Mary Langenfeld
Karen Herro (standing) looks over a drawing by Kari Helgren while Patsy A. Triplet sketches.
Today is a good day for Donna. It’s Valentine’s Day, and she’s seated at a table with a group of women who could someday be her friends. Their hands are busy making bracelets out of pretty, multicolored beads, but mostly they’re just talking about life.
“Everyone here, they listen. They really listen,” says Donna, who asked to be identified by her first name only. “And they ask how they can help.”
Last week was a different story. Donna has post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition that some people develop after they experience something painful, frightening or violent. She’s spent the past two years sorting through her trauma, but sometimes she pushes it down. That’s when it resurfaces. When it’s just too much, she dissociates — a mental process that separates a person from their memories and identity. She doesn’t do it as much now, but in the first year after her trauma, she talked about herself in the third person.
As part of her recovery, Donna’s therapist recommended that she come to Cornucopia, an arts and wellness center aimed at helping people with mental health issues. “My therapist at one point demanded that I come,” she says with the hint of smile. It’s been three weeks since her first visit, but Donna says being part of this close-knit community has already been therapeutic. She’s learning to paint, and she’s opening up to others. “Two years ago I couldn’t even walk out of the house,” Donna says. “Now, I want to be here as much as possible.”
Cornucopia has been around for more than 20 years, and the nonprofit is unique in that it’s run almost entirely by mental health consumers. Even its executive director, Karen Herro, started out as a client. A registered nurse with specialties in mental health and substance abuse, Herro was hospitalized after a suicide attempt in 1998. “I was in the psych ward at Meriter, and they noticed I had art aptitude, so they recommended Cornucopia,” Herro says. “I started doing artwork, and I picked up more and more.”
As much a gallery space as it is an art studio, Cornucopia’s headquarters at 2 S. Ingersoll St. is full of artwork done by its members, many of whom have significant artistic talent. There are several paintings by members who died by suicide. It’s a painful reminder of the toll that mental illness takes, says Steven Thomas, Cornucopia’s “atmospheric technician” and a board member. “It’s a reminder of what a joy it was to know them as a person.”
Until recently, Cornucopia was strictly word-of-mouth, but now they’re partnering with local organizations and accepting referrals. Membership is free for adults 18 and older, there is no cost for services and no requirement of a mental health diagnosis. The only condition of membership, Herro says, is adherence to a pledge: “Take care of yourself, take care of others and take care of the space.”
Today in the art studio, Cornucopia’s business manager, Sandra Cassidy, is doing beadwork at the table across from Donna. Like Herro, Cassidy also started as a member before joining the nonprofit’s administrative staff. She says her experience providing peer mentorship has helped her cope with depression. “I used to isolate a lot, which would make it worse,” she says. “Now I’m a lot more outgoing than I used to be, and I feel more confident.”
Donna can relate. She says she struggles to make friends, and during the past two years of struggling with PTSD, she didn’t connect with a single new person. Now, she has a support system with a built-in community — and everyone there knows exactly what she’s going through.
“It’s like a home,” Donna says. “I walk in, and I just let go.”
Cornucopia founded: 1995 (incorporated into a nonprofit in 1996)
Founders’ inspiration: Susanna Kaysen’s 1993 memoir Girl, Interrupted
Previous locations: 1917 Winnebago St.; 301 N. Brooks St.
Artists who coped with mental illness: Vincent van Gogh, Joan Miro, Brian Wilson, Virginia Woolf, Ingmar Bergman, Charles Baudelaire, William Blake, Francisco Goya
The Big Anxiety Festival: Inaugural arts festival held in 2017 to bring artists, scientists and communities together in Sydney, Australia to “question and re-imagine the state of mental health in the 21st century.”
