The John C. Williams Gallery at Southern Adventist University will host an opening reception for the Flying Brushes WinterFest art show Jan. 19, featuring works of 30 local clients of Open Arms Care Corp., plus more from Nashville, Knoxville and Memphis.
OAC clients are people with disabilities who rely on the art realization program to translate artwork in their minds to the canvas.
“It ends up giving them an empowering sort of control when everything else would be out of their control,” said Highway 58 resident Aimee Rogers, OAC Flying Brushes program coordinator and a trained tracker. “It’s the one place they can come for one-on-one interaction and basically boss me around.”
Highway 58 resident Aimee Rogers, left, program coordinator of Flying Brushes at Open Arms Care Corp. on Mountain View Road, is a trained tracker who helped William Patrick McCarthy Jr. paint his “Woman, Man, Baby, Bear.”Rogers tracks signals that artists give her with lasers or numbers to paint each canvas.
“It’s allowed me to see a different side of everybody I work with,” Rogers said. “Art is very emotional for people. I really enjoy that part.”
William Patrick McCarthy Jr., known for his grand-scale murals, painted a three-part series inspired by fireworks shows at Chattanooga Lookouts games and also “Woman, Man, Baby, Bear,” on a dark ground with textured splotches in orange, silver and blue.
“He usually likes to paint all day long until he’s worn out and about to fall asleep,” Rogers said. “He thinks big.”
Some of the artists are able to hold the paintbrushes and paint themselves.
Jimmy Harland is one such independent painter who keeps coming back to themes of people, cats, monkeys and other animals. He’s painted a rendition of his dream home in East Brainerd, he said, daubing in the home’s hallway and car, parents, little boy and little dog named King.