photo by Samantha Stidham

What is Recovery Panes?

Recovery Panes is a multi-phase community project involving those who have been impacted by addiction. Participants created a small encaustic painting representative of their personal experience, strength and hope. The complex elements of encaustic wax uniquely allowed a symbolic and cathartic exploration of their experiences. Participants also shared a short, written response to the process which is paired with their art in an accompanying catalogue



All individual paintings are joined to form a larger work, framed and presented to resemble large windows with each painting representing a single windowpane. The art is interactive- the individual panels are mounted on magnets, allowing the viewers to rearrange the paintings, symbolizing our need to change our perspective and move towards de-stigmatizing addiction.

Both the Recovery Panes and the accompanying catalogue will be shown at the Portland Center for the Performing Arts through March of 2012.

A reception will be held on Thursday, February 2nd, 5pm-9pm, to celebrate both Recovery Panes and 'Come to Your Senses', a showcase of encaustic paintings by local artists

Thursday, April 1, 2010

The project begins...

This is the one of the first Recovery Panes we've gotten done so far--more to come!


"I have witnessed addiction firsthand for as long as I can remember. Spending weekends with my grandparents introduced me to alcoholism—something I didn’t even realize was a problem until I was 16 years old. I had no idea that not everyone’s grandfather drank water glasses of straight vodka all day long.

When I was 17, my grandfather passed out on Christmas—went straight down and hit his head on the hardwood floor. That was when the ultimatums started: “You stop drinking, or I’m pouring all your booze down the sink.” “You stop drinking, or we’re not paying the mortgage anymore.” “You stop drinking, or we’re moving away.” My mother was trying her hardest to shove our family into a box that would hide our problems—but our problems wouldn’t fit in the box. Inside, I knew, she just wanted us to be normal. She wanted to keep my grandfather’s alcoholism a secret, so she trapped us in neverending circles of fights, ultimatums, cold turkey quitting, relapses, threats, and tears.

We’re still there today, chasing each other in circles."

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