Sometimes I get to feeling sorry for myself. Caught in the crossfire of contemplation or wedged between one idea or another. I don’t know what else to say without continuing to be vague and esoteric.

Since quarantine started I have loved making vision boards and collages that express who I am or my dreams/goals for the future. The collage in this photo is just something fun I made for a friend. I thought it would be cool to share this one because the collages do not always have to represent you. They can be fun photos you found on Pinterest or instagram that you can just throw together digitally or on a poster board. I would love anybody that is seeing this to create their own. Whether it’s digitally or on a piece of paper. Create something that speaks to you or that is just fun to make. Express Yourself!!

Last week, when Collin was given the opportunity to design an emotion wheel with images to represent each emotion, he instantly thought of “Little Miss Sunshine.” Little Miss Sunshine of course represents “Happy,” but some of the other characters like “Mr. Tall” soon became “Mr. Lonely,” mostly because he’s the only one at that height!
Collin’s creativity truly captures the emotions of these characters. 🙂

Artist: Collin

Bri’s favorite color is purple, last week she identified “feeling happy is the color purple,” so it was no surprise that when she designed her advocacy T-Shirt, she chose it to be purple. On the front of her shirt, she included a pocket square and on the back it says “To try is to succeed.”
A beautiful interpretation of breaking the stigma!
Artist: Brianna

It’s Okay to Talk  – Collin’s a big advocate for mental illness. One of his goals while designing his T-Shirt was to design a baseball tee for young adult men. He specifically chose this population because it’s very difficult for men to express emotion due to the stigma of needing to be strong and emotionless. He was inspired by OK2TALK.org which is all about advocacy and talking about mental health. On the front of the shirt, it says #It’sOkaytoTalk and on the back it says “No Man Left Behind”
Artist: Collin

Hailey created an emotional wheel using words that describe her life. Although all of the words are considered “negative,” she particularly chose words that most young people would relate to.
In each section, she drew and wrote dialogue between characters to represent each emotion.
For Example: Avoidance for Hailey looks like a pile of pages flying around everywhere and the character’s hands are covering her head, she says “If I don’t think about it, maybe it will go away?”

Artist: Hailey

Andre, created a T-Shirt that says “Love Thyself” and on the back of the shirt it says “Before You Love Another.” Part of the goal of this activity was to design a shirt you would proudly wear to break the stigma of mental illness. When asked who his target audience was, Andre said “Everyone!”
He believes it is extremely important to love yourself (thyself) before you love another. What a simple, but beautiful way to express self-love. 🙂
Artist: Andre

John designed a bright colored baseball T-Shirt that says “You be you” and on the back it says, “Only you can control you.” He’s absolutely right, only we can control our actions and thoughts. So why not be you? Let’s break this stigma!

Artist: Johnathan

You Are Not Alone in the Dark – Kim designed a gray T-Shirt that says “Shine a Light” with an image of a match in the pocket square glowing. On the back of her shirt, she wrote “Warrior, Fighter, Survivor.” Each word is written in the color of a flame. Bright and bold contrast with the dark T-Shirt, she is sure to stand out from the crowd! Kim shared with the group that she wants to bring this design to her NAMI chapter on campus to actually use this design for a shirt. What a great idea!
Artist: Kim

Perry, who requested to do an advocacy activity, created a T-Shirt that says “Authentic Strides” and on the front has an image of a shoe with wings and on the top of the shirt, colors of fire and light. On the back, he writes, “Each Step With Integrity.” Perry’s slogan/mission is “Be true, be you!”
His target audience is especially for those advocating for anyone who feels different. His goal is empowerment – no matter what your gender, sexuality, mental health, etc.

-Artist: Perry

Faded – Accidental Art – For someone who struggles with OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), it would seem terrifying and difficult to be told to spill water on your perfectly colored art. Collin faced the challenge and look now at the new creation this water did for it!

-Collin

Geometry – Accidental Art – Geometry may remind you of math class, but this is far from that! This piece was designed to show accidental art in a sophisticated and beautiful way.

Quilt Squares – Accidental Art – When life hands you water and markers, you make a mess!
This piece created by Val was designed to look like patchwork found on a quilt. Each layer is full of colors smeared together, but that’s okay. The anxiety was worth it! 😉

– Val

I Do What I Want -Art When I asked Hailey to name her art, she called it “I Do What I Want” because whenever we do a project, she does it however she wants. Creativity has no rules and she made this flawless piece of art by doing what she wanted.

Smudge! – Sara decided to do the impossible…smudge all of the colors she could and dousing the page in water. It takes incredible strength to let the water take over the art!

–Sara

Diamonds – Accidental Art – As young adults, we are taught to color inside the lines to make the picture look perfect. Diamonds – Accidental ArtThis time, we dripped water all over the art and Kim’s “Diamonds” accidental art now looks like beautiful stained glass!

–Kim

Life – This piece is colored in marker done by Ayo, young adult in the Middletown Young Adult Connection Group. She graciously energized the tree with color and let her imagination take it away.

