I’ve suffered from severe depression since I was 18. When I was young it was confusing and scary; now I understand the signs and see a pattern.
There’s a nihilistic element in depression. When you’re happy, you’re suspicious of it. You torpedo your own life. For instance, I’d be in a relationship and move 3,000 miles away and not understand why it didn’t work out. You don’t trust being emotionally close to people so you throw a grenade into your emotional turret; you wreck it.
I go through periods when I wind up in a hospital. I was practically catatonic one time I came out. I just was not well. I was living in an SRO, just a shit hole. When you stop working, you lose everything and when you’re in the hospital for three months and you’re 38, it’s harder to pick up the pieces.
Then a gentleman told me about the art room (at Coast Mental Health’s resource centre on Seymour Street.) Here, people are really encouraging art; all of a sudden, I was doing something good.
I come here seven days a week. No matter how crappy I feel, I walk here like an automaton. I open the cupboard, take out my paints. Boom. Paint. Boom. Paint. I get rid of everything else and just paint.
Nothing, no medication, has ever done what painting has done as a therapy. I’m immersing myself in the vision on canvas and I fall into whatever aesthetic the painting provides. It goes where it wants to go. The thing you start with becomes a secondary element. You pull one thing out and the story is no longer about ‘this’, it’s about ‘this.’
If the painting is going well, it’s the best thing I’ve ever done. You’re in the joy. That’s why nothing I do is precious. Painting is the verb, not the noun; it’s the act of painting, it’s not the painting. It’s the act of doing it, not the end result.
They closed the art room for six months for renovations. It was a horrible time. I was working on an exhibit for Gallery Gachet and I had to paint at home. I’d go 36 hours straight but that’s not a good thing. With painting, you need the element of reflection. If you don’t, you start to crumble. You don’t have that editing angle sitting over your head saying ‘Don’t do that.’
This will sound like hyperbole but the art room may well have saved my life. This space was instrumental in stopping my collapse.
I believe we need to be given a chance but we also have to be responsible. It engenders a sense of worth. Nothing says ‘I’m getting better’ than getting something done."
Transcribed by Martha Perkins following a conversation at Coast Mental Health’s resource centre on Seymour Street. You can view his art at leefevans.carbonmade.com. Mental Health Week is May 5 to 11.
