ceilings – of this former karaoke bar at 793 Gerrard Street East is adorned with colour and creativity.
Creative Works Studio is a community-based therapeutic program offering healing and recovery through the arts for people living with mental illness and addictions. Here, the pain of bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, substance abuse and isolation can be eased for a time.
Program manager Claudia Forbes says, “One individual has been coming to the studio for several years, just for the community. Only recently we’ve discovered he’s a great artist. I don’t believe he even knew this.”
Up to 15 members may come in each day to create arts ranging from ceramics/sculpture to painting, drawing, fabric-dyeing, headband-making, photo-transfer collage print and more.
For Bill, who has anxiety and autism, art was something he did in high school; “then it went away.” Today, he’s an active landscape painter, and makes small personalized books of art and story from multi-folded paper. “(Being here) is an opportunity to spend time with people, make friends, make some kind of contribution, express myself.”
There are healthy snacks, morning exercises and mindfulness sessions. Artists say things like, “This is a welcoming place, like a family. A safe place.”
Staff also reflect a sense of belonging. Studio lead/artist Ximena Moreno, who felt her Chilean and Canadian cultures conflict, says, “A lot of my work was figures that had two faces. Whatever I was going through really came out in my work, from a deeper place.
“That’s when I decided, wow, art is so powerful I want to help people with it.” She took a three-year expressive-arts therapy program.
“As an occupational therapist and artist, I really believed how powerful creative activity can be,” says Isabel Fryszberg, who began Creative Works Studio as part of St. Michael’s Hospital Inner City Health Program in 1995. Fryszberg, also a musician, saw arts were the first thing cut in schools, “but to me it’s a life force. What makes a culture alive are the arts.”
CWS occupied locations on The Esplanade, Queen Street East at Broadview Avenue and Logan Avenue at Dundas Street East before moving to Gerrard Street. It was a long process of learning and researching other arts facilities, with support from advocates and grants.
Creative Works Studio now is run by Good Shepherd Non-Profit Homes Inc. (550 Queen Street East), which provides permanent supportive housing and community-based programs to vulnerable individuals.
Such people speak candidly in Fryszberg’s documentary film What’s Art Got to Do With It? Some studio members also became part of a 15-piece band called the Social Mystics. A decade’s worth of songwriting from Wednesday-afternoon music sessions resulted in the album Coming Out of Darkness.
When Melanie came to Creative Works Studio, she felt she “was in a bottomless pit, with psychosis, paranoia. I thought people were out to get me, talking behind my back. I was delusional.” She began sculpting, learning her craft, and ultimately selling angel figures.
Another artist in Fryszberg’s film, Linda, had planned to kill herself. “From one train wreck to the next, I had no reason to live, and was putting things in place, with a date…”
Then she began going out with a camera, uploading images to her computer to see the beauty of flower closeups and her own artistry. “I was amazed.”
Several years ago, the cost of inpatient care in a mental-health facility in Toronto was over $1,000 per person per day, while a three-hour session at Creative Works Studio cost $78. The studio, supported by donations, is actively involved in research, education and outreach, reducing stigmas – and brings its art therapy into other neighbourhood initiatives such as the Anishnawbe Centre and Good Shepherd Ministries.
Since 2007, the annual fundraising auction Art Gems in support of Good Shepherd’s Creative Works Studio has raised over $2,000,000 for this life-changing mental health program. The event features pieces by professional artists, and a silent auction of art by studio members.
Artist Di H., thrilled to be included, contributed a testimonial: “Creative Works Studio has been a space of healing, growth and self-discovery for me, and I’m truly grateful for it.”
These new artists have improved their life skills and sense of well-being. They have their own independent shows, participation in juried shows, and private commissions. Some have gone back to school; some find their sense of illness or depression no longer dominates.
“When I came here, I was finished, done with,” Linda says. “Now I don’t want to die! There are so many things I want to do.”
