Poetry Broadsides

Prescriptions for Life

Prescriptions for Life
Collages & Writings
Paula Gray and Theresa Whitehill

2026 Exhibit
Friday, September 4 through Tuesday, September 29, 2026
Medium Art Center
110 South School Street, Ukiah, California 95482
https://www.mediumarts.org/

Opening Reception: Friday, September 4, 2026, 5 to 8 pm
Poetry Reading, Theresa Whitehill: Saturday, September 19, 2026, 6 to 8 pm

In this exhibition, visual artist Paula Gray and poet Theresa Whitehill present their collaboration on the theme of “prescriptions for life.”

The project began in 2019 between the two longtime Mendocino County friends as a series of conversations based on Paula’s recovery of a nineteenth century medical prescription ledger from a local thrift store (the Lytton Springs Thrift Store near Healdsburg, California, now closed). Paula disassembled the ledger and created collages on cradled board from its pages. These were juxtaposed with Theresa’s writings exploring related themes, which she printed as a series of letterpress broadsides.
As part of the project, Theresa researched medical prescription ledgers and found surviving copies in the UCSF Medical Library, where she spent an afternoon studying the antique script and prescription vocabulary.

2020 Exhibit

This project was originally scheduled to have its debut exhibit at the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco, curated by Deirdre Visser. After opening on March 4, 2020, it was closed within two days due to the shelter-in-place shutdown at the start of the Coronavirus pandemic. The exhibit was up for four more months behind locked doors, and never reopened to the public.

Virtual Exhibit Tour of 2020 CIIS exhibit, with voiceover of Theresa Whitehill reading some of her poetry from the project (8-minute video): Click Here

“Prescriptions for Survival in a Time of Global Pandemic,” essay by Deirdre Visser, Curator of the Arts at CIIS (10-minute read): Click Here