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Photos courtesy of Homewood High School.
Ella Swenson, a ninth-grader at Homewood High, with her art for the May 2 Kalopsi(ART) show at Avondale Brewing Company.
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Photos courtesy of Homewood High School.
Katelynn Zinn, a ninth-grader at Homewood High, with her art for the May 2 show.
To celebrate May as Mental Health Awareness Month, Homewood students are sharing their interpretation of mental health through an inaugural community art event: Kalopsi(ART).
Homewood High School art teacher Carolyn Warren said 15 students worked for more than two and a half weeks during the spring 2019 semester to create their art pieces, which will be displayed at the event and then auctioned off to benefit Impact Family Counseling.
“[Impact Family Counseling] wanted to see what being mentally healthy meant to the students, so that kind of gave them a huge, enormous amount of visual opportunities, ways to visualize and express themselves. … So all of the images are completely different, which is great,” Warren said.
Kalopsi(ART) will take place at Avondale Brewing Company on Thursday, May 2, at 6 p.m. and showcases high school student artwork from Homewood, Mountain Brook and Vestavia. The name of the event was chosen from the term “kalopsia,” a Greek word that translates to “the delusion of things being more beautiful than they are.”
Shareta Collins, marketing director at Impact Family Counseling, said the name speaks to the fact that mental health can be “an elusive illness,” and while someone may appear to be fine on the outside, there may be a different story on the inside.
“In light of this, mental health can be described as a ‘kalopsia’ force. We thought to put a positive spin on it, and that’s how we came up with it,” she said.
Collins said the purpose of the event is to bring awareness to mental health and also help Impact Family Counseling continue to provide an affordable service to the community by raising funds.
Impact Family Counseling, which has a partnership with Homewood City Schools, is a nonprofit agency that offers outpatient counseling through a sliding pay scale for individuals and families. Through their Successful Schools program, Collins said they provide behavior aid and counseling at the schools. They also provide anger management classes, healthy relationship workshops and other seminars for students and families.
“As a way to bridge the gap [between students and Impact Family Counseling], we decided to ask some of the art students to create this artwork by just showing us what they thought about mental health. To highlight their creations, we thought it would be a great idea to bring the Birmingham community into it,” Collins said.
Collins said the “one-of-a-kind” art pieces include everything from traditional painting and sculptures to photographs and digital media. Each student also shared a statement to go with their piece to further explain their interpretation.
“Back in January, I told them we have this awesome opportunity to give back to our communities and support each other in our school and do something where we are going to raise funds to provide services for families in need, and they jumped on board,” Warren said. “I’ve been really impressed with Homewood students. They really have a great sense of creativity and a great sense of community here.”
Junior Chloe Bloodworth chose to depict mental health by doing a painting of her cat in a relaxed state “to represent how important it is for one’s mental health to take the time to lay back and relax.” Her cat has always been a great comfort in her life, she said.
“The healing power of a cat’s purring inspired me to swirl acrylics diluted with water of various colors to illustrate how smoothly a cat’s purr can cover everything around it until all is calm,” Bloodworth said.
She said the yellow in her piece represents positivity, the blue represents tranquility and trust and the green is for balance and health. Bloodworth said all the things the colors represent are what her cat has given to her unconditionally, improving her mental health and life.
Katelynn Zinn, a ninth-grader at HHS, chose to paint a butterfly to describe mental health because of the “delicate nature” of mental health, and how if it’s not taken care of, it can be easily damaged.
Warren said for students, art acts as an outlet and a way to be creative and establish a sense of self-worth through “creating something out of nothing.”
Another junior, Margo Araoz, painted her depiction of mental health as a brain with flowers in it.
“The brain is filled to the brim with goals and motivation. I drew flowers inside the brain to represent the continuous mental growth that everyone goes through,” she said.
Araoz added the swirls of color around the figure represent dreams and aspirations, while the white line coming out of the mouth represents speech and communication.
Ninth-grader Ella Swenson chose to draw a lotus flower.
“I believe good mental health is to have the characteristics of a lotus. You take the worst things going on in life and turn them into something magnificent,” Swenson said.
Warren said many students chose to depict mental health through realist paintings of nature or living creatures, like the cat for example, while others chose abstract or nonobjective pieces that involved mainly just shapes, lines and colors. Some students also added words and depicted spirituality.
“When you hear the word mental health, a lot of times it’s not talked about or it’s sometimes hushed,” Collins said. “I think creating that conversation with some of the students at an earlier age and creating that dialogue to have a discussion of what mental health is will essentially make it easier for them to have the conversation as they continue to grow older.”
Community members are invited to purchase a $25 ticket and take a look at the various interpretations. At the end of the night, they can further participate and raise funds for Impact Family Counseling by purchasing the art work through the silent auction. The ticket includes food catered by Hattie B’s Hot Chicken.
Warren said they hope to make Kalopsi(ART) an annual event that grows its reach to more schools in the area. To purchase tickets or learn more about Impact Family Counseling, go to impactal.org.