Fountain House Gallery and Studio Arts Project

Fountain House Gallery and Studio provides an environment for artists living and working with mental illness to pursue their creative visions and to challenge the stigma that surrounds mental illness.

Founded by Fountain House in 2000 as a not-for-profit exhibition space for its member-artists, the Gallery sells original artworks and collaborates with a wide network of artists, curators, and cultural institutions. Embracing artists who are emerging or established, trained or self-taught, Fountain House Gallery cultivates artistic growth and makes a vital contribution to the New York arts community.

Gallery artists have full-time access to the space where they can work to advance their careers while collaborating with others in a supportive setting. The Studio is open to the larger Fountain House community during designated drop-in hours.

Fountain House Gallery has attracted distinguished guest curators such as Agnes Gund, President Emerita of The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), who commended the Gallery as “a place where you can view fine works of art made by a group of excellent artists.”
Fountain House Gallery functions as a cooperative business run by and for its artists. Operations are supported by a small professional staff led by Ariel Willmott, Director, with the assistance of numerous community volunteers.

Works by Fountain House Gallery artists are included in the collections of Citi, Eli Lilly and Company, and The Estée Lauder Companies Inc.

Fountain House Gallery has participated in exhibitions in public spaces, including: the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; the Citi DeFord Gallery and lobby in Long Island City; and the World Financial Center Courtyard Gallery in Manhattan. Works by Gallery artists are presented at the annual Outsider Art Fair.
In this section, City Voices’ field reporter and artist in her own right, Jenny Chan, interviewed five member-artists of Fountain House Gallery with the following questions:
1) How long have you been an artist?
2) What is your medium?
3) What are your favorite subjects?
4) Who is your favorite artist and why?
5) Where was your first exhibit?

ALYSON VEGA

New York City-born Alyson is a fiber artist who taught herself to sew and quilt at a young age. She received a BA in Japanese Folklore and Mythology from Harvard University. After the effects of surgery for a benign brain tumor ended her 22-year teaching career, Alyson experienced a burst of creativity that brought her artistic ability to the fore. As a self-taught artist, she creates instinctively, incorporating in her work themes of decay and loss, transience, childhood and dreams. Alyson employs various techniques in her pieces and utilizes all types of fiber and found objects to express the beauty and order she perceives in a chaotic world. A number of her fiber works were acquired by collectors at a 2014 exhibition at the Eileen Fisher store at Columbus Circle. Alyson’s 2016 solo exhibition at the prestigious venue White Columns was a great success with critics and collectors. Her work was awarded First Prize in the mixed media category of the 2016 Art Ability show in Bryn Mawr, PA.

1. It's hard to say how long I've been an artist. I have always made things, but after I had brain surgery in 2007, I started making things that had no real purpose. I wasn't sure it was art until I started coming to Fountain House Gallery in 2013.

2. I wouldn't say I have a specific medium. I will use anything and everything, but I love making things out of fabric.

3. I enjoy making nature scenes and also cityscapes. I think most of my work is abstract.

4. I have always loved Paul Klee and Joan Miro. I also like Kandinsky and Mondrian. Recently, I discovered an artist named Hundertwasser. He's my new favorite. What I love about all of them is their use of lines.

5. My first official exhibit was in Fountain House's "Mad About Art" show in 2013. 

ANTHONY NEWTON

A signature of Anthony’s work is bold color, and oil is the primary medium he employs in creating his powerful and distinctive portraits. He studied at the Hussian School of Art in Philadelphia and also studied illustration at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). He has had one-man shows at Jadite Gallery, Cuchifritos of the Lower East Side, and Chashama, and he has exhibited at the Deshong Museum of Art in Chester, PA, the Art Culture Center in Brooklyn, and in NYU's 2008 Small Works show. He was a featured artist in a private exhibition at the LandAir Gallery in New York City, and Fountain Gallery presented his work in the two-person show Urban Faces and in the three-person show Body Language. Anthony’s work was included in an exhibition at the Education and Research Center of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA).

