Brenda Cleary is an Canadian-American community artist and nurse living in Québec. As a teenager pursuing formal monastic training in both Buddhist and Franciscan contemplative traditions her vision was anchored in soulful engaged praxis at an early age. At 19, while healing from a series of complex orthopedic operations she began to volunteer teaching painting workshops at the local Ute Nation local homeless youth shelter. The experience was a wake-up call to the power of art in health and healing alongside the virulence of structural violence ordering American society. A vocation for art, activism and health was born. Brenda pursued a BA in Francophone African Literature and the ethical problematics of allyship and focused her art on assisting at risk youth to use art as a vehicle for storytelling and to organize to confront injustice in the community. At the age of 22 received her first grant to create participatory murals for The Family Tree Domestic violence crisis shelter where members of her own family had learned to break cycles of intergenerational violence. At 24 she was awarded an artist-in-residence position at the Rieckan Foundation and the Indigenous Support Network to promote literacy and develop a community memorial over a clandestine grave site with surviving Mayan war widows and their children. Upon returning to the states the artist became deeply involved in radical birthwork as a doula with refugee and undocumented migrant women. Many a night were spent in monolingual Spanish labour and delivery rooms with days working for the urban Indigenous youth of Escuela Tlatelolco: a school founded by the Brown Berets and long allied with the American Indian Movement. While still able to work both nights and days the decolonized pedagogy of Escuela inspired large-scale participatory art works with vulnerable day laborers, inner-city youth, and dropout prevention initiatives alongside teaching in classrooms that championed Indigenous history and strong community ties. Her teaching philosophy enacts the belief that joy, beauty and creative mischief are essential to political resistance. After getting a second degree in Health Sciences Brenda Cleary took the helm of Project YES and affected a dramatic revitalization, redesign and expansion of their youth art programs in foster care, juvenile hall, migrant farm work housing projects communities and in a comprehensive kindness curriculum taught throughout the Eastern Boulder Valley School District. Ms. Cleary relocated to Montréal In 2016 to retrain as a nurse and pursue arts-based Pediatric Nursing research at McGill, Concordia university and the Shriners Hospital for children exploring the moral experiences of children affected with osteogenesis imperfecta through methodology drawn from Augusto Boal's Theater of the Oppressed and Laurel Richardson's transcript poetry techniques. Through collaborative improvisational puppet play at the bedside Brenda Cleary co-imagined a comprehensive series of children’s books to disseminate children’s research insights to affected children themselves. Ms. Cleary currently works on rotation as a public health nurse in the Arctic, fucking loves it, and is getting back into Health Humanities research after spending the entire C-19 pandemic face down in a pile of craft projects that may never be fully finished.
BRENDA CLEARY,
MSC. RN |brendacleary@gmail.com|Registered Nurse OIIQ #2211285
Education
Master's of Science in Nursing McGill University, 2020 GPA 3.7
MSU Denver Bachelor of Science - BS, Biomedical Sciences Science GPA 3.79
CU Boulder French Literature GPA 3.75
- ACLS, PALS, ITLS certified June 2024
Nunavut Vaccine Certificatied March 2023 - World Health Organization Tuberculosis e-learning certificate March 2023
- Wabano Indigenous Health Organization Cultural Safety Training March 2023
- Past Certifications: Suicide Action Montreal Intervention Certification, Champlain Maternal Child Health Neonatal Rescucitation, UC San Diego Peer Lactation Support Certified, CAPPA labour and delivery doula, Boulder County Public Health Motivational Interviewing Level 1, TriCouncil Research Certificate, Rocky Mountain Translation Labour and Delivery Spanish Language Interpreter, Critical care course 2019
- Vancouver Art Therapy Institute Trainee 2024
- Extensive Workplace training in autism, anxiety, depression, living with chronic health conditions, palliative care, cancerology, wound care and pediatric life limiting conditions
Experience Community Health Nurse, Quebec/Nunavik June 2019-current
- Innultisivik Public Health Nurse on contract Nunavik, QC March 2021 current TB, COVID, Vaccination, Reproductive Health, Loss of Autonomy Nursing March 2022- current
- Maison Des Collines Palliative Care Home October 2021- July 2022
- CISSO of Outaouais on contract and CBI Agency Home Health Nurse/ Palliative/Wound Care Nurse Ottawa March 2021-current
Child Health Researcher Shriners Hospital for Children Osteogenesis Imperfecta ClinicMontreal/Virtual January 2019-December 2022
- Developed first of its kind arts-based pediatric bioethics research program and suite of arts-based patient education materials to promote effective communication during surgical assent processes. Collaboratively drafted manuscripts and grants to produce cartoon production of children’s perspectives on their clinical care.
Indigenous/Community Health Nurse Researcher Contract 2016-Dec 2018:
- Managed various research contracts to synthesize data and draft manuscripts such as developing First Nation Youth Well-being Indicators through a partnership with the First Nations Information Governance Centre & McGill University's Department of Transcultural Psychiatry; Decolonizing education initiatives Concordia University’s Indigenous Directions Leadership Group; Arts-based War-affected Youth Family Social Work Interventions. First author Pittsburgh municipal government policy brief detailing social determinants of health; extant multi-level lead poisoning policy and child health implications: CC Incorporated
Special Projects Manager Institute for Human Development and Wellbeing McGill University February 2018-February 2019 Managed an up-and-coming research Institute, developed two internship programs and launched an inaugural think tank comprised of international experts in the field of human well-being
Summer Arts Program Director, Digital Media Academy, July 2016 - September 2016 Montreal, QC
- Managed sales force data base, expense reports, logistics, public relations, inventory control of $200,000 in assets, and 14 staff delivering Java, Arduino and Maya digital arts programming for a total of 320 students aged 4-17.
Program Director, Project YES! Youth Envisioning Social Change July 2014 - July 2016 Greater Denver area, CO
- Recruited, hired, managed, trained staff of 9 hourly instructors and numerous volunteers delivering programs for 520 participants focusing on youth mental wellness promotion in partnership with Boulder County Public Health Department Collaboratively drafted curriculum based on community needs and local leadership • Developed community social work internship program in partnership with Boulder County Public Health Department, Boulder County Public Schools, Colorado foster care, migrant farmworkers, DACA youth and juvenile justice system. Authored grants. Secured $60,000 increase in budget. Managed payroll and budget.
Managing Director, Motus Theatre March 2014-March 2015 Managed budget, grant writing, collaborated on political action campaigns and operations of professional theatre company dedicated to art for social change in immigration and Indigenous rights
Clinical Case Manager/Group Prenatal Care Facilitator, Clinica Family Health August 2011 - August 2012 Greater Denver Area • Providing bilingual/bicultural patient education, resource brokering and clinical case management as part of an interdisciplinary health team serving low-income peoples including: management of 400 patients in depression/anxiety management registry, comprehensive pediatric (well child check) counseling, lactation support, diabetes education, motivational interviewing for health promotion, and bilingual/bicultural group prenatal CenteringPregnancy *TM facilitation.
Director and Artist In Residence, Trillium Connections LLC May 2006 - October 2013 Greater Denver Area (www.trilliumconnections.org) Founded LLC to develop funding, design and implement collaborative community art programs/murals focusing on at risk youth mental wellness promotion with focus on urban and rural Indigenous communities including the Mountain Ute Nation, Quiche Maya victims of the armed conflict, Escuela Tlatelolco urban Indigenous academy, and migrant farmworker community.