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By Nick Cocchiarella
Yet another new, insightful, and innovative member to Art to Change the World, Californian transplant and artist Jes Reyes has been working with the mental health community due to personal experience in her life. Upon moving to the Twin Cities in 2005, she worked at a violence shelter and a bookstore for two years before beginning her career with Avivo. In the ten years she has worked for the company, Reyes worked first in young adult outreach responding to first episode mental illness, then as a mental health case manager, and now as the Coordinator of the Avivo ArtWorks program.
Established in 2004, the Avivo ArtWorks (formerly Spectrum ArtWorks) was created as a platform for artists to challenge the stigmas behind mental health through the power of a community created around their art. Today, the art program supports a collective of 16 members, all of whom receive career support and share a large, open art studio with individual stations. During studio hours, artists are free to work on their individual pieces actively while participating in a community environment. ArtWorks also provides open studio hours to the larger Avivo Minneapolis CSP where they are located.
Art, Reyes says, is a verb, a way of communication, and incredibly therapeutic. “I think that art is sort of a foundation of who we are,” she admits. “I think it’s a way that we live; it’s a lifestyle, and that’s what ‘art’ is.”
As a member of Art to Change the World, Reyes hopes to find a collaborative of multiple perspectives and unique voices who also believe that art has the ability to transform our thoughts and help us see a better future. “Through a painting, through a drawing, through a song, through a dance… art can change the world.”
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