support and success are not mutually exclusive; why independence is overrated with guest Virginia Townsend [S3E4]
Content note: this episode includes discussions of mental illness
On this episode, we meet Virginia Townsend, the artist behind the vibrant creations of Bunnie Rabbitte, whose story illustrates how support and success are not mutually exclusive. In a wide-ranging conversation about art and mental health, Virginia opened up about the daily reality of creating while living with PTSD. Like many artists navigating disability, Virginia's journey includes managing sleep disorders and triggers that disrupt the flow of her day. Through sharing her experiences, Virginia highlights a truth that often gets overlooked: disability needs aren't one-size-fits-all, and our support systems shouldn't be either. Her advocacy for integrated, comprehensive care services speaks to something bigger than just accessing help; it's about creating the conditions where disabled artists don't just survive - they thrive and create remarkable work that enriches our world.
Links to Virginia’s website, as well as all other resource links, are in the full show notes at hoorfpodcast.com
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Episode Resources
Virginia Townsend:
Website: https://www.virginiatownsend.com
Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/virginiatownsendart
Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities:
https://artsmidwest.org/about/updates/2024-midwest-award-for-artists-with-disabilities-recipients/
Guest Spotlight: Virginia Townsend
image: Virginia Townsend is a white woman with chin-length blonde hair and dark eyes. She is wearing a white and black striped shirt and looking directly into the camera with a serious gaze.
Twin Cities metro based Virginia Townsend, aka bunny rabbit, paints from her experience with mental health, illness, disability, and her own unique vision of recovery. Born to parents living with mental illness, Townsend honed her critical thinking skills early by discerning between her parent's hallucinations, illusions, and reality. In her artistic work Townsend uses this skill to play with concepts of objective truth and perception, and how they intertwine in mental health recovery communities.
Since 2019, Townsend has been creating art full time, with her current practice supported by MSS, a progressive day program supporting people with disabilities.
Living with her own mental illness, Townsend has experience making art in nontraditional settings. She learned to connect emotion and image in hospital-based occupational therapy groups and continued her journey by painting full time in adult day programs. Having spent time in inpatient mental health units so frequently, she has a strong sense of community and belonging with individuals frequently hospitalized, or "revolving door patients,” and the unique obstacles they face receiving care.
Quiet in person, her voice speaks loudly through her abstract and figurative art. Townsend brings attention to cracks in support services, lack of safe assisted living settings for woman- and queer-identified folks, and well intentioned policy that may have disastrous effects. She advocates for people most vulnerable to abuse that need 24/7 supports, and cannot find settings without sacrificing privacy or choice of whom they reside with.
Townsend is a recipient of a FY2024 Creative Individuals grant funded by the Minnesota State Arts Board and the National Endowment for the Arts. She is also the grantee of Arts Midwest’s 2024 Midwest Award for Artists with Disabilities.
Website: https://www.virginiatownsend.com
