← All Of It with Alison Stewart
All Of It with Alison Stewart
An Exhibit on Governor's Island Destigmatizes the Use of Medication (Mental Health Mondays)
00:16:19
An Exhibit on Governor's Island Destigmatizes the Use of Medication (Mental Health Mondays)
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McDonald's Customer
Certified to operate by Chev I'mma put you on, nephew.
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Allison Vega
All right, unc. Welcome to McDonald's. Can I take your order, miss?
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McDonald's Customer
I've been hitting up McDonald's for years. Now it's back. We need snack wraps. What's a snack wrap? It's the return of something great. Snack wrap is back.
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Our state has changed a lot in the last 140 years. We know because Multicare has been here guided by a single purpose, making our communities healthier. That comes from making courageous decisions, partnering with local communities to grow programs and services, and expanding healthcare access to those who need it most. Together, we're building a healthier future. Learn more@mycare.org.
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Interviewer Alison Stewart
You'Re listening to all of it on WNY. I see. I'm Alison Stewart. If you find yourself at Governor's island this weekend, you might find yourself in front of a bunch of discarded orange pill bottles. But these aren't litter. They're part of an inventive and intentional community art project spearheaded by artist Allison Vega. The installation is titled Meditations on the Pill Bottle Project. For weeks, Allison Vega and the Fountain House Gallery have been collecting empty pill bottles to repurpose into art meant to provoke the thoughtful conversations about mental health treatment, insurance and sustainability. In the hands of Allison Vega and some of her fellow artists, these pill bottles become chandeliers, mosaics, wearable art, even chess pieces. It's all part of a Governor's island residency for Fountain House Gallery, a gallery that supports and uplifts art by those living with mental illness. And the exhibit is really touching the lives of those who participated. When one pill bottle donor learned that Alison had turned her bottles into a chess set, she sent Allison this note. I have several Chronic illnesses and autoimmune diseases. I feel like I play a game of chess with my body every day, trying to figure out how disabled I will be. That day will task I do not do or do first before I can move, or am I in crippling pain? The visual is very impactful with your art. You have totally represented the emotional experience people have. Thank you. Meditations on medication. The Pill Bottle project is on view at Governors island at Noland Park 8B through August 11. We are speaking of it as part of our series for mental health Monday. I'm excited now to be joined by Allison Vega. Alison, nice to meet you.
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Allison Vega
Thank you so much for having me.
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Interviewer Alison Stewart
And Fountain House gallery director Rachel Weissman. Nice to see you, Rachel.
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Rachel Weissman
Hello.
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Interviewer Alison Stewart
So, Alison, your life changed after you discovered you had a brain tumor. If you wouldn't mind sharing what happened and how has that experience shaped your art?
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Allison Vega
Well, I was a Math teacher for 22 years, and then I had kind of a mini stroke, and they discovered that I had a blood vessel brain tumor, and I needed brain surgery. And I did not realize how much the tumor and the surgery had changed my personality. So I kept trying to teach for another two and a half years. At the same time, I developed this compulsive urge to make things. I didn't know if it was related, but eventually I realized I could not teach. People's reaction to me was not what I was expecting. I felt like people were playing a trick on me or something. I was not being heard the way I thought I was being heard. So I was asked to leave, and I could not teach anymore. Eventually, I found Fountain House Gallery, and it turns out the things that I was making were art. And I found my home.
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Interviewer
Rachel, what kind of support and resources does Fountain House provide for artists like Alison and other people who are struggling with mental illness or a brain injury or anything you need to help them with?
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Rachel Weissman
Yeah, absolutely. So we strive to provide, you know, kind of a litany of different resources and really meet our artists where they're at kind of in their careers or in their relationship to art making. So we have exhibition space, a gallery space on 9th Avenue, and we stage exhibitions there oftentimes with external curators from the New York City, like, art community. And we also have a studio space in Long Island City. And so anyone who has tried to hack it as an artist, particularly in New York, knows how difficult it is to try to, you know, get the space that you need. And so our space in Long Island City, you know, provides residency programs, materials, all Sorts of things so that individual artists can kind of pursue their own practice with some elbow room.
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Interviewer Alison Stewart
Alison, you said you were. You felt compelled to make art. What were you gravitating towards? What were you picking up pieces of? What were you working with?
