Elizabeth Collins wants the public to know that people with addictions are human, too.
“We all have a story. We all come from somewhere and we’re all going somewhere,” she said.
That’s the idea behind a new community art project from the River Stone Recovery Centre in collaboration with Fredericton-based performing arts company Solo Chicken Productions.
The River Stone Recovery Centre is a clinic in downtown Fredericton providing different services to people with substance use disorder. These include oral therapies such as suboxone or methadone, stimulant replacement therapy, injectable opioid agonist treatment, and housing support.
‘It’s been my lifesaver’
Collins came to the clinic three years ago after a community barbecue where she learned about the project.
Along with participating in the clinic, she also works there.
“It’s been my lifesaver,” she said.
Collins was also a large part of the community art project, which was largely headed by Solo Chicken Productions’s artistic producer Lisa Anne Ross.
Ross said it all started when the centre reached out to her several months ago expressing interest in doing an art-based project that “fostered a sense of compassion in the community for the clients of the River Stone Centre.”
“I went away and I thought about that, what the River Stone [centre] is trying to achieve, and some of the challenges that the clients at the centre face in the community, some of the stereotypes that they face, the daily issues they face, and I came back with this idea,” said Ross.
The idea, she said, is an exhibition of poetry and portraits featuring the centre’s faces and the stories behind them.
It’s called I Am Here: Postcards from the Edge, and on Thursday, the gallery will launch at the Fredericton Public Library showcasing a series of professional portraits, taken by local photographer Kelly Baker, and poetry written about and with the centre participants.
Along with that, a collection of postcards are currently being produced with the portraits and poetry on them. Ross said these will be distributed to the community, specifically in the downtown area.
A ‘message of compassion’
“We wanted them to be a quietly public way of delivering this message of compassion,” she said. “Nobody gets good mail anymore. All we get is, you know, flyers from Harvey’s. So my hope is that people will open their mailbox and there’ll be this beautiful postcard.”
Ross started meeting with the participants at the centre in April. She would listen to their stories and help write a poem sharing a bit about them.
She said, since she started the project, she learned something new — not just as an artist but as a person.
“I live on Charlotte Street, and I’m an active person in my community. I like to get to know my neighbours,” said Ross.
“I think the most poignant thing for me, as a Fredericton resident, was that many of the clients are actually my neighbours and they’re people that I see on a daily basis. And so for me, that drew a new picture of my neighbourhood and of my city. I have new friends, I have new neighbours — it changed the landscape for me.”
Bobbi Fitzgerald has a poem and portrait that will be included in the Postcards from the Edge project.
She said there’s some anxiety that comes with putting herself out there.
“It’s the story part, you know, putting a face to the words,” said Fitzgerald. “I kind of kept my addiction hidden for a long time or as low profile as I possibly could. And now, it’s just kind of out there.”
Fitzgerald said she never expected she would be where she is today. When she came to the clinic two and a half years ago, she gave herself six months.
But a year later, she even got a job at the centre and said her addiction is now under control.
Dr. Sara Davidson, the medical director at the River Stone Recovery Centre, said something she’s learned over her years in practice has been that “you can always get someone stable from a medical point of view, but then it’s now what, what’s next?”
‘Feel the humanity’
Davidson said she’s had different guest artists and groups come into the centre as a way to foster community building and joy.
She said getting Ross on board was an opportunity to bring out the creativity of the clinic’s participants and share their stories.
“My hope is people that will come and see the artwork, that will read the stories, they’ll really feel the humanity that’s shared between people [regardless] of where they live, what their postal code is, or what their life experience is and that everyone is worth investing in,” said Davidson.
For Allan Griffin, another employee and participant at the centre, his life experience is partly rooted in work ethic. He grew up in a home in Digby, N.S., where that was a core value.
It’s part of the reason he finds himself working three days a week at the centre and once a week at the Fredericton Library.
Griffin said he’s had major back pain his whole life, which eventually led to him becoming addicted to opiates.
So two years ago he came to the centre with hopes to soon move back to Vancouver, where he lived for 20 years prior to coming to Fredericton.
But his mind changed after meeting the people and the staff at the centre — something the new art exhibit hopes to showcase.
When asked what he wants people to take away from the project, Griffin answered with one word — “Hope.
“That’s all that I hope for on a daily basis, just hope, and that one day can be as good as the next.”
This story was originally published in CBC News on Nov. 14, 2023.
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