“A Rest at Ravenscrag” is a finger-painted portrayal of my hospital bed. It was created as a therapeutic response to my psychiatric hospitalization and my resulting hand tremors, a side-effect of my psychiatric medication, as my brushwork is much less steady these days. It was a surreal experience for me to return to the Allan Memorial Institute, not in a hospital gurney ushered by medics, but on my own two feet with a camera in hand and in a much healthier and happier state of being.
Meant to capture the very essence of “the Allan,” this painting was created using finger strokes to apply acrylic paint directly on canvas. The image evokes an empty hospital bed, which represents the end goal of a stint in the brief therapy unit: to heal and to depart. The painting, rendered in a restful “Payne’s grey” shade, is my testimony to this experience.