In 2015, Faye Harnest was on her way to the library to work on her second novel when she was hit by a car and rushed to the hospital with a head injury.
The Toronto-based artist and author of the novel Girl Fight suffered two brain bleeds and a concussion. When she left the hospital two days later, the accident had taken away her ability to read and write easily.
“That was the biggest part of my identity,” Harnest said. “It’s so crazy not to be able to write about not being able to write. It was just so hard to understand who I was and who I am. I’m still figuring that out.”
An avid reader from a young age, Harnest said she committed to her exhausting rehabilitation because she needed to try everything she could to be able to read and write again.
“It honestly took years before I realized how serious it was because we kind of always thought I’d recover, any day now,” she said.
Depression, anxiety, and dissociation accompanied Harnest on her journey working through pain to reclaim her creative voice. Despite support from her husband and mother, Harnest said she still felt isolated.
“I hid what was going on from other people. I didn’t want people to worry about me, and I had a hard time explaining what I was going through. I feel like I made it really hard for a lot of people to support me in ways that I needed,” she said.
Three years after the accident, Harnest’s rehabilitation support worker told her about support groups for people living with brain injuries, organized by the Brain Injury Society of Toronto (BIST).
“It was nice to find support there and to learn what I was going through wasn’t because I was weak or was doing something wrong. It was a real turning point for me,” she said.
It was through BIST that Harnest met Cassidy Bankson, a BIST member and dance enthusiast.
Recovering from a concussion herself, dancing had become challenging for Bankson. After meeting in a BIST workshop about post-concussion syndrome, she and Harnest became fast friends.
“I related to Faye because movement had always been the way in which I had known myself. It has always been the way I expressed myself,” Bankson said.
For both Bankson and Harnest, exploring visual arts became a more attainable way to express themselves creatively throughout their recovery.
Although it was difficult, Harnest began drawing therapeutically in her search for a creative outlet. Soon, the primary subjects of Harnest’s work were mental health and disability.
Last year, Harnest submitted her art to an art contest, Twentytwenty Arts’ Life on the Line, after Bankson sent her an application.
Among 400 submissions, Harnest’s work “I’M ON TOP OF IT!“ was chosen as one of the 10 artworks to be exhibited across the Line 1 route of the TTC subway in Toronto from November 2020 to January 2021.
Harnest’s work was a favourite for Megan Kee, Twentytwenty Arts’ founder and director, who said Harnest’s piece portrays something everyone can relate to.
“What makes it so powerful is we’ve all felt at one point or another that we were so overwhelmed, so heavy, so stressed, and just we’re carrying so much of ourselves,” she said.
Harnest’s journey as a visual artist has since inspired her advocacy for disability rights. She is organizing a group art project about brain injury and mental health experiences which will be featured as a part of the CripRitual exhibition at Toronto’s Tangled Art + Disability Gallery in January 2022.
“I want to figure out a way to help people. I want to feel strong, I want to feel like I can keep going and remember what I’ve been through,” she said. “I just really want to feel like I have a purpose.”
Harnest’s artwork is available for purchase until Mar. 1 at Twentytwenty Arts’ website, 75 per cent of proceeds will be donated to the Canadian Mental Health Association Toronto’s Family Outreach and Response Program.
Featured image provided by Faye Harnest.
