Art Therapy
8.13.25
The sun begins to set as a twenty-strong group of artists sits, cross-legged, in a circle, around a small park near the popular Bloomingdale Trail—sketchpads and picnic blankets in tow.
“I don’t know most of the people here,” Myron Laban, the event’s organizer, admits. He’s getting up to leave; reserving studio time isn’t cheap. “I have to go record my album,” he tells me.
Myron is many things: a renowned muralist, an indie pop singer. A pharmacist. His pieces can be found all around Chicago; for the international crowd, his colorful paintings pop up everywhere from Barcelona to Paris.
Here, however, Myron’s simply another human, looking to decompress after a long day. “The best experience I had making art was in high school, when I would be sitting around a table with a bunch of friends, talking shit,” he said in July. In the beginning, only one person showed up. Now, with ten meetups under his belt, the art club is gaining traction, and Group Therapy was born.
Most of the attendees I talk to share two things. First, their method of discovery: Myron’s TikToks and Reels, pretty much exclusively.
Second, everyone seems to be new to the city, having moved to Chicago in 2025. Leah started her new life here just eleven days ago; she left her hometown in Kansas to take a job at the Field Museum. “I was coming up to Chicago for a tattoo convention…my manager told me to meet up with his buddy, who gave me a tour of the museum,” Leah tells me, in between handfuls of Haribo gummy bears. “Now, here I am.”
She shows me and Alan (a chemistry PhD, who moved from Texas in April) her rough sketches, featuring cartoon characters like Wile E. Coyote. Alan compares notes; he hasn’t made it very far in building his miniature steel stagecoach (“No Glue Required,” the packaging reads).
We bid adieu; I’m not sure if I’ll ever see Leah and Alan again. I can’t say one hour fully healed me, either. But the sense of satisfaction I leave with is palpable, and the choppy urban grass has succeeded in its mission, sneaking through picnic blankets and purifying the acid burning up my pocket.
It’s now eight o’clock as I walk home. I pass by an elderly man, enthusiastically playing his saxophone at the bustling Damen-Milwaukee intersection, without a care in the world.
Nature is healing.
8.13.25
The sun begins to set as a twenty-strong group of artists sits, cross-legged, in a circle, around a small park near the popular Bloomingdale Trail—sketchpads and picnic blankets in tow.
“I don’t know most of the people here,” Myron Laban, the event’s organizer, admits. He’s getting up to leave; reserving studio time isn’t cheap. “I have to go record my album,” he tells me.
Myron is many things: a renowned muralist, an indie pop singer. A pharmacist. His pieces can be found all around Chicago; for the international crowd, his colorful paintings pop up everywhere from Barcelona to Paris.
Here, however, Myron’s simply another human, looking to decompress after a long day. “The best experience I had making art was in high school, when I would be sitting around a table with a bunch of friends, talking shit,” he said in July. In the beginning, only one person showed up. Now, with ten meetups under his belt, the art club is gaining traction, and Group Therapy was born.
Most of the attendees I talk to share two things. First, their method of discovery: Myron’s TikToks and Reels, pretty much exclusively.
Second, everyone seems to be new to the city, having moved to Chicago in 2025. Leah started her new life here just eleven days ago; she left her hometown in Kansas to take a job at the Field Museum. “I was coming up to Chicago for a tattoo convention…my manager told me to meet up with his buddy, who gave me a tour of the museum,” Leah tells me, in between handfuls of Haribo gummy bears. “Now, here I am.”
She shows me and Alan (a chemistry PhD, who moved from Texas in April) her rough sketches, featuring cartoon characters like Wile E. Coyote. Alan compares notes; he hasn’t made it very far in building his miniature steel stagecoach (“No Glue Required,” the packaging reads).
We bid adieu; I’m not sure if I’ll ever see Leah and Alan again. I can’t say one hour fully healed me, either. But the sense of satisfaction I leave with is palpable, and the choppy urban grass has succeeded in its mission, sneaking through picnic blankets and purifying the acid burning up my pocket.
It’s now eight o’clock as I walk home. I pass by an elderly man, enthusiastically playing his saxophone at the bustling Damen-Milwaukee intersection, without a care in the world.
Nature is healing.
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