Jennie Ayala is an inspiration and role model for all of us who’ve met her and learned about all of her accomplishments. She is a retired filmmaker who worked for Warner Brothers for 30 years doing camera work and still photography. This was quite a feat in those years because, as she points out, “At that time it was quite hard to get a job doing that. There were very few women doing that kind of work and even fewer Latinas or blacks.”

In 1979 Jennie graduated with a bachelor of arts from the Geame School of the Arts. Since then she’s tirelessly built her career as a multifaceted “working artist” in photography, painting and singing.

Like many people with disabilities, Jennie complements her disability income with earnings from sales of her photography and artwork, as well as from her role as a singer with the Baltic Street Band of 250 Baltic Street, an outpatient mental health clinic in Brooklyn.

Jennie’s parents, born and raised in the towns of Juncos and Loiza Aldea in Puerto Rico, migrated to New York in the late 1920s. In New York, her mother worked at a candle factory and later as a shoemaker. Her father was an architect with a degree from the University of Puerto Rico, but as Jennie says—echoing the realities of many Puerto Rican immigrants—“My father, being black and Puerto Rican, could not find a job in New York as an architect, so for most of his life here he worked for the City of New York as a supervisor for drawbridges.”

Mental health problems began in childhood
Jennie’s mother passed away one and a half years ago at the age of 96. Her father died of lung cancer in 1972.

Jennie reveals that her father was abusive and he hurt her and her mother in bouts of physical and verbal abuse. She believes that was in many ways the cause of the “very severe depression” she struggled with for many years.

“I think I had mental health problems since I was a child,” Jennie confides, “due in great part to my violent father. As a child you see the violence and you want to fight back, but you just don’t know how. I was very traumatized by his abuse but I kept all of those things inside and that transferred into severe depression which made it difficult for me to cope.”

I asked Jennie if her severe depression caused her to not be able to work or accomplish anything significant. “No,” she calmly answers. “In my case it was different because in the midst of the abuse from my father he taught me not to cry and he always said that I was worthless. Every time I heard that, I felt I had to prove I was worthy. I pushed myself to do things, and that’s how I graduated from high school, graduated from college and did all the other things I’ve done in my life.”

Recurring themes in artwork
In her artwork, which she has widely exhibited at special events, hospitals, universities and numerous galleries in New York’s trendy West Village, Jennie also found peace of mind. “I love to paint landscapes,” she said softly, “and also especially barns, because barns mean something to me. When I was brutalized as a child I would sometimes go to upstate New York to visit friends in farmland with lots of barns. I would run into the barns and hide. Every painting of mine that you see shows my feelings.”

When asked how she feels about individuals buying her artwork Jennie smiled, “It feels very, very good.” “[I feel] that they appreciate my work. As an artist I am very pleased by that,” she added.

In addition to painting Jennie had a few roles as a singer in Broadway shows in the late 1950s. She was part of the chorus in “Wish You Were Here” and was one of the lead singers in “Poor Valentine.”

Road to recovery
“But inasmuch as I wanted to continue singing,” Jennie said, “I got ill with very deep depression. I started misusing my medications, taking uppers and downers, and that’s when real serious problems started. That was also the time when I came to the 250 Baltic Street Mental Health Center and things started to change for the better. People were helping me, especially a social worker by the name of Ella Cruz. She really put me on the road to recovery. I owe everything to her.”

At 250 Baltic, in the midst of her recovery from severe depression, Jennie came up with the idea of forming a musical band. The idea of a band was always in peoples’ minds as part of an extension of the music therapy program of 250 Baltic Street under the direction of Peter Jampel, a clinical staff member who is a professor of music therapy at New York University.

In 1985, the Baltic Street Band was born with Jennie as one of its first two original singers. Today, the band has grown to include six musicians, and sometimes up to 11 singers – all mental health consumers – as well as a steady crew of music therapy students from the New York University music therapy program. The band has performed “paid gigs” in hospitals, outpatient clinics, upscale restaurants, festivals, conferences and other venues.

In the Baltic Street Band Jennie has a quick, dynamic, upbeat stage presence. She mostly sings Broadway tunes and her beloved jazz, noting “I like to use congas in my songs to give my music a Latin flavor.” She continued, “I don’t know why but audiences always request for me to sing ‘All of Me.’ They love that song.”
    
Talking to Jennie — who besides a mental disability has also had to deal with disabling back problems, knee replacement surgery and 12 years of wearing a brace after almost losing the use of her right hand after an accident — it  is easy to forget the stigma associated with physical and mental disabilities.
    
“I don’t dwell on my disability because life has to go on,” she firmly stated. “You have to work on your problems to move ahead and that’s exactly what I’m doing. I take my medications, I drive my own car, I have my own apartment, I go to different support groups. I’m part of the Hispanic Consumer Leadership Group here at Baltic and I just got back from the annual conference of New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services. I just continue to push on and help others, that’s my goal.”