Iversen Wellness and Recovery Center’s “Diverse Minds” showcased its first art show at the Museum of Northern California Art in a gala Thursday.

“Diverse Minds” has been set up since 2015. Every year, since opening up, Diverse Minds has been producing a publication of art and writing for people in the mental health community. The goal is to have people who have their own mental health challenges, or even people who have lived and worked with other people that have mental health challenges, to have a place where they can show their artistic ability.

“They’re so talented but a lot of times they are inhibited by their own mental health issues or by other people,” said Andrea Wagner, creative director of Diverse Minds. “We want to show the community, at large, what the mental health community can produce and do.”

Wagner said that the publication started out as a Chico book called “Iverson Journal,” 2015 and 2016. It became regional in 2017 and was able to expand to the superior region, which consists of 16 north counties within California. “Diverse Minds” started to reach out to those counties and an additional six counties participated last year.

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“So this year we decided that we wanted to go a little bit bigger and so we got this idea for an art show and we span nine counties,” said Wagner. “The work is anything from pen work to sculpture to jewelry, and even some purses. We want to keep growing that cause… this year we added an art show.”

John McMackin, who has been doing art for Iverson for about four years, shared some of the composite work shown in the gallery. McMackin managed 14 people on a piece that took over three months to complete.

McMackin described his own work as single, or “continuous line” work. They tend to be landscapes with strange perspectives. He often creates small works of art that he creates off-hand and gives away for free for anyone to take.

“I’ve been doing it for a very long time,” McMackin said. “My joke is there are probably some people that don’t have one yet.”

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Diverse Minds has just released their North State Journal 2018, which is now for sale at nvcss.org/diverseminds/. This journal contains all the art shown during the art gallery, as well as written works.

Alex Coba can be reached at artseditor@theorion.com or @ThatOneGuyCoba on Twitter.