Clarence Trickle’s painting of two spaceships against an inky sky lay on a table in the dining room at the Trail Lanes Apartments on the South Side. Jacqueline Reynolds asked whether he was finished with it.
He said yes and she said she would “put it over here” as an entry in an upcoming art show for her clients.
“Yeah, that’s where the trash goes,” Mr. Trickle said.
She shot him a fond, admonishing look and said, “Artists have a hard time valuing the work they do.”
As the art therapist for Operation Safety Net, a Pittsburgh Mercy program that serves homeless people, Ms. Reynolds knows the value drawing and painting have to her clients. Art has been recognized for its power to help people release emotional pain, and art therapy is a tool used by professionals in service to people suffering trauma and other dysfunctions.
To help her clients value the work they do in her open studio sessions, she initiated a show and sale to give them a public reception. It is from 6 to 9 p.m. Friday at Point Park University’s Lawrence Hall, Room 200, 212 Wood St., Downtown. It will feature the work of 15 men and women, all of whom have histories of homelessness. All sales are cash only.
Last year, Operation Safety Net introduced the open studio to residents of its Trail Lanes apartments. It runs an open studio at its Wellspring Drop-in Center Uptown as well. Ms. Reynolds divides her time between the sites.
She worked with Point Park University students to organize the show, part of a larger collaboration between Operation Safety Net and the university.
Robert McInerney, associate professor of psychology at Point Park, established the partnership to take his students in advocate ethnography into the field to interview and learn from Operation Safety Net’s homeless clients.
Ms. Reynolds’ art clients often come to open studio with anxiety, low self-esteem, anger and histories of substance abuse. Some have an art background, others just find release from drawing and painting. One participant, Joyce M., said that at open studio, “you get to feel good for a little while.”
“I used to just watch TV” at Trail Lanes, said Gary Elliott, “and I knew the open studio was going on. I was resistant at first, but then I got intrepid and jumped in. I had drafting at ICM School of Business and liked working with rulers and pencils, but I didn’t think I belonged here as an artist. After I started practicing and made a few drawings, I felt like I was good enough.”
At one recent session, Mr. Elliott, Mr. Trickle and two others bantered with Ms. Reynolds while they worked, but intermittently, talk gave way to silence. Heads tilted in absorption. Legs stopped bouncing and faces lost their tension.
“These guys are taking risks at self-expression, which is scary for many of them,” Ms. Reynolds said. “Art is a way for them to find a voice they don’t have” in society. “It’s a chance for them to explore their authenticity.”
As she tried to get Mr. Trickle to set prices for his work for the show, he made jokes. “I wouldn’t go less than $50 for this,” she said of a painting of two droids.
“You’re doing some good drugs,” he said, laughing.
“Look, it’s a canvas, so think about the value of the materials,” she said. “And think of the time you spent. That has value.”
Diana Nelson Jones: djones@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1626.
First Published: April 7, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
