Jade Creelman: Many Medications for a Muddled Mind
In response to Carolyn Lazard’s CRIP TIME (2014)
Artist Statement: This piece is one that I did digitally, using a set of oil paint brushes. I chose this medium because I believe that the oils best communicate the way I felt while creating this piece. Many Medications for a Muddled Mind is a self-portrait, featuring a few of the medications that I have been on since starting my mental health journey. Some of these medications did nothing, and others did far more harm than good. I find this to be very interesting, as these medications were meant to balance me out, stabilize me, but instead, they threw me even further off balance, with some of them even worsening my condition. Medications for mental health can both help and harm, as with any medication, but I feel as though people don’t think about the fact that they can permanently alter your brain’s chemistry if you mess around with them too much, and many people have no choice but to mess with them frequently, as they just want a sense of normalcy.
Artist Bio: Jade Creelman is a Saskatoon-based artist that experiments with many mediums, from poetry to photography, but she always finds herself coming back to painting, especially with both oils and watercolours. Her art typically focuses on her struggles with mental health and her perception of the world through the lens of her synesthesia. She thinks, feels, and lives in colour; always using it to emphasize thoughts and emotions. She has done work with Future Artistic Minds, an organization that has given her a lot of direction in her art, and she has also done with Chokecherry Studios, typically revolving around advocacy and amplifying voices that may not have the volume they should have.
About the project: Chokecherry Youth Response is a partnership project between Chokecherry Studios, Remai Modern and PAVED Arts. The project asked for submissions from youth-artist participants inspired by a single work in the exhibition, An apology, a pill, a ritual, a resistance. Ten emerging artists took on the challenge and got to work creating new pieces that respond to the exhibition’s multifaceted exploration of health and healing.