This is art from the soul — Area artists share their gifts at the public library throughout April

Published 9:04 pm Friday, April 13, 2018

Standing in the gallery of the Lincoln County Public Library, you can see it and you can feel it — the creative energy that pulses from the matted works hanging on the walls. The colors vibrate and the blacks resonate. Even the whites of accents or negative spaces seem brighter, a purposefully integrated portion of each composition.

Created by artists with some degree of intellectual disability of delay, at any of the Boswell Regional Center locations — Brookhaven, Wesson, Hazlehurst, Magee and Mendenhall — each work of art on display is the result of a large investment. BRC’s promotional material says that each piece of art represents “at least one hour of brain therapy, friendly and intelligent conversation with the teacher, appropriate touch, vocabulary building, occupational therapy, color and beauty, and expression of the soul.”

Participants at each campus receive occupational therapy, but also get the opportunity to express themselves through visual art and music, if they choose to do so. Individuals at the Brookhaven campus can attend art classes once each week. Some artists create entirely on their own, while others require some level of assistance. Even if they choose only to observe someone else creating, they can experience the joy of art.

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Directed by Clint Ashley as a provider for the Mississippi Department of Mental Health, BRC employs Claire Bevell as its director of the Expressive Arts Program. The works in the library are on display throughout the month of April and are for sale.

A BRC representative will be on hand every Wednesday in the month to assist with purchases, or interested buyers can contact Bevell at 901-340-5216. Some of the artists will be on hand on April 26, 4:30-7:30 p.m. for a reception.