How art can heal depression

There's a meme which depicts two paths as to what your road of life may look like. One path shows a straight line going up at a steep angle labeled "What you thought your life would be like." The other path shows lots of spaghetti-like lines with the caption "What your life is really like."

Gunbarrel resident Mike Hamers knows these two sides very well. What he's learned is when the road of life gets complicated, a map, dictated by the healing power of art, showed him the way home.

The Kenosha, Wis., native has been interested in art for most of his life. He is both a commercial and fine arts artist.

Despite his parents' protests, after high school Hamers took classes at the Kenosha extension of the University of Wisconsin, but eventually transferred to the Milwaukee Area Technical College, where he earned an associates degree in commercial art.

From there it was on the job training at Allis-Chambers which made large farm machinery, where he learned to read blueprints. "I was doing cut-aways of lawn mowers and farm implements, very technical. And while I was making a good living, I didn't think of it as art. It was more applied geometry."

Hamers also started taking night classes where he learned to make line-o-cuts, etchings, and silk screenings, and where he fell in love with the stone lithograph process.

He ended up in Colorado after helping a friend move. "I did not expect to fall head over heels in love with Colorado," he recalled. With his technical background he was offered a contractor job at Ball Aerospace, where he worked on components of the space shuttle's hatch, concepts for bearings to rotate the solar panels for, at that point, the future International Space Station, laser communication devices and infrared telescopes.

"Everything I worked on was being launched via the space shuttle, so I had the blueprints for the space shuttle cargo bay plastered to my wall in my office." Hamers describes the whole process as being "very cool."

But life isn't always that straight line the meme shows. Hamers said he "experienced a multitude of personal issues that hit simultaneously to the point (where I started) spiraling out of control, and there were just too many to fix." All these events triggered a deep, three-year suicidal depression.

"All of a sudden, I stopped building my business. I stopped networking. I was (home) a lot." He also began self-medicating with vodka.

"My wife figured out what I was doing, because I was very good at hiding it." Hamers said, "I started going to AA (Alcoholics Anonymous). When I went to AA, I got my spiritual connection back. I also met a lot of creative people there. I think that creative people are susceptible to depression."

It was while he was going to AA that someone gave him the book "The Language of Emotions" by Karla McLaren. "Her premise is that your emotions are what make you human. There're gifts, messages that inform you about what you need to change in your life. Anger is one thing, sadness is another, grief is another. There's different responses to each emotion, but you're not supposed to hide them in the closet or drink them away."

He realized that his brain chemistry was off. "But I could change it," he said. I just had to change the way I thought. I purposely started making myself re-engage in art and music, pray, poetry as a very conscious attempt to free myself from that quicksand of depression. And it worked."

Hamers said that these efforts worked and triggered a spiritual awakening. His depression hasn't returned in nine years.

To that end he has developed a concept he calls MAPP – music, art, prayer and poetry. "It was my 'map' out of depression. I didn't do it with drugs or psychotherapy.... I did it by reengaging in creative beauty. I discovered that I could write really well. .... Coming out of the depression is a wonderful awakening. I'm kind of glad it happened even though those three years of depression were really quite dark and scary."

Today Hamers is using all the skills he's learned on the job as well as in school to map out his current and future life. He started his company Lightspeed which specialized in logo designs, branding, brochures, and direct marketing. Many area residents have seen Hamers' work with the maps and catalogs for Boulder Open Studio.

He also published his first book "Walking with Rumi" two years ago. Rumi was a 13th century Persian poet. Hamers said, "It includes 120 of my photographs. I paired my photographs with 100 of Rumi's poems and 70 of his quotes." He also did all the page layouts.

Starting in 2014, Hamers began organizing art shows at the Firehouse in Longmont, NCAR and the Dairy Center for the Performing Arts in Boulder.

Today Hamers said he is as excited about commercial graphic design as he was when he graduated from school. "But I also equally love doing fine art and fine art photography."

Ultimately, he would like to build a legacy around his fine art in the hopes of helping others who might be struggling too.

For information on Mike Hamers' books go to https://www.WalkingWithRumi.com and https://www.WalkingWithRumi.com. His online business portfolio can be viewed at https://lightspeedca.net, or to contact him directly, call 303-527-1222.