The Awakenings Project
Preface by ROBERT LUNDIN, Editor
I recall the days of strolling down the sidewalks between the five or so bungalows which made up the Tinley Park campus of the University of Chicago Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation. The cottages, as we called them, were arranged in an elliptical pattern and, having been constructed by the State of Illinois to house staff from Tinley Park Mental Health Center, were rather Spartan and drab. That belied the fact that some very fine and progressive work was going on there, led by a professor at the University of Chicago, Patrick Corrigan.
The Awakenings Project, the arts program from which The Awakenings Review was descended, had been perking along for nearly four years. We had seen a lot of success and had become very enthused with our work of creating vehicles for consumers to express themselves artistically. One fall day I met Corrigan in Cottage One and nearly simultaneously he and I brought up the idea of a new start-up, a literary magazine for writers and poets who lived with mental illnesses. So, then and there The Awakenings Review was hatched, in the center’s main conference room, with Corrigan and me sitting behind a conference table in swiveled chairs, roughing out a budget to get the first issue underway. I knew from the start that I wanted the enterprise named The Awakenings Review, and with a little bit of nudging, Corrigan went along.
Behind us on shelves in the conference room were copies of the Center’s academic journal, Psychiatric Rehabilitation Skills. I had been managing and editing this small publication for several years at the center, and we had been gracing its covers with art that we acquired from the Awakenings Project artists. In the course of this work I had become familiar with the printing industry. The issue was where to find material. As weeks went by, on my desk lay stacks of multi-colored Psychiatric Rehabilitation Skills but next to them only a small stack of submissions to The Awakenings Review.
Eventually we used all the resources at our fingertips and managed to assemble enough material, primarily from friends and acquaintances, to fill a small perfect-bound publication. There, on our inaugural cover, was a reproduction of a drawing by Trish Evers entitled “Eldest Daughter.” The image of a cherubic young girl holding out a wishbone, adorned with the phases of the moon, was striking and completely right for the first edition. The printing went smoothly, we sent them out, sold as many as we could, and prepared for what was to become the next 10 years of publishing The Awakenings Review.
The Awakenings Project comes in four divisions: fine arts, music, drama, and literature. I can’t recall exactly how these divisions emerged except that Awakenings saw its mission as supporting people with mental illnesses “in art in all its forms,” and these were the four forms that seemed to make sense.
Fine arts and literature have been well represented in Awakenings’ activities. The first Awakenings Art Show, from which The Awakenings Project came forward, three years before The Awakenings Review, was just that: an art show. This was in 1997. NAMI of Illinois rented meeting rooms for their annual conference at a small but well appointed Hilton hotel in Naperville, Illinois, and offered us the use of the hallways. We, expecting the Awakenings Art Show to happen only one year, rented nearly everything: dozens of art stands, a U-Haul truck, a dozen easels. Nearly fifty artists found their way that year into what was one of the most exciting celebrations of art that I have ever witnessed. The hallways were packed with colorful and poignant works, such as “Symbols of Peace” by the late Naperville artist Kurt Taecker, a blue and yellow and white work on oil from which an angel and a dove take form. And in contrast was the late William Alexander’s troubling “Death Groan,” a signature piece for the show, with intense green, white, and red eyes staring from a skull-like screaming face comprised of yellow and red paints melded together.
Likewise, Awakenings Music had had its brilliant moments. Cellist Mandy Rakow has played at numerous art shows and Awakenings activities as has guitarist Mark Hull. In 2002 Awakenings was a beneficiary of a dashing recital by Wheaton College pianist Karin Redekoop Edwards who played selections from composers known, or thought to be known, to have mental illnesses. Her recital included works by Scriabin (1872-1915), Schumann (1810-1856), and Poulenc (1899-1963).
Awakenings Drama has a brief history. Some of our members are affiliated with the Access Project, a program for playwrights with disabilities at the prominent Victory Gardens Theater in Chicago. Our work in drama has been underwritten by moneys raised by three groups of student playwrights at the University of Illinois at Urbana: Penny Dreadful Players, What You Will, and the New Revels. First Liz Rice and then Mark Pajor, producers, invited us down there two years in a row to share our art with their audience, and they donated the proceeds from their plays to our Drama fund.
The Awakenings Project is celebrating its 15th anniversary this fall at a large boat house at the scenic Lake Ellyn in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. We will reaffirm our commitment to artistic expression by people with mental illnesses, a mission that has seen us through a decade and a half of important work.
Copyright (c) 2012, The Awakenings Project
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