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Allison Vega
I was literally picking up pieces of garbage from the street. I was. My husband would say, no, you can't have that. I was looking at my feet a lot because I was falling a lot. So I was trying to be careful, but I kept seeing gloves. And, you know, I started carrying plastic bags out of precaution. But I had always suffered from, like, major depressive disorder. So the picking up things, the losing my job, the reception, I just. I lost it. I think I just. Yeah, so I didn't even know it was art. I just had a compulsion to make things. I made dioramas. I found shoeboxes. I just put things in them.
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Interviewer Alison Stewart
You started collecting things and making art of the things that you collected.
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Allison Vega
Exactly. I had always. Excuse me. I had always sewn and knitted. But I found, you know, even in recovery, I was trying to knit, and I couldn't follow a pattern anymore. So. Yes, but I was so arrogant that I assumed there was something wrong with the pattern. I wrote a letter to the pattern company saying, there is something wrong with this. I can't do it. And. Yeah, so my artwork. What I realized my artwork was. Became much more organic.
- [07:33]
Interviewer Alison Stewart
This is the second year the Fountain House Gallery has been an organization in residence at Governors Island. Rachel, what's been successful about this partnership? Why do you think it's important to have this art in public spaces like on Governor's Island?
- [07:47]
Rachel Weissman
Yeah, so we love being out on Governor's island. And I think a really crucial or critical component of the gallery. Of course, we have our gallery space on ninth Avenue, which is fantastic. And we are working with artists within this contemporary art scene in New York. But we also are there for advocacy. We really want to be ambassadors for Fountain House as an organization and really there to help reduce or completely eliminate stigma around individuals living with serious mental illness. And so being out on Governor's island is just another venue for us to bring some of that advocacy. And it'll allows us to be a little looser with it, too. You know, the gallery we have, you know, very polished, maybe cerebral exhibitions, things like that. And Governor's island allows us an opportunity to just engage with people who, you know, are maybe primed to be looking for an activity or something. Right. They're looking for a kind of a day trip in the city but we can really, you know, interact with a different type of public.
- [08:53]
Interviewer
I'm speaking with artist Allison Vega and Fountain House Gallery director Rachel Weissman about the art installation Meditations on Medication, the Pill Bottle Project, which on view at Governor's island through August 11th. Let's talk about the pill bottles. What inspired you to make art out of pill bottles, Alison?
- [09:11]
Allison Vega
One day I was ready to get my refills, and I realized for my depression and brain injury, I take a total of six medicines a month. And I laid out all the empty pill bottles, and I was like, that is a lot. And I took a picture, and I doubled the picture, and I quadrupled, you know, and then I posted it on Instagram as a story, which I don't know how I did it, because. And it was the first time I've ever done a story, but I was just like, I take all of these, and then if I was admitted to a hospital, which I haven't been in the last 10 years, a psychiatric hospital, they would have added a medication and that, I don't want to be on these medications. But my doctors say, why would you go off? And I just thought, all these bottles. And I belong to Fountain House, an organization for people living with serious mental illness. We have a lot of these bottles. We all use so many of them. And I realized they were not recyclable. We throw them in the trash. And I just thought, wow, what if we could see a whole bunch of them all at the same time?
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Interviewer
That's really moving when you think about it. Has it changed your feelings about medication, seeing all the bottles used in such different ways?
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Allison Vega
I don't know if it's changed my feelings about medication. It's definitely changed my feelings about climate change. I mean, I have always thought a lot about climate change, but the degree and the extent of the usage of these bottles has made me think more seriously. We've had doctors come through who say, oh, in our country, we don't even use these bottles. They use paper bags or they use blister packs or, you know, and I realized it's. We need to do something in our country about this.
- [11:11]
Interviewer
We've come a long way in understanding mental health as a society. Rachel, what do you think these sculptures say about medication?
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Rachel Weissman
You know, I think probably not one thing. Not one specific thing, at least. You know, we. There was one visitor who came in and sort of said, oh, like, every one of these bottles is a story. And I found that to just be such a succinct way to really. To really, you know, name what. What it is. Right. It's these. These bottles are so ubiquitous. Right. Even if you just, you know, have a sinus infection, you've, you know, had to have a relationship with one of these bottles, you know, kind of on a daily basis. And I think looking at especially the. The volume and transforming them into kind of these. These other objects or things maybe that don't feel wasteful or, you know, I think it. I don't know, it's provided a different lens, I think, to kind of approach medication. And for some people, you know, it's. We kind of invited the public, you know, positive, negative, neutral. Like, what are your feelings around medication? Because for some people, you know, it's.
