Carlton's Jordyn Brown poses in front of six of her eight pieces of her painting collection "Neurodivergent." (Jeff D'Andrea/paNOW Staff)

By Jeff D’Andrea

Carlton students share their journeys with mental health and body positivity through paint and canvas

Feb 16, 2022 | 3:00 PM

Just before Tuesday’s unveiling of three new painting collections at the Wahkotowin gallery in the South Hill Mall, Jordyn Brown walked up to her section and tilted all eight of her pieces until each one had a unique angle.

“They’re supposed to represent me and my mind. I’m not perfect. So, I just didn’t want them to be perfect either,” Brown said.

Her collection is called “Neurodivergent,” one of three displays created by Carlton Comprehensive High School students as part of the schools’ Collection Builders for Social Justice program.

As Brown describes in her collection outline, neurodivergence is “a variation in the human brain that can affect different kinds of mental functions.” Mental illnesses like anxiety and depression fall under the neurodivergent umbrella, as do other conditions like ADHD and autism.

All of Brown’s pieces include a black background, to symbolize her anxiety and dark thoughts, with bright, vibrant circles and shapes to express what makes her happy. Some pieces include more black than others. Her piece on loss is entirely black apart from faint, wispy white circles.

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“The black is in all of the photos, anxiety is a part of me. It’s not like I can wake up one morning and have it go away… Sometimes it’s hard to let anxiety sink down, sometimes it takes over how you’re feeling in a day and sometimes it’s really hard to have a happy day and deal because of it, and it’s really complicated to deal with it sometimes,” Brown said.

The pieces with the biggest colourful circles are the ones representing her best friend and her family.

“She’s helped me through so much darkness. She helped me get out of it, and I don’t know where I’d be right now without her,” Brown said. “And with “Family/Acceptance” this is one of the ones with the biggest amount of happiness. They’ve also helped me through so much. It’s hard to think about a life without them.”

Emma Forseth stands beside her collection on mental health. (Jeff D’Andrea/paNOW Staff)

Melanie Mirasty helps oversee the Collection Builders for Social Justice. She put paint to canvas herself but wanted “some more pizzaz” and messaging added.

She tapped student Emma Forseth with the task. A two-canvas piece features ears and the word “listen,” to outline the importance of people going through struggles to take in advice, and a reminder to everybody to listen to those who need help.

Forseth wrote “don’t judge my mood” on the biggest piece, along with different hand-drawn emojis of positive and negative facial expressions, to allow for more room for those with mood swings.

“For people struggling with depression or lots of mood swings, it’s hard because it’s not you, it’s the illness that’s in your body that makes your mood change like that. You shouldn’t be judged by how you feel, even if you can’t control it,” Forseth said. “So if people could understand what’s going on with you — today might be their off day and, it may even help them to know what to do during these situations.”

Forseth said creating art like this can not only help others that are going through something similar relate, but also it helps the artist themselves.

“If using your artistic abilities can help you express how you feel, I think you should keep doing it. Sometimes, people can struggle with communicating, but they’re able to put a slab of paint on a canvas and it will help so much,” Forseth said. “It can help relieve anxiety or help explain something to someone. It will help a lot to make them better and help other people realize what they can do or ways that this is helping me.”

Oceana Fisher-James poses with her second collection for the Collection Builders for Social Justice, this one on body positivity. (Jeff D’Andrea/paNOW Staff)

Oceana Fisher-James’ unveiled her second collection on Tuesday, this one on body positivity. Her three-piece collection, divided into seven different canvases, is an abstract representation of different body types.

“It’s okay to be different. We’re all different and we all have different bodies, Fisher-James said about her second collection. “That’s a great thing, we don’t have to be embarrassed by it. We don’t have to shy away from being confident in our own skin.”

Although Fisher-James said she quickly chose the colours for the piece, they can be interpreted as a representation of genders with pink, blue, and the mixture of the two, purple.

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Jeff.dandrea@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @jeff_paNOW