LIFT Annual Report 2013: Building Strong Foundations | Page 30

Niki’s STORY
Coming Back After a Decade

If you met Niki Davis at a party, you wouldn’t be surprised to hear she’s
an artist. Her bohemian chic clothes and easy laughter give her away as a
creative spirit. But behind those sparkling hazel eyes are more than fifty
years of pain. She suffered a grim network of circumstances including the
devastating financial and emotional impact that the AIDS epidemic had on
her career and family, the progression of a long-standing diagnosis of mental
illness and substance abuse, and the budget cuts to social services. She
sought support and collaboration.
An army brat whose family settled in Washington, D.C., Niki graduated from
the Duke Ellington School of the Arts and then attended the Philadelphia
College of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She launched
a successful career on the West Coast but relocated to Brooklyn in the
late 1980s. During this period, she grappled with the diagnosis of bipolar
disorder, and the medication robbed her of her artistic gifts. “The pills
disconnected my ability to dream,” she says, “and interfered with my handeye coordination. I’m finally coming back after a lost decade.”
“Coming back” meant returning to her hometown and first confronting,
then healing her psychic wounds: A brother who died in a fall. Memories
of the physical and sexual abuse she experienced as a child. Traumatizing
psychiatric institutionalization. And an intensive recovery treatment.
“When I first came to LIFT,” Niki recalls, “I was technically homeless, renting
bedrooms when I could and couch surfing when I couldn’t.” She waited
months for approval for low-income efficiencies only to find that they
were bed bug infested and surrounded by drug traffickers. “I came to LIFT