Artist returns to Passion Works to help create project

Local artist Pat Mitchell is working in collaboration with Passion Works Studio to create an alternative and unique art project to be on display in January.

The Ohio Arts Council, a state-funded agency that supports art experiences in Ohio communities, is sponsoring Mitchell's involvement with Passion Works. Mitchell has traveled to various places both in Ohio and elsewhere through the program. Her area of specialization, she said, is working with mixed media, and acting as an artist consultant for organizations to help design programs and build studios.

The past couple weeks Mitchell has used her expertise in mixed media to create a project with the artists at Passion Works that incorporates photography, illustrations, juxtaposing of multiple images, and other artistic techniques to create what is expected to be a large gallery piece.

In collaboration with the Ohio University's Aesthetic Lab, which donated $1,500 to the project, Mitchell, artists and other residency artists have been experimenting with various artistic techniques to create the project.

"You never really know how it's going to turn out," she said while walking around the gallery next to the Passion Works Studio. "It's a real call-and-response dance that happens."

When Mitchell started her residency, the options for the project, she said, were endless. Currently, they're focusing on putting the artists in their own art work. It's a unique concept, she acknowledged, and it appears to be developing into a successful creative piece of work.

"I really can't go in there and pair someone with an idea," she said. "It's really how they interpret the art, and what comes out of it is usually something creative, brilliant and funny."

The images include dioramas and illustrations that portray how the artist may perceive him or herself.

The personal reflection involved with creating these pieces of artwork are therapeutic, according to Mitchell, who said the residency is more about art than anything else.

"Along the path of creating these pieces of art, therapeutic things happen, but that will happen to anyone who does art," she said. "I call this art, not therapy."

The point of Mitchell's residency is to be on site for a specific amount of time and work with the designated studio on a project. This time she was lucky enough to return to a studio she's previously been involved with. Having worked with the studio before in the late 1990s, Mitchell said her experiences there gave her scope and perspective on how much of an impact an organization such as Passion Works has on its communities.

"Thirty-eight collaborate-work studios have been inspired by Passion Works," she said. "It just works so beautifully. This way of working is my life. So many organizations and people who work with folks who have a development disability, who want them to be participating in their communities and in their world, have been inspired by the model that Passion Works provided."

Mitchell and fellow artists are anticipating that this project will also have an impact. Fellow residential artist Wendy Minor, who has worked with Passion Works for 10 years, said she hopes to see a positive response from the public to the final project.

"I hope the public sees something new," she said. "We want to give them something they haven't seen before."

Fellow residential artist Chris Biester noted that the project will likely be something the public hasn't seen before."

These residencies help bring us into a new territory by using whatever their specialty may be," he said

Mitchell will work over the break to finish the project. The completed pieces will be on display in January.