the Bipolar Village Gallery
Scott Hunt: Photography
I was in the USAF when trouble began to brew for me. After being discharged from the USAF in ’95, I was having great difficulties maintaining a job. My life was a roller coaster and I almost lost the love… Continue reading
Alexandra Petersen: Paintings
Alex Petersen is an artist living and working in Portland, Oregon. Being raised with a mother who was also an artist and teacher, art has long been a defining part of her life.
Alex works with encaustic over pen and… Continue reading
Lorelei Beckstrom: Paintings
Lorelei Beckstrom hails originally from Minnesota. After studying painting, sculpture, and graphic design for seven years, Beckstrom relocated to the mountains of Colorado in 1994, thus fulfilling a childhood dream to move to the west. She took a long hiatus… Continue reading
Amy Frank: Drawing
Amy Frank is a Canadian born artist who was diagnosed with Biploar Disorder in 2008 after struggling with depression, psychosis and substance abuse. Amy was encouraged into art school at a very young age and began to excel in her drawings by her early teens. In 2011 Amy launched the website www.amyfrank.ca, a collection of her personal art and creative writing. The website also shares the story of Amy’s journey with substance abuse and bipolar disorder. Currently in 2012 Amy is clean, sober and stable. She works as a professional artist out of her home town, Victoria, British Colombia, Canada. Continue reading
Sabina Lucia: Photography
Born to artistic parents it was no surprise that I was naturally drawn to creative expression. After gaining a 2:1 BA Hons in Fashion and then working for 6 years as a personal shopper, styling thousands of people, I quit a few years ago to concentrate on photography and art and write about things which fascinate me. I have nurtured a deep need for creative expression through photography, painting, drawing, collage and textile work. I love finding ‘hidden treasures’ to photograph and working out the best composition and angles to record the beauty I find in surrounding environments. Disliking obviously Photoshopped images, I prefer to keep my work true to life, only using software to crop photos. Continue reading
Lenore Giesbrecht: Engraving
I am a 45-year-old mother of two wonderful kids, my daughter is 14 and my son is 8. I live in Medicine Hat Alberta, Canada. We have two Beagles, a cat, a toad and two horses, so animals play a big part in my life. I was diagnosed with bipolar shortly after my son was born after a few doctors misdiagnosing it as post-partum depression. Although I always had my suspicions about what may have been “wrong” with me. I have been an artist pretty much all my life; it was always a place for me to “be” when things were too overwhelming in my life. I used my drawings and sketches as a way to recharge and release my energy at the same time. Continue reading
Jeni Booker Senter: Poetry
Jeni Booker Senter is a poet, essayist, and journalist devoted to the advancement of women. She currently teaches English to at-risk teens. Her writing has earned awards in the Duque Wilson Essay Contest and the LaRoche Memorial Poetry Contest, and she is a contributor to NW Florida Business Climate, Blackwater Review Literary Journal, Journal of South Texas Studies, Socialist Women Magazine: International Women’s Day Edition, A&U, and Troubadour. Continue reading
Sarah: Paintings
My name is Sarah. I live in Kent, UK. I have two sons at home. I’ve struggled with depression for many years and had a lot of therapy. I only found out I had bipolar disorder by co-incidence some 8 years ago but never really knew or understood what that meant to me. I have used my art to help me express the various stages of my journey, the extreme changes mood can have from one day to the next, and how differently I have felt about myself, my beliefs and the world around me. Continue reading
Louise Ryan: Paintings
I am Louise Ryan and I am a 42 year old passionate artist. As an artist I have a love hate relationship with my bipolar. My illness can bring me such creative energy and vivid ideas. It can also drain my life-force and cloak me with melancholy. But the beauty and tragedy of the human condition is always at the core of my art. I rejoice in my elation and acknowledge the aesthetic of torment. “The secret of joy is the mastery of pain.” Anaïs Nin. Continue reading
Nick James: Kites
Nick James is a kitemaker living with bipolar disorder in the UK. From 1985 he has been designing and making kites and for the last nineteen years running workshops in schools. He started by making seagulls, falcons and pterodactyls. He then moved on to designing more abstract and complex kites such as his Angels and Devils.
In 1998 he won a prize in the ‘Concours de Creation’ at Dieppe International Kite Festival (the Olympics of the kite world!). Continue reading
To find out more, please visit the website for his private practice, Bader Mediation & Counselling Services.