In celebrating another wonderful peer artist, My Voice Media Center Project has decided to recognize Michael K.'s dedication to his artistic journey. Michael K. is a bright and cheery individual who has brought so much to My Voice Media Center's goals and peer recognitions thorough expressive works and expressing his story. He enjoys learning more about art each time he comes and shares with My Voice Media Center much of the positivity found in art.
Enjoying scrapbooking and art journaling since he can remember at My Voice Media Center, Arts Consortium has been one of Michael's past times, creating works that truly represent a real subject matter, like "elements from the 70's", a project he was working on at the time of this interview. The art has to be representative of a subject matter that is important and stands out in his life. Deserving of this recognition has been "self-awareness" a topic that he feels is a journey that has caused him to ask important questions about life, like "When is everything going to get better?"
Expressing that once a person goes through a trial in life that it only seems that you may be "stamped with it". In recognizing it's "not" permanency, he says that "yes, that happened, but..." emphasis on the dot dot dot. After that, he decides to fill his journals with colors, with scraps, with collage, many different kinds of papers, paint art history, and fully recognizes the priceless nature of making this by hand and not on a digital platform, or by computer.
My Voice Media Center has a focus of an artistic journey, exemplified by Michael K., to be expressive in telling and learning how to tell their mental health journey through art and the connection therein. Connections to art, connections through peers and peers support, we strive to allow the expression of art to be a tool both in their artistic journey and in the mental health journey as well.
Mental Health and Art easily goes hand in hand in a journey towards resilience and wellness. In an interview with Michael K., he expressed that this connection to documenting his journey both in mental health and in art was an important thing to recognize. Michael K. told me a story about a time when black was all that he would wear due to a medical condition. He spoke with his counselor, connected the dots through mental health, wellness, and recovery to the dots in art and the art can be a tools to help fight the stigma of mental health through learning and creating new things at My Voice Media Center. He began wearing white, and then connected with a peer at My Voice and talked with them about tye dye. He did his own research. These bright new colors are what he said would "make them happy without even knowing it", referring to others as he would wear the bright colors to express himself.
(MORE ART COMING!)
Michael K has been with the My Voice Media Center since 2015. He has been with My Voice Media Center for a long time, three moves in total. The third move will happen soon as My Voice Media Center moves to a temporary location while a new building is built for My Voice Media Center Project. Along with housing designed for adults who hove lived experienced mental health, there will be a beautiful new building in place. (OUR PLACE OF TEMPORARY RESIDENCE IS TBA, or To Be Announced)
The journey that he has taken with us is important. It is important to continue to help grow and thrive. His advice to the new participant would be "to grab a cheap journal, start writing your book for you...use paints, use pictures, use scrap paper, use color, ... let it be your journey to something better. I say this because, your better is not someone else's better."
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