Jeannie Lawer, co-manager of the Sisters of the Road Cafe, examines a piece painted in the 1990s and now stored with scores of other pieces painted by homeless people using the organization’s services. Lawer, who used to be homeless, says at one point, she was like the screaming people depicted in the painting.
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PORTLAND – To get through painful comedowns following highs, the heroin addict draws bright colors and strong lines with a sure hand, creating beautiful surrealist images.
He’s about 50 and has lived on the street for a long time. His drawings are being stored with scores of others, some dating back decades, in a Sisters of the Road storage space in Northwest Portland.
“Imagine a person, hurting enough to be an addict, reaching inside to extract such beauty from himself,”
Article source: http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2013/apr/21/homeless-artists-draw-upon-their-experiences/