- Painting for me provides that sense of control
that my mental illness robs me of.
Super excited to have everybody here with us today
and appreciative.
We started this with two things in mind:
to try to change the conversation around mental health,
and bring creativity to people, because it can be life-changing.
Creativity is something that can help everybody.
And mental health is something that impacts everybody.
How about if the answer to mental health issues
in this world, is prescribing more creativity?
- This is “Catalysts,” a show about the changemakers
tackling our biggest problems.
- I grew up here in Rhode Island and I was a good athlete.
I was recruited by the Ohio State University and went there
on scholarship to play tennis.
I'm a junior at college and tried to compete at the highest
level, and you know, my mind was being overtaken
by these terrible obtrusive thoughts—
fear, panic, misunderstanding.
Found my way to a, you know, a psychiatric hospital, hospital, and you know,
and, you know, immediately was diagnosed with OCD.
I did what I think any good athlete would do.
You know, I sucked it up, and I got worse.
It impacted my life significantly.
I'm coming home from work one day, and somebody calls me
and says, “Hey, Jeff,
I heard painting might be good for your health.
Why don't you try it?”
I never painted a day, in my damn life!
But you know, when you're desperate, you'll try anything.
So I rerouted, went to the paint supply store
and picked up lots of supplies; came home
and you're looking at the Forrest Gump of painting.
Never stopped.
The first time I picked up a paintbrush, it felt damn good,
even though I had no clue what the hell I was doing.
And to have your soul invigorated, even for a little while,
can be life-changing.
I said, “You know, look I paint.”
I said, “It makes me feel good.”
I said, “Maybe it’ll help somebody else.”
At that point we started our nonprofit early on.
We would take it anywhere.
Next thing you know, we get hundreds of requests,
and we are impacting a 100,000 people.
- So this is an expressive arts workshop.
We're going to go on a journey together.
I'm Jose Rosario, and I will be facilitating this.
PeaceLove is a nonprofit that provides
different types of expressive arts experiences
for folks to make stuff and feel better.
But we do that through different art modalities.
So things like painting and music and writing.
Today, we're going to be working with
the shoes in front of you, and these will be your canvas.
Anything you want to do,
anything you want to use on this table—
it is your journey to go on.
Folks are going to be participating in story shoes today.
Basically, what we do is we put out a shoe in front of them
and we tell them, “We want you to
create a story on the shoe that represents your journey.”
- I think creating art is one of the most vulnerable things
you could possibly do, and I'm not particularly an artist,
so it's always nerve-racking,
but I'm really excited to be in the present moment for once,
and not worry about anything other than
what I'm currently working on.
- I can actually take a breath.
I don't have to worry about the kids.
I don't have to worry about the business.
It's kind of my time.
And in this moment, you can reprioritize what's important.
- Really excited about today because
hopefully I can learn new
tools as to how to use my creativity,
to help me with my anxieties.
- You invite people into a safe space where there is no
judgment that allows people to utilize their creativity
as a way to express themselves.
And somehow that gives you the courage to just, ‘be,’
and once you can just be,
then you have the opportunity to find some peace of mind.
- I'd wear 'em. - You will wear them?
- I'd wear ‘em, sure.
- When I'm watching people in a workshop,
the reason I probably light up and I get so excited
and so emotional is
I relate to every single one of those people.
I relate to the struggle, I relate to the pain.
I relate to the hope they feel.
I relate to how creativity and touching it,
feeling it, is changing them.
That's a beautiful thing.
- This is my shoe.
I really like all the nature pieces, and a part of my journey
is I'm a person in long-term recovery from substance use.
Um, so I got really disconnected from what
used to make me happy.
And that was playing in the woods and being a kid and being
connected with nature, and when I finally came to recovery,
I really, I rerooted myself into nature.
I feel like it's one of the only places in the world where I
could feel fully present, and like look down at both of my feet
and everything that's surrounding me, all the foliage,
the moss, the flowers.
It's just very beautiful.
- You know, I'm learning a lot about myself,
just being that poor kid growing up and not wanting to be
poor, and now success looks like being happy.
- And then I kind of left the rest of the shoe blank of—
this is the rest of my life that I get to figure out.
- What happened today was incredible and, like, special.
We saw a bunch of strangers coming in,
completely unsure what to expect and the ways in which they
were able to connect with each other when they were sharing
and when they were creating,
and then when they were presenting their shoe, I mean,
we saw real human connection happening.
That's healing in action.
And that's the magic of the work that we're doing here.
- Wellness and hope comes sometimes in the smallest
stroke, or you know, piece of creativity.
It’s the little things.
And what we've been able to do through those experiences is
give people opportunity to maybe have one of those moments.
And those moments can change someone's life.
I've been doing this for 12 years and, you know,
different variations and different workshops and different
experiences, but it all has one underlying,
you know, commonality.
At the end of the day,
you see the beauty of people finding some peace of mind,
of finding some hope, some relief, some courage—
all the things that are just so wonderful.
Everybody is a creator, we all have it within ourselves.
Challenge is to tap into it,
take advantage of it and utilize it,
and you know, if we can inject
more creativity into our lives,
there is no better medicine.