“What would have happened to me if I’d been treated in the 19th century?” wondered Rachel May after receiving care for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in 2010 at McLean Hospital, whose main campus is in Belmont.
She explores that question in the group exhibition “Crafting The Mind,” on view at the Somerville Museum from Jan. 15 to March 28, 2026.
When McLean Hospital, New England’s first psychiatric hospital opened in Somerville’s Barrell Mansion in 1818, patients were encouraged to create textiles and other crafts as part of the institution’s “’moral cure,’ an approach to treatment that emphasized compassionate care, access to nature, and patient activities,” according to May and co-curator Danielle Krcmar.
The connection between the Somerville Museum and McLean is that the Barrell Mansion’s original flying staircase is now part of the museum. A weaving loom featured in the exhibit symbolizes how, in the 19th century, McLean’s treatment offered patients a loom room, basket weaving, sewing circles, woodworking, gardening, nature walks, and gymnasiums with ladders, mats, and exercise balls.
“The artists in this show,” May and Krcmar write, “speak to many of these complex issues and themes, and how sewing, weaving, embroidering, dyeing, and other fabric arts provide opportunities for meditation, self-reflection, slowing down, embracing radical joy, processing pain and grief, and connecting with family and ancestors.”
The exhibition features artworks by Betty Antoine, Amy Caliri, Cicely Carew, Mimi Clark, Alison Doucette, Leah Dunn, Farah Faustin, Samantha Fields, Ifé Franklin, Kate Holcomb Hale, Jan Johnson, Kayla Johnson, Lauren Leone, Joetta Maue, Michele Moran, Loretta Park, Carl Phillips, Darryl Richards, Carter Shocket, Josie Sosa, Matthew Treggiari.
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