1. Since I was a little boy; not sure of the age.

2. Oils preferred.

3. Inner City poverty themes.

4. Jean Michel Basquiat because he was an artistic rebel.

5. My first exhibit was at Day O Restaurant now defunct in The Village (New York City), 1994.

BRYAN MICHAEL GREENE

Bryan works primarily in drawing and painting. As a youngster growing up in Yonkers, Bryan’s early artistic influences were cartoons and comics. He was a “doodler” and kept a sketchbook. While in grade school, he learned computer programming and began making images with the school’s Apple IIe system. Bryan studied figure drawing at the Art Students League, and he was awarded a BFA in Fine Art and an MFA in Computer Art from the School of Visual Arts.

1) My earliest memory of Art-making goes back to first grade. I was in school and I took the chalk and went to the board and started to draw circles, one on top of the other, circle after circle, trying to make the perfect shape.

2) Gouache, which is an opaque watercolor, and [plain] watercolor. They are very unforgiving mediums. You can't make any mistakes. So you have to focus on what you're doing at the moment. If you do mess up, there are few things you can do to correct the mistake. If you're painting with Gouache you can paint over the issue, but if you paint too many layers on top of each other, the paint will crack and peel. Watercolor is even more unforgiving. If you paint with watercolor, you have to think about the next two to three marks you will make because of layering, color combinations, and wetness.

3) The self portrait. Even though I make more income from a still-life, abstraction, or landscape, I like to express myself with a self portrait because I can make an image and not worry about how I look or whether the model will feel comfortable in the pose, or having enough money to hire a model in the first place.

4) I like all art. I have no favorites, heroes, or nemeses. The more I see, the more inspired I become. Visual art is about the visual and if you can grab the viewer in the first 15 seconds, I believe you have made a successful image.

5) My first showing was at the White Plains Women's Club. I entered four drawings and won third place.

JASMINE SOTO

Born in Lares, Puerto Rico and raised in New York, Jasmine is a multimedia artist who works in watercolor marker and colored pencil. She is a graduate of Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in Fashion Design with a specialization in Sportswear, and she also studied at The New School. Jasmine has worked in the garment industry and was honored with the Juan Eugene Ramos Hispanic Designers Award. She is inspired by the great master of fashion illustration Antonio Lopez. Jasmine has collaborated with fellow Fountain House Gallery artist Deborah Standard in creating wearable art.

1. I have been a participating artist at Fountain House Gallery since 2008. I have been in 17 exhibits.

2. Fashion illustration, digital photography, collage, and some acrylic.

3. Fashion-oriented or fashion-related, color and form.

4. Picasso because of his cubism (an early 20th-century style and movement in art, especially painting, in which perspective with a single viewpoint was abandoned and use was made of simple geometric shapes, interlocking planes, and, later, collage). I was amazed by his small works.

5. My first exhibit was at Fountain House Gallery in 2008. I sold a piece called “Grey Matters” (like your brain matters).

SUSAN SPANGENBERG

A self-taught artist, Susan is also an actor, writer and filmmaker. She performs under the stage name Shyla Idris. Her work is autobiographical, commenting on her experience in the mental health system as well as touching upon racial issues and other areas of social injustice. Susan works in acrylic and mixed media from small to large unframed work, including body prints, collage, and painting on found objects. Her work was recently shown in the City Arts exhibit in Nottingham, marking the first time that pieces by an artist working outside the UK were selected for inclusion.

1. I first started painting at the age of three.

2. I work in mixed media, primarily acrylic. My medium includes, but is not limited to: found objects, body painting, film, fabric and I also like to incorporate writing and objects such as my psychiatric meds & other pills in my art.

3. I like to do social, political work. Also iconic figures, personalities and animals.

4. I do not have a favorite artist. Growing up, I wanted to be an actor. My favorite artists were actors, and I still consider acting to be a high art form. However, If I were to choose a visual artist that moves me, it would be Yoko Ono. I love Ono's work because she is a conceptual artist with a brilliant mind. 