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Interviewer Alison Stewart
Changing for some people.
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Rachel Weissman
Exactly. And it's. It's not something that I think, again, kind of returning to this idea of stigma. It's like there shouldn't be shame around taking medication. You know, I take three medications a day. That's fine. You know, and that's not something that, you know, it's. That itself is kind of neutral. It's just maybe what your relationship is coming into that or coming off of that, anything like that.
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Interviewer Alison Stewart
Alison, what was something with this pill bottle project that you didn't expect?
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Allison Vega
I guess one thing I did not expect was how engaged I'd become. I really thought I came up with the idea, I'll just step back and let everybody, you know, work on it. I was worried. I mean, I'm not. One of the problems with my brain injury is that I don't interact very well with other people. And I remember at the beginning, our social practitioner at the gallery, Mary McKevich, she said, maybe this would be a good opportunity for you to practice some of those skills. And I thought, okay. And so it has surprised me, even though it hasn't always been successful, how well I've done at interacting with everyone who's been involved, the staff, the artists, the public, the. You know, we've had a lot of obstacles and we've gotten through it, and I feel fantastic when you think about.
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Interviewer Alison Stewart
They're so different, all of the different sculptures. Rachel, would you share a couple of examples of the way the bottles are used?
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Rachel Weissman
Sure. So we have just to kind of, like, set the context. So on Governor's island, the exhibition space that we have is one of their historic mansions. So it sort of already is a little bit. I don't know, in. I would say it has historic charm. Yeah. You know, the paint is peeling. It's all these things. But, you know, there are These gorgeous fireplaces there. You know, it's very stately. And so some of the sculptures are sort of in step with that. So, as you mentioned at the top of the interview, we have some chandeliers that have been. Have been made. We have some different kind of, like, light features that have been adorned to the house. We have a pill bottle city, so we've, you know, constructed a skyline that may or may not look approximate to the New York skyline. But so I think really, a lot of the sculptures have sort of emphasized the. The volume of. Of the bottles. We have a kind of labyrinth on the upstairs floor that you can kind of walk through, where they're all staged in one space. We've had a lot of people who've created kind of more standalone objects, so lots of musical instruments. And some of the artists have also turned them into a lot of wearable art. So shirts and glasses, other types of ways to kind of engage with the bottles on the self, which is cool as well.
- [15:40]
Interviewer
We have all heard about art as therapy. How has art been therapeutic for you, Alison?
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Allison Vega
I don't think I could live without art at this point. It's just a part of my being, I think the most therapeutic thing. I spent two years alone in my apartment doing these things, and it was not necessarily very therapeutic to be so isolated. But when I found Fountain House and I began going there, it gave me a sense of purpose. I feel like I lost my identity when I stopped being a teacher and becoming a member of Fountain House, being valued, having my art be, you know, validated, appreciated, has been. It's given me a sense of purpose. I feel like I'm accepted, I'm included, I'm important, and I think that's what's been therapeutic about it for me.
- [16:44]
Interviewer
Rachel, what do you hope people leave this installation? Talking about, thinking about, communicating about.
- [16:52]
Rachel Weissman
I mean, I think if we were to distill it into, like, one message would be kind of a level of community responsibility, almost. Right? Like a responsibility to, you know, your fellow person who maybe is showing up with different, you know, medications that they've taken that morning, medications that they're, you know, trying to find the right dose of. And also, you know, as Allison said, I think a really critical part of this, too, is the system that we're sort of stuck in right now in terms of plastic consumption, you know, insurance, all of those other sorts of things. I think that's really that level of accessibility, right? What people can have access to is another really important component.
- [17:45]
Interviewer
I've been speaking with Allison Vega and Fountain House Gallery Director Rachel Weissman about the art installation Meditations on Medication, the Pill Bottle Project. It is on view at Governors island through August 11th. Thank you so much to both of you for coming to the studio.
- [18:00]
Allison Vega
Thank you for having us.
- [18:03]
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