This Sunday, Friends of Austin State Hospital will present Art In Bloom, the 2026 version of their yearly Insights Art Show, featuring donations from some local professional artists as well as a selection of works created by ASH patients as part of an art therapy program.
“We just try to provide enough workshops for these patients to express themselves artistically,” says Dr. Stacy Mendelson, chair of the board of directors for Friends of ASH. “Art therapy is a huge part of people's recovery. I've had some patients that are nonverbal … sometimes they have post-traumatic stress disorder or they have something that's going on in their life, and they can express themselves in art. And their medical team can look at that and kind of get an idea. So it's not only just for our art show, but I mean, it just helps the patients in general.”
Art teachers Al Jones and Jane Isoline are both longtime members of Friends of Austin State Hospital and were around for the very first Insights art show back in the early 1990s.
“We were the first two art teachers that the hospital had,” Jones says. “I'd been there about a year when we started it. And it actually birthed out of having lunch at Hyde Park Bar and Grill and looking at the art around the room and it's like, you know what, we could see if they'll host patient art and that was kind of what started the thing.”
“My very first art teaching job was at the state hospital,” Isoline says. “And then we had a wonderful boss, Dianna Pickens, and we just started this program and it was wonderful. Started having art shows and then displaying the art and then we got permission to frame and sell art and it just took off from there. And it was wonderful.”
“This art show helps promote awareness, not only to help benefit the patients, but let people in the public know what great things that the people at Austin State Hospital are doing for patients that are suffering from severe mental illness,” Mendelson says. “It's going to be a lovely event.”
“The things coming from the hospital are incredible,” Isoline says. “I mean, when you think about art and mental illness … mental illness is very common [in artists]. So some of the art coming straight from the hospital is just incredible.”
'Art in Bloom' is on display Feb. 22 from 3–6 p.m. at Ben Our Auditorium
