Middletown >> “Community Works,” influenced by artists’ experiences of the Valley Fire and other Lake County wildfires of 2015-2016, will open at Middletown Art Center (MAC) Saturday with a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibition will include work by children and adults who used art as means to give voice and expression to their experiences, and as a way to find and make beauty despite chaos and devastation.
Musical guests will be Hearts and Bones. Big Valley and Beaver Creek wines will be available for purchase by the glass. All proceeds will benefit MAC’s growing palette of programs and scholarship fund.
Since the Valley Fire, the center has provided a strong sense of continuity, community and enrichment to recovering residents and the area, Lisa Kaplan, of MAC, said in a statement.
MAC recently offered two weeks of free healing art classes also called Community Works to help ease and soothe anxiety and PTSD as the Valley Fire one-year anniversary approaches in high fire season.
In the midst of classes, the Clayton Fire broke out. Several participants left suddenly to prepare for evacuation.
“A colleague was talking yesterday about how trauma shrinks the back part of our brain and it takes days/weeks to regroup back to ‘normal,’” said artist and teacher Sage Abella, one of several Clayton Fire evacuees who sought MAC out as a place of refuge and solace daily. “I think that making art actually wiggles and enlivens that trauma shrink process. I bet making art helps our brain breathe in and out, expanding. At least that’s what I feel while making my art inside this emotional time.”
Community Works will run through Sept. 5. MAC is a project of the nonprofit EcoArts of Lake County. The art center relies on tax-deductible donations and memberships to supplement income from classes and art sales.
For more information call MAC at (707) 809-8118, email middletownartcenter@gmail.com or visit www.middletownartcenter.org.
MAC is located at 21456 Highway 175 in Middletown.
