(MURRAY, Ky.) — Forty adults in recovery from addiction spent the summer exploring what “home” means to them through creative writing and visual art, and their work will go on display next week in a new exhibition here.
The “Feels Like Home” exhibition opens Friday, Aug. 7, at the Murray Convention and Visitors Bureau, 206 S. 4th St., and runs through Aug. 14. An opening reception is set for 4:30 to 6 p.m. that day, with formal remarks at 5:15 p.m. Both the exhibition and reception are free and open to the public.
The project grew out of a series of hands-on workshops funded by a $5,000 Arts Access Assistance: Arts and Health grant awarded to The Murray Sentinel by the Kentucky Arts Council. It was carried out in partnership with the Murray Art Guild, Serenity Recovery and Neartown Recovery.
The exhibition takes its name from Murray’s “Feels Like Home” tourism tagline, which appears on downtown murals, including one on the south side of the Convention and Visitors Bureau. Organizers say they hope the show will celebrate participants’ work, encourage community engagement and help chip away at the stigma surrounding addiction.
“Participants gained more than just new skills — they gained a sense of belonging,” said Holly Cherry, executive director of Serenity. “The workshops helped people build connections, share experiences and feel more at home in their community and in themselves.”
The Arts Access Assistance program funds arts programming for underserved populations, centered each year on a specific, timely theme meant to support the health and well-being of Kentucky communities.
Award-winning writer Constance Alexander and artist Debi Henry Danielson, who also serves as the Art Guild’s executive director, led the workshops. The Art Guild hosted the sessions at its facility, which opened in March. Neartown, an accredited residential treatment center for men recovering from substance use disorders, and Serenity, a 12-month nonresidential recovery program, recruited participants and provided recovery expertise throughout.
Each session opened with a discussion of the many meanings of home. Some participants reflected on where they grew up; others imagined the homes they hope to build in the future. The resulting poems and collages captured that range — one participant wrote of the joy of “dancing in the rain,” while another reflected on how home shifts as parents age, describing “the lines of years gone-by etched on their faces.” One participant simply called the experience “AWESOME.”
Danielson said the Art Guild’s new space was designed with that kind of openness in mind.
“We consciously created a space that felt open and flowing, that would encourage working together and, hopefully, easily being a part of the whole,” she said. “To me, that feels welcoming.”
The response from participants was strong: 98% of post-workshop survey respondents rated the experience “excellent.” Many singled out the “chance to be creative” and the “comfortable and relaxing environment,” and one said the workshops pushed them “to think deeper than usual.” Several expressed interest in future arts programming, including sessions on different forms of poetry, drawing, pottery and sculpture.
The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports “Feels Like Home” with state tax dollars appropriated by the Kentucky General Assembly and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts.
