Biography
I was born to an Irish-Catholic working class family in Cleveland. Living in neighborhoods that were mostly Catholic, I attended Catholic schools; this included a small Catholic college outside of Cleveland. There I majored in sociology with a social work option. After college, I moved to Chicago for graduate work at the School of Psychology inside of Illinois Institute of Technology where I received a M.S. in rehabilitation counseling.
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My work life consisted of working with people with special needs: people with chronic mental illness, homeless women, people in SROs (meant to be a place between homelessness and independent living), and adults with developmental disabilities. I started art programs in two SROs and in a program for adults with developmental disabilities.
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Another aspect of my life has been rheumatoid arthritis. For over 40 years I have struggled with pain, loss of joint mobility, multiple surgeries, hospitalizations, and side effects of medications.
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Thus, the influence on my art has been growing up in an Irish-Catholic working class family, an interest in psychology and the spiritual (especially the ideas of Carl Young), and having RA. Painting and drawing have always been a cherished, therapeutic way to express myself and carry myself through difficult times, and I am grateful for it.
Rita O'Hara
Carl Jung said that art can be an expression of archetypes and, as such, is both transformative and healing. Such universal and eternal images that frequently appear in my paintings are the mandala (the self), the wise old woman, the wise old man, eternal youth, the butterfly (the soul), fish (transition), an individual walking down a path (life's journey), stars (hope), birds (the soul), the swans (the supernatural), and the owl (usually and ill omen -- presages death; but in classical Greece means future success).
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The act of painting allows me to explore my unconscious. Like dreams or fantasies, I may not always understand the significance of the images -- they are the images of dreams -- but they allow me the opportunity to play. One image leads to another and thus they reveal their meaning.
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My work as a rehabilitation counselor, a struggle with rheumatoid arthritis, an Irish--Catholic background, and an interest in the spiritual influence the form and content of the paintings.
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All my paintings have been titled using lines from Emily Dickson's poetry.
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