5. My first art show was at 'The Living Museum Open House' in Queens Village, New York in January of 1998. The Living Museum was an art program I used to attend, but was thrown out after I changed my mind about being the main subject of an HBO documentary.

Ward Stories: Poetry from the Mental Health community

Ward StoriesOrganized by Dan Frey, Editor in ChiefSix poets are featured in this Winter 2017 edition of Ward Stories: Carolyn Sanzenbacher, Debra Faes-Dudden, Carl Blumenthal, Susin Postovoit, and Matty Guerrero. Some poems are seasonally-themed, some upbeat, some clever, some positive, some raw, but all have something to offer as you sip your hot spiced wine by the roaring fire with our publication in hand (or on screen). Be well and have a safe and satisfying autumn and winter.

Autumn Pilgrimage

By Carolyn Sanzenbacher

It was not from disrespect that we smelled of musty earth when the pawpaw trees  felled fruits that oozed into engraver's cuts, rendering the headstones nameless and mute.Here is grandmother, we would say to one another,and there is aunt Vivian who died blind before sixteen, and there is Connard who didn't die from the fever like Vivian did. Others too, stared up from the stones weuncovered each autumn.The unrotted fruits were sweet like mangobut bitter near the peel. Seeking the edge between the two would twist our mouths in joy and throw us back on feather-veined leaves burying the stones we came to revive.Of those amber colored seasons when the acrid was so freely tasted and the dead so simply resurrected, little remains now but for the stones we used as pillows.Long silenced by passages of untasted fallings,iced by slow coming winters, then dried to burnt sienna before the next autumns came.

Living with Mental Illness

By Debra Faes-Dudden

How pretty a picture I would like to paint

Oh, to taste the meringue atop a lemon pie

Or the chocolate chip cookie just so warm from the oven

Mental illness is none of these

Not pretty, not melt-in-your-mouth, sweet and warm

It’s an isolated desert where many of us are lost

Our pockets are empty, our shoes weighted with sand

Our eyes tear out of grief and frustration

Panic makes our legs weak and some of us fall

Confusion is a constant itch when the pace of life gyrates too fast or too slow

And when we awake in the morning,

sometimes we don’t know where we are

Criticism is a cruel response from people

They see our struggle then turn a blind eye

Our voice ripples against seemingly deaf ears

They fear what they do not understand

This awareness does not decrease painful rejections we feel

Mental illness is chronic physical illnessDepression, anxiety, schizophrenia stand besidediabetes, fibromyalgia, asthma, and heart disease

All require patience, understanding, and ongoing treatment

We are all God’s childrenPlease treat us with respect

Here’s What Mood Swings Feel Like…

By Carl Blumenthal

Little Red Riding Hood devouring the Wolf.

Hansel and Gretel stuffing the Witch with bread crumbs.

The Three Bears ordering Goldilocks to bed without porridge.

Tom Thumb bulking up for the Olympics.

The Hare’s Adderall pooping out before the finish line.

Rumpelstiltskin forgetting his name due to Alzheimer’s.

The Giant grinding Jack’s bones for bread flour.

Snow White awakening by her Stepmother’s kiss.

The Wolf’s asthma saving The Three Little Pigs’ homes.

Pinocchio sticking his nose in one too many lives.

The Fisherman catching the Fish with his wife as bait.

Beauty turning into a Beast after the marriage.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf becoming a zookeeper.

Cinderella growing too fat for the glass slipper.

The naked Emperor being mistaken for a porn star.

Rapunzel losing her hair during chemotherapy.

The Goose Who Laid the Golden Egg getting constipated.

Humpty Dumpty rebounding from the fall of the king.

Flights of Fancy

By Susin Postovoit

Oh yes! 

Life's a mess,

I must now confess,

Instant highs caress --

They’re escapes, a mess.

Lies bound with tresses,

In plaits, then pressed.

