CLOSE TO HOME Art Show at The Perk
VPG | Mar 17, 2012 | Comments 0
La Junta, CO—March 1, 2012—Southeast Mental Health Services
On Friday night, March 9th, Southeast Mental Health Services sponsored an art show at The Perk coffee house. The art show, “Close to Home,” features paintings and mixed-media dimensional collages made by local artists at workshops held by Colorado Arts of Recovery, a volunteer, statewide nonprofit that works to end the stigma surrounding mental illness.
“This is our second year holding the workshops and openings in Lamar,” said Hawley Higgins, CAOR founding board member and Director of Clinical Services at Southeast Mental Health Services. “One in four Americans will experience a diagnosable mental illness this year, so for many of us, the subject of mental illness hits ‘close to home’,” said Higgins.
The show features artists’ interpretations of “home”
A home is meant to be a place of nurturing, comfort and safety. It may invoke an image of a childhood home, a current home or a future home. It can be real or mythical. It can hold spirits of the past or visions of the future… or both. Home can be inherited, purchased or created. They can be described as building, a relationship or a memory. Home is where you can be yourself, and where you bring others into a circle of warmth around your hearth.
The art in this show was made by participants in workshops sponsored by Colorado Arts of Recovery, a volunteer, state-wide nonprofit organization promoting acceptance and integration of people living with severe mental illness in mainstream society.
“We have a ton of fun at our workshops,” said Higgins. “As an artist myself, I see the value of connecting people back to their community. Art brings people together, and it’s special to see a show like this in a rural community. I always get a positive response from the coffeehouse patrons and the business people who enjoy seeing the artwork.”
Colorado Arts of Recovery Board Members Hawley Higgins and Nancy King
At the 2011 workshop, artists studied the work of Robert Sabuda, Lothar Meggendorfer and other pop-up and movable book creators. They were asked to consider what the word “home” meant, which to many of us is a place of nurturing, comfort and safety.
The show will hang at the Perk through March.
Contact: Nancy Harris King, Development Director
Southeast Mental Health Services
Office (719) 383-5459
Cell (719) 980-0914
nking@semhs.org
www.semhs.org
Press Release & Information from the Art Show Flyer.
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