English artist Liz Atkin used to avoid wearing T-shirts because her arms were so pocked with scars. It was something she couldn’t control, a compulsion to pick at her skin no matter where she was or what she was doing. Her disease, Compulsive Skin Picking disorder, made her avoid people. Finally, though, in an effort to help Atkin through her troubled time, a friend gifted her with an art set — something to do with her hands that didn’t involve harming her skin.
Atkin used the art set — which included charcoal pencils — during times of high anxiety, times when she would be more likely to pick at her skin, such as when she was riding public transit in London. The method of distraction seemed to work — until one day, when she ran out of paper in her sketchbook. Desperate to keep herself from picking at her skin, Atkin picked up a free newspaper available on the train system, and the rest is history. The tactile sense of drawing helps keep her hands occupied, and with the charcoal that usually stains her fingers, she is much less likely to want to touch her skin and get it dirty, too.
Atkin has been sketching charcoal drawings on newspapers ever since, considering the artwork as a way of recycling something that would be rendered obsolete the next day, or next issue. She started gifting the quick drawings to other passengers on the train, not needing to keep the artwork, but needing to do the artwork. Now, Atkin is in Singapore, spreading awareness of Compulsive Skin Picking disorder and gifting transit passengers with her drawings on Singaporean newspapers. Each time she gives away one of her drawings, she also includes a postcard with information about the disorder. Atkin has also been completing a speaking tour to tell people about her battles with the disorder, which affects as many as one in twenty people.
The drawings themselves are dynamic, interesting, and one-of-a-kind. Atkin might add a blossoming tree to the top of a chassis on a car advertisement, or she might make another car sprout spider legs, perched on a web extending outward from the ad. She enhances the makeup of faces on the newsprint, or explodes starbursts outward from blocks of text. Her hurried charcoal lines add movement and noise and importance to otherwise mundane pages of newsprint, and each one is its own work of art.
Art can be used as a way to cope with many different disorders or states of mind. Sign up for an art class via SGArtClass.com to start benefiting from everything that art has to give you. Art can be a great way to relieve stress from work or school or just everyday life, and it can also help you develop creative problem solving skills you might not have otherwise had.
To read more about Liz Atkin’s art and her efforts to combat her disorder, go to http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/lifestyle/uk-artist-gives-away-free-art-to-singapore-s-train-commuters/3415476.html.