Naughty! I should stress.

Knotty! to digress.

Lies naughty, useless.

Lies press and harass,

Lies that I suppress --

Ah! Not a success.

I'm flying, oh yes?

Still, nevertheless,

I dress for success --

A liar’s useless.

I'm a liar, I'd guess…

States the choir: Oh yes!

I'm Ready

By Matty Guerrero

I walked in,

Everyone expects me to be nervous,

But it looks like I've been doing this my whole life...

I have the talk,

And I have the walk.

Of course,

I'm scared to death in my head,

Not knowing what's going to happen.

But, oddly, that's not the right word for it...

I'm not scared.

I'm ready...

To face everything you throw my way.

I'm going to fight,

Until it comes out right.

So thank you,

For challenging me.

“Transformations: Seeking Clarity Through Art” at Maimonides Medical Center

“Transformations: Seeking Clarity Through Art” at Maimonides Medical Center
By Carl Blumenthal
Starts Rather than Stops the Show
“Transformations: Seeking Clarity Through Art” is an exhibit of works by 26 mental health consumers participating in art therapy at Maimonides Medical Center. It’s on display from June 2016 to May 2018 in the Marvin H. Lipkowitz Gallery on the second floor of the Community Mental Health Center, 920 48th Street in Brooklyn.
Creative arts or expressive therapies (art, writing, dance, music, drama, etc.) enable those of us living with mental illness to heal when talk therapy and medication aren’t enough. Research suggests creation and appreciation of the arts stimulate neural pathways essential to psychological well-being.
At the opening on May 12, the staff of the Psychiatry Department, and the Division of Therapeutic Activities, in particular, eloquently praised the artists, who returned the favor. However, the paintings speak as loud, if not louder, than the words in each artist’s statement.
Arts therapists once helped psychiatrists interpret patients’ illnesses. For this exhibit’s catalog the staff writes, “Within art therapy groups, clients demonstrate a willingness to take risks. They discover images that they find personally important and explore the art materials which they feel are best suited to express them….The artwork serves to “transform” personal process, and growth towards healing and recovery.” So the meaning of the product doesn’t count the way it used to.
As a former inpatient and current outpatient at Maimonides, I was surprised by the tranquility expressed in these works, as if the anguish of mental illness had been banished from portraits of people, animals, and flowers as well as urban and natural landscapes. Miriam Gilbert, a psychiatric nurse, explained, “The black [gloomy] paintings aren’t hung because they no longer are needed [for healing].” What better definition of transformations!
Muriel Fenner writes in the catalog of “Reflections”: “I chose to sketch this portrait because when I look at her I see self-worth, relaxation, and peace in her eyes. These are things that I strive for every day.” Three and a half years ago she had never painted anything. While she now takes classes at Kingsborough Community College and other schools, Muriel said, “I still cross my fingers every time [hoping] the painting will come out.”
Eugene Himmelstein’s “Sabbath Candles Over Jerusalem” resemble flowery spires reaching toward heaven. Although he’s never been to the Holy City, his imagining is representative of the dreams and memories showcased here. Eugene told me “art is a form of self-renewal” as is the weekly lighting of candles meant to welcome the Day of Rest.
More than the usual group show, this one demonstrates an unusual camaraderie among the participants that also evokes hope and joy in observers. Even the pieces which appear to be exceptions to this rule demonstrate their creators are dealing well with stress.
In “Slavery of the Human [mind],” Enriqueta Figeuroa attires a slave with fine jewelry and clothing. Rosa Herreria’s “The Oven is Fixed” shows what was once broken between family members is mending. Esther Kamhi’s “The Mountain Top” is an uneven but colorful climb. Steven Koenisberg enlivens drab buildings with graffiti in “New York the Abstract City.” The “Wolf” of Lilliya Sinchyugova looks more like a cartoon character than a predator. And Debra Tillman transforms “Five Tarts” (ladies of the night) into extraordinary musicians.
Assuming the artists were at least initially untrained, they have naturally discovered styles which suit their individual needs. That elements of impressionism, expressionism, surrealism, pop art, etc. appear in their paintings doesn’t mean that they are copying from a textbook. Yet clearly these folks inspire each other.
In “Agnes’s Jacket: A Psychologist’s Search for the Meaning of Madness,” Gail Hornstein describes Heidelberg University’s Prinzhorn collection of creative works by European asylum inmates from the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Hornstein believes this “outsider” or spontaneous art told stories of unspeakable distress before expressive therapies became disciplines in the 1920s to 1940s. A seamstress, Agnes Richter stitched mesmerizing but indecipherable messages in her exquisite jacket, as if she desired but feared discovery. Hornstein declares such messages emblematic of the turmoil people felt within themselves and inside the mental hospitals where many were committed for life.
Why is this context important? Maimonides’ arts therapists now encourage and “celebrate the incredible strength, resilience and tenacity of all our artists…” Thus my peers are part of a long tradition from which they also depart in many ways.
Free to participate in art therapy when and how they please, their visual and verbal contributions are statements of continuing recovery, whereas the mentally ill more than a century ago were largely considered hopeless.
But today’s consumers share with earlier practitioners of “art brut” (raw art) a taste for complexity because neither mental illness nor the human condition is a simple matter. For someone like me who can barely draw a stick figure, their devotion to detail is more than realistic; it’s fabulous.
Therefore I highly recommend you witness these “Transformations.” “Seeking Clarity Through Art” is actually a mystery which, like Agnes’s jacket, is better seen than concealed.