-Ayo

Patchwork – This is a collective piece that looks like a quilt of ideas.

Each square is designed by Kim, Val, Shelby, John, and Nanii in 3 minutes.

–Kim, Val, Shelby, John, and Nanii

Geometric Girl – This is a collective piece that became triangle based. Each person added their touch in 3 minutes.

Someone even added in a face!
– Kim, Val, Shelby, John, and Nanii

The Not-So-Grim-Reaper – This was a collective piece done by Nanii and John in under 3 minutes.

One person stylishly drew a blossoming bouquet of colorful flowers and the other twisted the image with good ol’ Grim!
-Nanii and John

Menagerie – This collective piece became a menagerie of bugs, fish, food, etc. and in some way it ties together. Who says spiders can’t eat carrots?

-Shelby, John, Nanii, Kim, and Val

Flip Me Upside Down – This is a collective art piece completed by the young adult group.

Each artist contributed their own artistic talent to the picture, submitting their own touch to the piece in 3 minutes. This piece is called “Flip Me Upside Down” because the original artist started by drawing trees and hills, but the other artist turn the hills into trees.

Look from both angles and see the full image.
-John, Nanii, Kim, Val, and Shelby

The Calm Before the Shake – Steph unveils different expressions through her art.

This collage is truly a collection of herself – everything from the braille background representing being blind to the phrase “Positively Uplifting Energy”.

-Steph

Garden Slumbers: Collin used a magazine photo of a outdoor bed and turned it into a garden full of gentle words and phrases to represent someone when they feel calm and at peace.

-Collin

We decided to do collages for group one week and this young adult cleverly created an image full of inspiring words and creative phrases to represent to mind of the girl. #HeatherArt

– Heather

Splat – This dark inner circle describes a girl who has been challenged with many obstacles. Feelings of being forgotten, sadness, and the blank outer shell shown is nothing, but her true self to the world. In the mess of the darkness, she uses watercolors to share her messy yin and yang and the guard dog protecting her from the outer world.

Artist: Savannah

This piece was done by one of our group members at the Young Adult Connection Group in Middletown.

In this watercolor piece, you will see the inner child and soon the outer rings consuming the mind. Words plaguing the brain like “disordered eating” and “social anxiety” are just a few to describe what this young adult tries to hide from the world.
Soft colors mask the darkness behind this piece; blinding us to believe this is a happy, level-headed, lovable person.

Artist: Chelsea

This Picasso-like watercolor piece describes the broken mind of a person living with an anxious brain. In this mix of colors you will see both happy and disturbed, the trees and the masks she hides behind to prove she’s “kept together” and confident.

Artist: Valerie

When I started working on my trauma therapy, my therapist asked me to come up with an animal as my protector. I thought he was joking at first, but then I realized how important it was to have that spirit animal as my protector. Doing trauma work is incredibly exhausting and in many cases, scary because the past experiences are brought up.

This is Jasmine. She’s a black panther with green eyes and she is special. I decided to draw her because I wanted to show my support group how I envisioned Jasmine as if she was truly sitting beside me.

-Valerie

Owl and Spider – Once upon a time there was an owl named Peter who decided to eat a spider because he was hungry…

In our Young Adult Connection Groups, we often create art. One week we drew our “spirit animals.” One very talented young woman took the spirit animal test and resulted in being the spider. She decided to be a little more creative by drawing an owl eating the spider.

-Nanichi

Hey guys, we’re pretty excited to be adding a couple of new features to our website! We’ve added a Media Room as one of our latest features where you can see the most recent news or highlights, plus share your artwork or poetry. We hope to have a regular cartoon feature from our BFF Michael who is awesome–but please share your own wellness / recovery / coping art! You can access the Media Room from our home page or the menu bar at the top or bottom of any screen. Click Here to get right to the new page!

Also, we’re giving you a sneak peak at the new online resource locator map that’s been under development by young folks around the state. Check it out, rate the services or supports you’ve used, add any listings of programs & clubs you want to recommend! Hope you like it. 🙂

Help us make this resource map THE place to go find great stuff for young people in CT by sharing your recommendations! Add whatever locations or resources you think are missing, rate the programs and services you’ve used, etc. And tell your friends to check map.TurningPointCT.org out!

Please note: The map is still under development. We’ve got a team of young adults around the state adding new data all the time, but you can help by adding in your high school club, college wellness center, favorite youth group, job center, etc….

We are proud to announce that our young adult website, TurningPointCT.org, has won another award! We would like to thank Graphic Design USA for recognizing us in the 2015 Health & Wellness Design category. And a very special thanks to our design team at Taylor Design!

Click here to see more details on TurningPointCT.org’s award!

Warmline – Developed by JoinRiseBe & Advocacy Unlimited to connect young people to community resources, motivate our peers to move forward, and inspire hope by demonstrating the positive outcomes of recovery. Call 1855-6-HopeNow to speak with a young person who can guide you towards wellness. Available Wednesday, Thursday, Friday from 12-6pm.