Rx: A Graphic Memoir: A Conversation with Rachel Lindsay and Ivy Tiegel

In her early twenties in New York City, diagnosed with bipolar disorder, Rachel Lindsay took a job in advertising in order to secure healthcare coverage for her treatment. But work took a strange turn when she was promoted onto the Pfizer account and suddenly found herself on the other side of the curtain, developing ads for an antidepressant drug. She was a representative of the target audience for the work she was producing, and this brought just how unhappy and trapped she felt into sharp focus. She was stuck in an endless cycle of treatment, insurance, and medication.
Overwhelmed by the stress of her professional life and the self-scrutiny it inspires, she began to destabilize and while in the midst of a crushing job search, her mania took hold. Her altered mindset yielded a simple solution: to quit her job and pursue life as an artist, an identity she had abandoned in exchange for medical treatment.
When her parents intervened, she found herself hospitalized against her will, and stripped of the control she felt she had finally reclaimed. Over the course of her two weeks in the ward, she struggled in the midst of doctors, nurses, patients and endless rules to find a path out of the hospital and this cycle of treatment. One where she could live the life she wants, finding freedom and autonomy, without sacrificing her dreams in order to stay well.
Join psychotherapist and artist Ivy Tiegel for a conversation with Rachel about her experience as an artist and her life's journey, which inspired her graphic memoir, Rx.
 
Rachel Lindsay is a Vermont-based cartoonist. Her comic strip, Rachel Lives Here Now, appears weekly in Vermont’s statewide newspaper, Seven Days. Her work has been featured in James Kochalka’s Superf*ckers Forever series; Evening Paper, a journal from the Center for Narrative Practice; the Seven Days Cartoon Issue; and issues 1 through 3 of the Maple Key Comics anthology. Her comic book series, The Wizard of Life, debuted in September 2015. Rachel’s work has been reviewed by both Comixology and The Comics Journal. She teaches comics at Burlington’s art center, Burlington City Arts. Learn more about Rachel at www.rachellivesherenow.com. 
Ivy Tiegel is a psychotherapist and San Francisco multidisciplinary artist since the Gay '90's. A graduate of CIIS' Expressive Arts Therapy program, Ivy's private practice focuses on working with creatives, outliers, queers, and non-traditional relationships of all persuasions, as well as working with elders.
In her work as both therapist and artist, Ivy embraces the healing power of creativity and endeavors to hold space for the imagination-where the unexpected and the wondrous can arise and catalyze.
Ivy earned a BFA in photography from Pratt Institute and an MFA in studio art from UC Davis. Her arts practice spans collage, photography, interactive installation, and performance.