‘How Art Helps Me Cope With Chronic Pain’

Kailey Fry, 37, was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis in 2023 after a vacation in Canada.

“I was doing a lot more walking than I usually do on streets with holes and cobblestone,” she says. “My knee was in so much pain that I couldn’t walk at all, which never happened before.”

For Fry, a health and wellness coach from Goldingdale, Washington, getting the diagnosis was anything but straightforward. It was hard to find a rheumatologist in her rural community. When she finally found one, the doctor retired soon after. She was eventually diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune condition that causes chronic inflammation in the joints, which can lead to pain, swelling, stiffness, and tenderness in your joints. (Fry has had type 1 diabetes since she was 6, which increases a person's risk of developing another autoimmune condition.)

This was just the beginning of her chronic pain journey.

“I was having joint pain flare-ups three to four times a week and trying to figure out the right medication for me,” she says. “While that was happening, I was feeling pain and tenderness all over my body.” The pain was constant, but especially bad in the mornings and evenings.

Fry tried acupuncture and meditation, both of which she still finds extremely helpful to this day. She also followed tips from other patients she found in online message boards for support or advocacy groups. Still, she wanted a way to emotionally process her new diagnoses within a community to pair with her efforts to address physical symptoms.

Then, six months ago (two and a half years after her diagnosis), she found an unexpected antidote for her pain: creating art to represent her experiences and talking about it with fellow chronic pain patients.

Fry found this art therapy antidote thanks to the Chronic Pain Project. Founded by Janna Kimel, this mostly volunteer-led nonprofit helps people represent chronic pain through art. Participants discuss their experiences and their art at workshops, community programs, and regular exhibitions in Portland, Oregon. The group also offers online sessions to people outside Oregon or people who can’t travel because of pain.

Fry discovered the Chronic Pain Project online and soon started attending their monthly in-person art group.

The first session was led by Kimel’s husband. He asked the six participants to go around the room to introduce themselves and share their chronic pain experience. Then, one by one, each person showed a piece of their art and discussed what it meant to them. Some people chose to show someone else’s art that had inspired them.

During Fry’s turn, she shared a charcoal portrait she had made to represent feeling alone during an extremely painful migraine. “And everyone was like, ‘Oh my God, I know that feeling!’” Fry says.

Hearing their responses made her realize how healing it could be to create art that explored her emotions related to her health, which she hadn’t necessarily done before.

“When I heard the way they talk about art, I was like, this is what I've been wanting for so long,” says Fry, who earned her MFA in collaborative design and works in photography, illustration, and painting. She had been looking for a space that used creativity to express the emotions that other people with chronic pain feel and understand.

Something else happened at the first group session. Beforehand she had been experiencing medium-level pain and fatigue. “But during the group, I didn't think about my symptoms at all,” she says. “By the end of the group, I was energized, my mood had shifted to the positive, and thoughts of discomfort or pain were not intrusive to my positive feelings.”

Her pain didn’t go away after she continued attending the monthly group, but each meeting made managing flare-ups easier.

Chronic pain can limit a person’s ability to do things they love, says Marie Deschamps, PhD, a licensed art therapist and researcher focused on chronic pain. “Art can help you accept the changed self, do grief work, and use creativity to make meaning out of what was lost,” she says.

“When you can focus on something that makes you feel good, the noise of the pain dampens,” Fry says of her experience making art for the Chronic Pain Project.

“Redirecting attention from a pain signal can help pain management,” Deschamps explains. “Plus, when we make art, we activate the reward circuitry of the brain and release pain-modulating chemicals.”

The act of creation in spite of pain can also foster a feeling of agency and self-efficacy, Deschamps says. “There’s a sense of self that’s honored and validated.”

Encouraging people to express pain through art is the core of the nonprofit, says Kimel. The Chronic Pain Project has participants all over the country and world, and is fundraising to start hubs in more cities, she says. The group continues to host exhibitions with workshops afterward. “Because we don’t want this to just be art on the wall; we want conversations to happen,” Kimel says.

This mission is personal for her. “I’ve lived with chronic pain for a long time, but people don't say those words a lot and talk about what it means for your work life, social life, or self-esteem.” (Kimel has lived with migraine for 40 years and with fibromyalgia for over 20 years.)

Where words fail, creativity provides an outlet, regardless of whether people have no experience or a 40-year artistic career, Kimel says.

Fry says her art portrays what she can’t explain to people. While people generally understand arthritis, she also experiences pain in other ways. “It can be acute and sharp, or a migraine, or sadness, or fatigue,” she says. “When pain is just kind of unidentifiable all over my body or it’s mental pain, that’s indescribable.”

Reclaiming her sense of self has been another important benefit of joining the group, Fry says. Sometimes talking to family members can be hard for someone with chronic pain because they only ask about your illness and your doctor appointments, Fry says. “You wish you had anything else to tell them other than the hardships of your life because it becomes your identity.”

But the Chronic Pain Project allows people to talk about their art, invite loved ones to an exhibition, or share when one of their pieces sells, Fry says. “It’s so cool to see people’s relationships with family and friends become more enjoyable, and to see the person experiencing chronic pain in a more powerful, proud light.”

Fry has also found a sense of community in the group.

Feeling seen in this way is important. “A huge aspect of pain is isolation because it impacts your ability to engage in family activities or regular life,” says Deschamps. “So feeling seen and heard by someone who can understand an accurate depiction of pain shows people, it’s not just me. I’m not alone in this distress.”

“Any medical experience is isolating and vulnerable,” Fry says. “You’re alone in the whole system trying to find answers, not being understood by doctors. So connecting with people, even virtually, who have experienced those things is a profound experience.”

Fry recently showcased a charcoal portrait she’s especially proud of at an exhibition. She gives back to her community by leading workshops for the the Chronic Pain Project, and through her own coaching business, where she not only helps people cope with diabetes and autoimmune conditions but also creates customized creativity plans to inspire their weekly art making.

At this point in her life, she describes her pain as manageable. “I don’t think it will ever go away completely,” she says. “There are good weeks, days, months even, and then there are really bad whole months or days.”

But the nonprofit has helped her get in a much healthier headspace, she says. “If I was a doctor, I would prescribe this to every single person. It has helped me and so many others.”