A preview of the Mental Health Association’s Opening Doors-Changing Lives” Art Exhibit will be shown to the public at the 2008 TurtleTrax Festival & Art Exhibit at Riverside Park on February 23, 2008.  The exhibit will include eighteen seven foot doors, seven three foot turtles and sixty eighteen inch cobblestones which will later be auctioned at “An Evening with Judy Collins” concert and gala auction to be held on April 5, 2008 at Riverside Theatre. All proceeds from the event will benefit the MHA.

 

Hope, Courage, Balance, Play, Renewal and Grace are the themes chosen for the artistic portion of the Festival’s Art Exhibit. Festival visitors will meander through a professionally landscaped pathway while viewing the elaborately decorated art created by local and regional artists, many of whom will also have a booth at the Festival.

 

Six of the doors are historic in nature, taken from a historic (mid 1800’s) three-story home located in Savannah, Georgia and donated to the MHA for this event. One of the historic door artists is Paul Scarborough, who works primarily in watercolors & oils. Paul has painted “Tranquility…When the Body, Mind and Spirit Meet…representing two turtles rising up from the deep blue ocean into the light, touching each other to form tranquility, and to heal and uplift one another whose spirits may be down. Paul’s main occupation is renovation work in Historic Preservation of old Historical building's. He is one of the donors of the historic Savannah doors.

 

 The MHA, a United Way Agency, is the only nonprofit resource that people in Indian River County have for immediate access to crisis counseling and support for mental and emotional challenges. MHA proves its value to the community everyday in the lives saved, the families helped and the connections made for people facing mental health challenges.  Each year an average of 150 people attend support groups offered by the MHA including groups for people with bi-polar disorder, chronic depression and schizophrenia, women’s issues, family members of people with chronic mental illness, victims of domestic violence and eating disorders.

 

   For more information on the artistic portion of TurtleTrax 2008, call the MHA office at 772-569-9788 or visit www.TurtleTrax.org. For help with mental health issues, visit www.mhairc.org

 

Paul Scarborough painting historic door