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City Hall art display showcases emotions of addiction, incarceration

The visual is subtle yet shocking.

A shoestring knotted into a noose defines Brittany’s addiction and lost feeling of self worth.

In recovery over a year now, Brittany (photo, kneeling), who created the striking art piece now on display at City Hall, has her life back on track with a much brighter future ahead after 14 years of addiction.

On Monday at City Hall, 44 W. Washington St. near downtown Shelbyville, Michael Daniels (photo, far right), the city’s director of Behavioral Health & Justice Equity, hosted an open house for a new art exhibit that helps celebrate Second Chance & Recovery Month in Shelbyville.

“What we wanted to do was put a holistic and humanizing face on what reentry and recovery month looks like,” said Daniels.

 

 

Daniels partnered with the Shelby Art Guild Association to put together the project. Shoes donated by the Hope House Thrift Store in Greenfield were taken to the Shelby County Jail.

Women incarcerated were asked to select a pair of shoes, provided with craft supplies and tasked with creating a visual display of the two sides of addiction.

“We wanted to do a visual representation,” said Daniels. “We asked the ladies to decorate one shoe that represented how they felt when they were addicted and incarcerated … kind of at their low point; and the other shoe to represent what they felt like when they were in sobriety, when they were not incarcerated, when they were free in the community. Each one has a dark and a light shoe, or a low point and a high point shoe.”

 

 

Brittany walked up the stairs into the main lobby of City Hall Tuesday night and saw the shoes she decorated front and center on a wooden bench.

“When I was in addiction, I felt like I was dying,” she explained to the small group in attendance. “So I put the noose on there. On (the other shoe), Love, Grace. I felt alive. I had peace and joy.

“In my addition, people would call me a junkie. I was sick. I was not loved. I felt lost.”

Women involved in The Bridge, a recovery and restoration program in Shelbyville, also participated in the art project. A total of 11 pairs of shoes were decorated.

They will remain on display at City Hall this month then moved to the Art Guild, 5 Public Square, where they will continue on display and available for purchase. The proceeds will benefit the Art Guild.

Brittany, last names were omitted from the art project, remembers her addiction starting when she was eight years old. Both her grandfather and uncle committed suicide from alcohol, she stated.

“I just drank one day and from that moment I instantly knew why I loved it and hated it at the same time,” she explained. “And from there, it spiraled up. I was looking for a way out.”

While she spoke, she kneeled down and touched the shoe with the noose dangling down. That tactile feeling of desperation still resonated within her.

As she grew older, knee injuries led to pain pills. And when that didn’t take away the pain, she turned to heroin.

 

 

Brittany is now involved with The Bridge and has been clean for over a year.

“At the beginning, I think they were a little … it’s something different,” said Daniels of meeting with the incarcerated women. “At the end, they were really excited that this was something that the city was behind and it was going to be displayed at City Hall. We heard over and over that people cared enough to put my artwork at City Hall.”

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