The Bridge Group Artists at The Museum of Modern Art: “Finding Center”

The Bridge Group Artists at The Museum of Modern Art: “Finding Center”
By William Jiang, MLS
On the evening of Wednesday, February 10, 2016 I attended the opening of The Bridge Group Artists at MoMA on 54th Street. The display will be ongoing from February 1st through February 28th.
In attendance at the opening was Manhattan Borough President Gale Brewer, who has been supporting The Bridge for many years. She even mentioned she supported The Bridge when its original director, Dr. Murray Itzkowitz (who served The Bridge for 31 years as Executive Director, and then ED Emeritus until his passing in 2013), worked there. Carrie McGee, the assistant director of MoMA’s Community and Access Program spoke, as did Cynthia Wainwright, President of The Bridge. Susan Wiviott, The Bridge's CEO had glowing words for the artists. Karen Johnson, affiliated with the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church, spoke, as did Judith Rosenthal, the director of The Bridge's art program. Ms. Rosenthal talked about how The Bridge artists are unafraid to experiment with their art and how the act of creating art in a safe place can be very healing.
Leilani Yizar eulogized long-time artist and mentor at The Bridge, James Sneed. You could tell that Ms. Yizar was very emotional about Mr. Sneed’s passing, a fitting memorial for a man who donated twenty-six years of his life to a cause he believed in. Also, The Bridge artists Scott, Glen, Michael and Patricia spoke at the event, giving interesting perspectives about the art they created.
It turns out that The Bridge Group Artists, under the direction of art therapist Judith Raskin Rosenthal, ATR, evolved from The Bridge Art Therapy Program. This program provides a safe, supportive and therapeutic environment in which The Bridge clients can express themselves artistically and develop essential social skills.
The Bridge changes lives by providing help, hope and opportunity to the most vulnerable in New York City. The Bridge offers a comprehensive range of services to ensure that the 2,300 men and women who come to them for help each year receive the assistance they need to lead stable, healthy and productive lives. The Bridge is more than just housing. They help individuals with a serious mental illness, the formerly homeless, young adults aging out of foster care and veterans. They also have creative arts therapy that helps clients explore their creative side and develop a healthy way to process and express their emotions. Tonight's event allowed a number of The Bridge artists to shine at one of the most prestigious museums of art in New York and the world, the Museum of Modern Art. Bravo!