Sarah Nelsen was a regular at the Mission Mahi food truck when it made stops near her Marshall home starting in 2015. Her California native husband, and his serious fish taco pedigree, drew them there initially, but the meaning of Mahi’s “mission” — to support those in addiction recovery by employing them in a supportive environment — made their trips about more than sriracha mayo and slaw.
One trip to the food truck in early 2018 had nothing to do with dinner. “You can do this,” she repeated in her head, as she approached the truck, nervously clutching a portfolio of her art. She introduced herself to the owner, Jimmy Woods, explained the art she created — watercolor lions and butterflies with devotional sayings — and the blog where she shared it, hoping for an offer to collaborate somehow.
Mr. Woods loved what he saw and invited her for coffee. There, he told her of the brick-and-mortar store he was about to open in Cranberry and asked to display all of her art.
The restaurant wall reserved for her was massive. Knowing Mr. Woods, a recovering addict himself, had a relationship with Ridgeview Young Adult Residential Treatment Center in West Deer, Ms. Nelsen suggested that the teens decorate wooden fish to help fill it.
It was her first art workshop. The whole restaurant was covered in newspaper to invite messiness from the teen artists, all of whom were recovering from addiction and/or trauma.
“What would you tell your younger self?” Ms. Nelsen asked to inspire their art. On slats of wood, they answered, “Pain is temporary,” “Slow to anger,” and more, before painting the fish.
“I started to see that when people are creating something outside of themselves, they were talking and zoned out, relaxed, opening up to each other,” she said.
Since then, the brick-and-mortar version of Mission Mahi closed, but the fish have followed Ms. Nelsen from that first art workshop — where she decided “I need to work with people” — to the wall of her own store and studio space in Marshall, called Atlas Art, which opened in February.
From handmade tables to custom gifts and card sets that sit atop them, every item in Atlas Art’s space oozes purpose. And, because of her own hardships — and the experience of that first workshop — every product and event emphasizes the therapeutic value of art.
Not her first rodeo
Ms. Nelson, 41, has a degree in graphic design from Penn State, a 17-year run as a freelance designer, and staff work at a few museums, including one in art-mecca Jackson Hole, Wyo., as well as at the University of Pittsburgh. But she says she didn't get "back into art-art” until 2015, after the birth of her second daughter.
After two miscarriages and the successful deliveries of two daughters, postpartum depression symptoms she felt all along crescendoed. Her second daughter was born deaf in one ear, requiring special care. She and her husband were DIY-ing a fixer-upper home, which meant living with her parents in the meantime. She worked as a freelance designer while her husband worked as a full-time nurse. And it all made her feel like she “couldn’t handle anything.”
The only quiet in her life occurred at 4 a.m. She’d wake up, make coffee and sit on her parents’ couch with a sketch book, notebook, a pencil and fine-tipped Sharpie and a Bible. She’d “get my hands dirty” drawing and smudging the graphite to decorate biblical passages she used to soothe her mental unrest, some of which was later attributed to undiagnosed bipolar disorder after she sought formal therapy.
“I would just read scripture and try to find the voice of God in there,” Ms. Nelsen said, paging through the original sketches at a table in her Marshall studio. “Like, what would He say to me right now?” she’d ask herself as artistic and self-help fuel.
Once their Marshall fixer-upper was move-in ready, she met a neighbor who worked as a photographer. She’d just shot maternity pictures for a client, but the pregnancy resulted in a stillbirth. She didn’t know how to acknowledge that event for her client, but Ms. Nelsen did.
She painted a watercolor butterfly. On the back, she quoted scripture, used the transition from caterpillar to butterfly as a metaphor and included an original passage. Unlike a traditional “thinking of you” card, she addressed the woman’s grief head-on with validation and encouragement.
She created numerous, similar pieces before, all kept relatively anonymous between her, the wee hours and a personal blog. But, for the first time, she extended the help she found for herself to another person, and it launched a card-making side business that later became Atlas Art.
Navigating Atlas
The butterfly card, now produced as prints, is displayed on the left side of the Atlas Art store space, printed on 8.25” x 8.25” cardstock. Like the original, all of her cards are “made for messy times,” such as miscarriage, suicide, and other forms of unexpected grief and recovery. Ms. Nelsen’s husband — who worked as a nurse on a COVID unit over the past year and needed an outlet of his own — makes double-sided wooden frames for them so the art and the message are always viewable.
Elsewhere in the shop are items made by Somalian refugees who are paid for each item sold. “Pocket cards” sit off in the corner, with affirmations to address anxiety and invite the user to color them as a mindful practice. “Addiction cards,” written by a mother whose son battled substance use disorder, display meditations specifically for those in recovery. There are “zen stacking stones” for relaxation, “fidget kits” for those with ADHD and/or anxiety and plenty more activities with nothing more than artistic fun in mind.
Tables line the back of the space for workshops where Ms. Nelsen can make the link between art and self-help in real time. After her experience with Mission Mahi, she ran a series of workshops at the Light of Life Mission men’s shelter, which she hopes to resume in her own space.
Rusty Bryner, who supervised the men’s long-term program at Light of Life when Ms. Nelsen taught beginning in 2019, knows her classes made a lasting impression.
“Guys were able to discover talents they they never knew they had,” he said. Though “probably the majority” of the men dismissed the idea of the art classes as “feminine,” they “pretty quickly started to experience the benefits,” even asking for art supplies after COVID-19 halted Ms. Nelsen’s appearances at the North Side facility.
She remembers one man whose hands shook from his medication. He tried to give up before beginning, because he wasn’t an “artist,” but she encouraged him to focus on the process, not the result.
Straight lines were all he could muster, then a Penguins logo. By the end, he perceived himself differently, saying, “Taking the art class has made me realize that I can do things I never thought I could.”
Faithful fish
The workshops and “messy times” cards were “labors of love” while her freelance design work paid the bills, at least until the pandemic hit. Her three biggest design clients, from travel and event industries, canceled their projects. Like so many Americans, it led to a few months of unemployment benefits, but it also created space for something new.
In December 2020, after securing two different loans, she found 75 Shenot Road in Marshall. Oddly, it had a sink smack dab in the middle of one wall in the main space, just as she’d envisioned for easy clean-up during workshops. It has an outdoor space for kids’ camps and an Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant bathroom for “accessible” art classes.
Much like when Mr. Woods’ restaurant opened in 2018, Atlas Art had a wall still in need of decor. Just a few weeks ago, Ms. Nelsen got a call from an artist redecorating the old Mission Mahi space, offering her the fish that still hung there.
When she went to pick them up, he also handed her a canvas with no further explanation than, “Here, this is for you.”
“There are far better things ahead than any we leave behind,” it says.
Now, down the back hallway of Atlas Art, are the fish decorated by the recovering teenagers who helped Ms. Nelsen discover her new purpose — the “far better” one — positioning art as self-help.
Find more information about Atlas Art at atlasartpress.com or on social media @AtlasArtLove.
Find more information about the Mission Mahi food truck on Facebook.
Abby Mackey: amackey@post-gazette.com, Twitter @AnthroAbbyRN and Instagram @abbymackeywrites.
First Published: September 24, 2021, 10:00 a.m.
Updated: September 24, 2021, 10:21 a.m.
