NARSAD Artworks – La Habra, California

2004 Lilly Reintegration Award Winner, Advocacy

NARSAD Artworks is a sector of the non-profit National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression that creates and sells stationery products using prints of artwork made by persons battling mental illnesses. These products are sold nationally through NARSAD, the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill the National Mental Health Association, and the Depressive Bipolar Support Alliance.  The NARSAD Artworks program educates the public and provides support for the artists. 

NARSAD Artworks was founded by Patsy & Hal Hollister.  The couple became involved with NARSAD after their daughter was diagnosed with schizophrenia.  They were inspired to form NARSAD Artworks when they saw the benefit of art in their daughter’s life.

NARSAD Artworks continues its involvement in the challenge of changing the perception of mental illness through visual arts and by raising money for research.  Artworks now has over 8,000 images on file from almost 400 artists - of all ethnicities and from all walks of life - in the U.S., Canada and France. NARSAD Artworks has sold its artists’ work for publication in many magazines, journals and books and raises approximately $200,000 annually which then goes toward research.

“Our people are more than their illness – they’re creative, industrious individuals,” states Patsy Hollister, co-founder of NARSAD Artworks. And, through continued efforts and activities in the art world and in the local California community, Artworks imparts the message that “you can still work after revealing that you have a mental illness.”

For more information on NARSAD Artworks, please visit, www.narsadartworks.org.

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