"My parents encouraged us," Laura Anne begins as I ask her how she got started doing her art. Laura Anne and her brother are both artists. Her brother Lance has a BFA and Laura Anne is making strides in the outsider artist community. I ask if she has felt any competition in the family and she says, "It's more of a supportive atmosphere than anything else."
"Over the course of the last year, [Laura Anne] has been exhibiting more and developing a style that's unique—telling a story…outsider art is a complicated category of art…not arbitrary. [Outsider Art] is a natural fit for her; she brings new things to the table. She takes chances…and plays the game of art much like the game of life," says Francis Palazzolo, director of Hospital Audiences Incorporated's (HAI) art studio.
Laura Anne always suspected that she had a mental illness. It was when her mother died eleven years ago that she had her first psychotic episode. "I was really sad when she died…I was in a bubble that protected me from what I was really feeling…I was manic in this episode and then this terror struck me and I thought that someone was after my soul. I ran screaming from my grandmother's apartment and then the ambulance came."
Six days she spent in the hospital. She thought she was "in a party, not a mental institution." At the time she received a diagnosis of schizophreniform disorder, now it has been changed to schizoaffective-bipolar type.
Asked if she had a choice in naming her own diagnosis, Laura Anne says after some thought, "It would be a long, hard name similar to a physical illness." In relation to her creativity, she adds that mental illness, "leaves a person extremely vulnerable…and creativity brought joy back into my life, it has helped me work through my mental illness."
"To me, HAI is Frank and the workshop. Frank has guided the workshop into a safe place where people are accepted and not criticized; where people can be themselves whether realist or outsider."
When questioned about her vocational goals, Laura Anne says, "Not all people can work a 9-5 job and I guess for me, when I work I get extremely manic. I get three hours of sleep and it feels like I'm high. And then after two months straight, I crash and become depressed and then I get suicidal. Art helps me to avoid that. I am not lazy. I get up early—4:30-7:30 a.m.—I go to psychosocial clubhouses and Weight Watchers, Recovery Inc. and to about four art classes a week. I also do my artwork at home in addition to writing. And I belong to a sewing circle for Fresh Art (a non-profit org) where we make sock monkey dolls and we sell them to support Fresh Art.
"I've been in the hospital four more times and I don't need it anymore. All the community-based day treatment programs and my supports of friends and family as well as my art class [are all I need]."
"I'm ecstatic…this actually works!" beams Frank over Laura Anne's illustrations. "Getting the confidence to trust yourself," he reflects as he speaks to her. "I see how strong survivors of mental illness are—to know you stare down that cliff and come back. What potential!"