St. Francis Residence II

The St. Francis Residence II is a community residence for adults with mental illness. Located in the Chelsea area, St. Francis II offers a great deal to its residents including breakfast and lunch, assistance with medications, money management, medical care, and benefits.

St. Francis also has a full time arts and activities program that offers classes in art, exercise, music, poetry, photography and laundry. Art classes are led by artist, Richard Tsao. Photography workshops are led by Rick Pinard.

Residents take trips to the movies, bowling, and other fun places. Celebrations are also held for all holidays.

Artist Bios

Weekly writing workshops held at St. Francis led to the creation of these artist statements. The workshop was conducted by Shaina Feinberg of the NY Writers Coalition.

NY Writers Coalition Inc. (NYWC) provides free and low-cost creative writing workshops throughout New York City for people from groups that have been historically deprived of voice in our society.

Wesley Maxwell Baynes

My name Wesley Maxwell Baynes and I was born in St. Vincent and the Grenadines some fifty-five years ago. St. Vincent is the largest. All the other islands are grouped together and are called the Grenadines. I lived on the main land, St. Vincent.

At the old age of 12, I started attending high school in Barbados, one of the other islands in the Caribbean. At the age of 18, I graduated high school in Barbados and moved back home to St. Vincent.

Some years later, at the age of 33, I decided to move to the U.S.A. to attend college. I graduated from college with a degree an accounting. I got a job with Citicorp preparing tax returns. I worked at Citicorp for over eleven years. All this time, I was fighting mental illness.

I had to quit my job. After making the rounds, I ended up living at St. Francis Residence II. Up to this point, I had never done art. In the Caribbean, art was what girls did, while boys played sports. St. Francis has a very nice art program. With a little prodding, I decided to try art.

I started off very slowly, after a little while I started to enjoy it and now I keep pushing to become an outstanding artist.

So far things are going well. Even when I leave St. Francis, I intend to continue with art. It is that enjoyable.

To paint the things that I do, I look for inspiration from my classmates.

Antonia Maldonado

Why I love art:

Growing up on the Upper East Side of New York City, I was shown my grandmother’s charcoal drawings which were wonderful cats and trees and scenes of gardens and lonely flowers in color or black & white. Schools took us to the museums like the Met and I was shown Picasso and Rembrandt. I love the vivid colors and the most profound richness of the paint. I thought about it all for years.

When I came to St. Francis Residence II, I was exposed again to art. This time there were artists to help us. So I listened and started creating art. I really don’t paint from a model or copy from another artist. I sit and think and I use my imagination to create a piece of art. I love to paint in different colors. Usually I am not impatient about my art. I look for a feeling of happiness and then I start.