Recovery through the arts set for UMM exhibit and workshop

One mother's experience coming to terms with her son's substance use disorder and recovery has led to an art exhibit, "Hiraeth: Recovery Through the Arts," at the University of Maine at Machias (UMM) for the month of March and a one‑day workshop meant to shed light on the role art can play in recovery.
Eastport resident Holly Gartmayer‑DeYoung is the parent of an adult in recovery. She found an unexpected source of healing when she began to write a collection of poems and essays. "The 15 pieces were written concurrently as I was coming to understand my son's addiction," she says.
Gartmayer‑DeYoung is also the CEO of Eastport Healthcare Inc. and has pioneered the use of community circles in the county to create peer support groups geared towards action. She was a natural fit for starting a wider discussion about using the arts as a tool for healing. "I was confident that the arts would have a space," she explains. The conversation started a little less than two years ago. "I was talking to others about using arts to support recovery -- not just the individual in recovery but the family, too."
The conversation spread, eventually reaching a Portland‑based artist, Michel Droge, who had started a body of work about recovery and loss almost a decade ago. "When I began working on Hiraeth in 2009 I felt like my world was unraveling," Droge says. "I was grieving the sudden death of my brother, who died of an opiate overdose, and I had just moved to Maine for graduate school. Everything familiar had come undone." Droge is in recovery and has been sober for 20 years. When Gartmayer‑DeYoung saw Droge's work "and read her description, I wept. It was exactly what I was looking for -- a level of healing that complements treatment for recovery."
In no time, UMM faculty members Lois‑Ann Kuntz and Bernard Vinzani became involved. "I'm a huge fan of Holly's," says Kuntz, who is UMM professor of psychology and the chair of the arts and letters division. "She'd reached out looking at ways to support Michel and the reasons behind her art." The two women brainstormed on gallery space and funding. "So I reached out to Bernie [Vinzani]," Kuntz says happily. Vinzani is professor of book arts and interdisciplinary fine arts as well as the UMM Art Gallery director. "Holly said something that resonated. She said that there's a lot going on in recovery [in the county], but nothing linking the arts to it," explains Kuntz.
"No one I've met has not been touched in some way by addiction," says Droge. When she first started Hiraeth in 2009, she didn't tell people what it was about. All that changed when she gave a talk a number of years later at the Maine College of Art. "I never had had a reception like that before. The audience was riveted. People came up to me afterwards and talked to me about their experiences." In 2017 she had an exhibit in Brunswick and the same reaction happened. "I was very moved. This is what this work is for: how we walk through" recovery.
Droge firmly believes that art heals and that it can be used as a way to break isolation, to find new ways to communicate and connect. When making art, such as at the workshop she will conduct at UMM on March 2, "people don't have to say anything if they don't want to." What she wants them to know is that they are not alone, that making the struggle known is the first step to healing rather than the end of the world. She also hopes that by talking about recovery and substance use disorder, those gathering will be freed to hope for the future, to remember that the disease is not the person. "Let's remember the wonderful qualities," she says of those who have been lost or who are in recovery.
The exhibit, "Hiraeth: Recovery Through the Arts," will open at the UMM Art Gallery on Friday, March 1, with a reception and talk by the artist, Michel Droge, from 4 to 7 p.m. The exhibit will run through Friday, March 29. The public is welcome. Droge notes that any sales of her works at the exhibit will be donated to an area nonprofit to be determined over the next few weeks.
In addition, the Hiraeth: Art in Recovery workshop will be held on Saturday, March 2, from 9:30 a.m. to 12 noon at the paper‑making studio in the basement of UMM Torrey Hall. The workshop is open to the public and will be led by Droge and Vinzani. Each workshop participant is asked to bring an item of natural‑fiber clothing or other natural or plant‑based material from a loved one struggling or lost to the disease of substance use disorder that holds significance in relation to addiction and recovery. The items will be joined together to create handmade paper and will inspire a handwritten list of words that are significant in the healing process. The list will be embossed on the paper after it has set. A printed piece of the communal handmade paper will be given to each participant when the exhibition closes. The Libra Foundation has provided support for the exhibit and workshop.