Recap: Countering Schizophrenia by Finding Solace in Art , Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

G. Paul Burnett/The New York Times

Rodney Smith, who lives in a small apartment on the Upper East Side, says that painting is a way to express the ineffable.

According to the New York Times, Rodney Smith sat and shuffled and reshuffled a small stack of business cards he held in his large, gentle hands.

“I don’t know what it was,” he said, in a voice that seemed too small for his 6-foot-plus frame. “I just woke up one morning and it seemed like something was terribly wrong.”

Mr. Smith was describing the first time he experienced the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, which has plagued him for more than two decades. He began to hear voices. They warned him that he was being followed, and they threatened to hurt his loved ones. They started to destroy his life.

“I remember shaking a little and trying to figure out what it was,” Mr. Smith recalled in a recent interview. “Somehow my brain convinced me that somebody was out to do something to me or my family. And that was like hell.”

It was a hell that Mr. Smith, 39, never expected to find himself in. An Islip native, he grew up in Brooklyn, graduating from high school, taking classes at Nassau Community College and then earning $50,000 a year while working two jobs.

“We were accountants, but they didn’t call us that,” Mr. Smith said of his first job, at a Long Island nonprofit organization. “We were called bookkeepers, because they would not pay us what they would pay an accountant.”

He has retained his sense of humor, despite all that followed. The symptoms became worse. Confusion, dizziness, nightmares and cold sweats became the norm. Relationships with friends and relatives were strained. Soon he could no longer work.

He was arrested after jumping a subway turnstile — urged by the voices — and doctors at Bellevue Hospital Center gave Mr. Smith the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Though he began to receive treatment, he still struggled. He became homeless. He attempted suicide.

He finally learned to control his symptoms with help from FEGS Health and Human Services System, also known as the Federation Employment and Guidance Service, a beneficiary agency of UJA-Federation of New York, one of seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund. Taking part in a daily program for nearly two years starting in mid-2005, Mr. Smith discovered a new solace: art.

He paints regularly in a downtown studio that offers free painting supplies to artists with mental illness, and he has sold some paintings.

Canvases fill his cramped bedroom. A swirl of blue and white — “Ocean” — is wedged behind a dresser. “New York,” with a teal base and black skeins, evokes Franz Kline.

Today, Mr. Smith is matter-of-fact about the ravages of his disease. Spirituality and religion are important to him; he grew up in a Baptist church. A well-thumbed Bible sits amid his belongings. He says painting is a spiritual process, a way to express the ineffable.

“I think abstract art was created for people with schizophrenia,” Mr. Smith said. “It’s perfect. It’s a perfect medium. Art tended to be more therapeutic than trying to speak to a psychiatrist or a therapist.”

With help from FEGS, he moved into a dormitory on the Upper East Side in January, a transition space for the formerly homeless, and lives on $900 a month in Social Security disability income. Money from the Neediest Cases Fund provided $500 for dishes, towels and other household items. They offer a touch of domesticity for his home, which is tiny even by Manhattan standards.

“The room is a little small, but I have everything I need that can fit in here,” he said. “Living here after a year and a half in the homeless shelter and drop-in center is wonderful.”

But Mr. Smith, who continues to receive counseling from FEGS, understands the future he faces.

“You have to come to the realization that this is the way you’re going to be for the rest of your life,” he said. “I never met one schizophrenic go back to their regular life. It doesn’t exist. That person is dead. This is a new person in there. I will never again be the person that I was.”

His voice grew softer. “That’s the sad reality that I live in,” he said, looking away. The voice became a whisper.

“That’s the way it is.”