Tin artist to offer paint therapy

Mina Benavente, second from the left, poses for a photo with Marianas Young Professionals representatives after she is awarded the “Hope is Here to Stay” award last Wednesday at the Hyatt Regency Saipan. (Kimberly A. Bautista)

A woman, who transformed corrugated tin roofing to art immediately after the onslaught of Super Typhoon Yutu over three months ago, will be offering art sessions as a means of therapy to those still struggling with the current reality Saipan faces.

San Vicente Elementary School librarian Mina Benavente has become known for her perspective of the island’s situation following Yutu and the art she created to speak for it.

Benavente, through the help of the Marianas Young Professionals, will be offering art sessions that she hopes to be therapeutic for those still struggling with life post Yutu.

“People are understanding reality again, it’s a different reality…not for everyone but for most people and I wanted to introduce to our community a way to de-stress so I will be offering paint sessions. One of the biggest struggles I had personally was understanding how I feel and so if we’re given the opportunity to sit down and paint, sometimes you identify different feelings and emotions and that’s the point, to let people discover an outlet to feel better about themselves or to feel better about situations…just art therapy, that’s exactly what I want it to be,” she said.

Benavente will be offering art sessions at local restaurants including Garapan Restaurant, Joe’s Bar, J’s Bowling, Java Joe’s, and at her home.

“Hopefully I will be offering weekly services for $30 a person and there will be services offered once a month for like teens,” she said.

Benavente said that materials will be bought through the cash prize that comes with the award that MyPros awarded her called the “Hope is Here to Stay” award.

“This super-generous award from MyPros will be a huge jumpstart to buy materials like paint and plywood and just simple things to continue this message ‘let’s continue to hope’ and sometimes hoping is learning how to de-stress and finding joy in the moment,” she said.

Benavente shared that she started her tin paintings after the typhoon when she found two pieces of tin swaying in the wind that was making an awful sound. Instead of thinking about the awful sites that surrounded her and the sound of the unforgiving winds, she decided to paint.

“I was just walking around in my backyard and I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know what to feel. I didn’t know what I was feeling and there were these two pieces of tin that were stuck together and the winds were blowing against it and then it was just making this really bad sound when I heard it. It was making me super nauseous and then as I stared at it, I begged my husband to bring it down and I stared at it and I thought ‘we need to change our perspective.’ It is a disaster but how do we switch this around and so I decided to paint on it. So, I painted my first one and I felt good about it so I put it on social media. Then I was getting like[s] and [comments] saying ‘you gave me hope’ so ‘we love it’ so I [decided] to do one more” she said.

Since the typhoon, Benvente has made more than 100 tin paintings. There are about 50 that remain on island and 50 that have followed federal agents back home. “they were all bartered with, I did not receive any money but I did ask for paint brushes and paint and things like that,” Benavente said.

MyPros executive director G Van Gils shared that Benavente’s paintings brought hope to him and his team following the storm and that’s why they decided not only to award her, but to aid in her plans to educate the community about paint therapy.

“Nine days after Typhoon Yutu, I was driving and it was awful. Everywhere I looked, my friends were suffering and I started to cry, pulled over my car, and had a break down and through my windshield, I saw a piece of tin that Mina had painted. It gave me hope. It let me know that I’m not alone in this storm, I’m not alone in this recovery, we will get through this as a community. We noticed that Mina was painting on tin after the storm…basically we feel like now, since MyPros moves into resilience and out of recovery, we want to pay attention to people’s emotional needs…. this has been a very difficult time” he said.

One of Benavente’s art pieces will be displayed in the MyPros Innovation Center that is scheduled to open in June.