ArtLife717 is the public facing name of the nonprofit Mental Health Awareness and Creative Arts Gallery. At ARTLife717 we offer a unique gallery experience by creating an inclusive space where everyone, anywhere on the mental health spectrum, can exhibit their creative work. We accept work in any medium, with the only stipulation that you desire to grow, thrive, and expand your artistic life. Along with a shifting display of artwork that melds mental health wellness themes with creative inspiration, we also provide a space for free art classes that unifies people of all types to focus on the creative process. A process that yields positive life connections with others.
Current Exhibit
Creating Calm
This exhibit focuses on the visual and emotional language of calm, grounding, and restoration. Artists are encouraged to share works that evoke stillness, peace, soothing color palettes, ritual, meditation, or personal practices that help maintain balance.
Recovery in Motion
We’re excited to share the final video from **Recovery in Motion**, our recent stop-motion animation workshop at ARTLife717 led by Jesse Sanchez.
The workshop brought together PROS participants from the Mental Health Association of Columbia/Greene Counties, NY, and other community members to design simple characters, create short animated sequences, and collaborate on visual storytelling projects using a stop-motion app. The finished work titled “Recovery Fields” was compiled and screened at our recent **Creating Calm** reception.
Stop-motion animation can be especially meaningful in mental health recovery, offering a creative, non-verbal way to tell personal stories and express internal experiences. Building animation frame by frame mirrors recovery itself, calling for patience, intention, focus, and steady progress over time. Because the workshop was team-based, it also fostered collaboration, communication, shared problem-solving, and confidence through artistic expression.
We’re grateful to everyone who participated and helped bring this project to life.
ARTLife717 will be lighting the gallery teal in recognition of TD Awareness Week, May 3–May 10, 2026, in collaboration with NAMI Columbia County. Tardive dyskinesia is a movement disorder that can affect the face, body, fingers, and toes, and awareness can help reduce stigma, encourage treatment conversations, and support those impacted. Visitors are welcome to view the current exhibit, Creating Calm, throughout May and early June.
One-time donations to our nonprofit organization
can be made through our PayPal Giving Fund
or by mailing a check payable to “The Mental Health Awareness Gallery” to:
Brian Belt P.O. Box 543 Philmont, NY 12565
Recurring monthly donations can be made by clicking ‘Donate now’ below
NAMI and ARTLife717: Help for those with mental health disorders and their families
By DEBORAH E. LANS HUDSON —
The Columbia Paper – Thursday, February 27, 2025
The truth is that no one by mental health disorders. Some are more serious than others, and some are manifested by substance use disorders. One in every five individuals (roughly 60 million Americans) lives with a mental health disorder at some time in his life, and the families of those individuals are inevitably affected as well. Almost 50% of all adolescents (13–18-year-olds) experience some form of issue, and 22.2% suffer what the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) classifies as a “serious” mental health disorder, meaning one that seriously impairs the ability to function. NIMH says that only two-thirds of those affected receive some form of therapy.