Monsters and Myths of Substance Abuse: Digital Catalog

DIGITAL CATALOG

THANK YOU TO OUR COMMUNITY PARTNERS

Voices of Hope is a recovery community focused on increasing the accessibility of recovery programs and housing, raising community awareness of substance use disorder and recovery resources, and decreasing overdose deaths.

DV8 Kitchen provides relational employment and community for extraordinary people in active recovery while helping reduce the stigma of addiction. Its two locations in Lexington serve fresh baked goods daily while furthering their mission of recovery empowerment.

End Overdose at the University of Kentucky is a nonprofit organization focused on ending drugrelated overdose through education and resource distribution.

The Gaines Center would like to specially thank the UK Women in Philanthropy, whose generous gift helped make this exhibit possible.

FEATURED WORKS KIAH ARNOLD

A Matter of Substance

MARISA BOOTY, MARGARET Photovoice MCGLADREY, SIENA PILATI, ASHLEY BERKSHIRE CHANDLER BROADY That Liquor is Bitter and Nasty, but Boy is it Smooth!

ALAYSHA CROWE Marlboro Smoke LEAH DICK Ritual MARY FULLER PROFFITT What it Was Like, What Happened, & What it is Like Now GABRIELLE DEATON The Black Balloon Project SIX GRUBER My Mommy is at Liberty Place KELLI JO JOHNSON Personified Anguish MEGAN JONES A Side You Don’t See

SAMANTHA JONES

Community Input in Harm Reduction

JASON KASH Kiosk The Role of Fantasy BRITTANY MILLER-ROENIGK Prescription Opioid Misuse among Black Adults: A Multigenerational Study THOMAS LUKE RUBERG His Exigency JENA SEILER Picture Proof JASMINE SINGER Reliance PATRICK SMITH Twiggy Electric ERIN STRATTON Reasons Healthcare Providers Stigmatize Patients with Substance Use Disorders: Addressing Health Disparities in the Healthcare System

ANONYMOUS

Composition #2

A Matter of Substance

By Kiah Arnold

“A Matter of Substance” written by Kiah Arnold, poetically describes witnessing substance abuse disorder firsthand, aiming to shed light on the complexities of dealing with an addicted loved one. It explores the depths of their struggles and the emotional factors that contribute to this destructive behavior. The poem hopes to evoke empathy and understanding toward both parties: the individuals struggling as well as those who love them.

Through imagery and poignant metaphors, this piece paints a picture of the inner turmoil experienced by those caught in the throes of substance abuse. This is the journey of one individual’s lived experience with another’s struggle. “A Matter of Substance” delves into the perspective of the loved one and how their feelings are parallel to those of the user in some instances.

One aim is to engage readers on an emotional level; fostering empathy and understanding for the complexities of addiction. “A Matter of Substance'' also hopes to provoke contemplation on the need for a more compassionate and supportive society that prioritizes mental health and addiction recovery. Finally, a last goal is for broader conversation to be had about what support can look like for those who love someone struggling with substance abuse disorder.

Photovoice

By Ashley Berkshire, Marisa Booty, Margaret McGladrey, Siena Pilati

Photovoice is a participatory action research method that uses photography to facilitate group discussions and promote advocacy efforts. As part of the Kentucky HEALing Communities Study (HCS), ten Photovoice groups were facilitated with more than 40 community members from the 8 HCS Wave 1 counties (including Fayette County) and 2 groups of peer support specialists who provide recovery coaching to individuals seeking treatment for opioid use disorder. Photovoice participants developed photography topics on community strengths and concerns related to the opioid epidemic, met for at least 2 sessions to discuss photos taken and how photos connected to issues in the broader community, and created photo-caption pairings to be used in their own advocacy efforts. The proposed display utilizes postcards of the photocaption pairings developed by the Photovoice groups to provide an array of community perspectives and dispel myths about how the opioid epidemic has impacted Kentucky communities; a table is needed to display the postcards and posters. Attendees of the showcase will be encouraged to interact with Photovoice team members and take postcards that speak to them to continue the conversation about the realities of addiction and recovery in Kentucky.

That Liquor is Bitter and Nasty, but Boy is it Smooth!

By Chandler Broady

Although I have not personally dealt with substance abuse, I have witnessed the effects. Cocktails are a way of bonding and they are seen as being a social boost. They are enjoyed in flavors like lemon drop, espresso martinis, or mango margaritas. However, those who do not use alcohol in happy spirits, could care less about these aesthetics. I was watching the 1970’s version of Beyond Scared Straight, where a young woman, in times of mental crisis, admitted to drinking shaving cream to ease her withdraws. It’s called “NBA”, non-beverage alcohol. This is rock-bottom alcoholism, as many others have admitted to engaging in this tragic, devastating behavior. Some people reported to having drunk hand sanitizer, shaving lotion, mouthwash, and motor fluid. I wanted my artwork to showcase gross and unappealing alcohol to give the message to the viewer that the drinker is not drinking to be merry, I added appealing glasses and a little cherry on top of the gasoline drink, to show that the drinker is trying to add a small amount of dignity to this undignified practice. They can’t cope with their pain soberly, and they will do whatever it takes to obtain alcohol, no matter the kind.

Marlboro Smoke A Poem by Alaysha Crowe Hi, everyone, my name is Alaysha Crowe. I am a sophomore university student here at UK, with plans to earn my undergraduate degree in theater and English with a creative writing concentration. Through my work, I attempt to write honest stories that center addiction, abuse, trauma response, and identity. Overall, I want to comment on childlike idealism, police force, prison/the justice system as a whole, especially as it relates to those struggling with substance issues, psychiatry & psychiatric survivors, psychotropic harm, social class, & above all how we as humans tend to have an inherent compassion - that is opposite punishment centered ‘rehabilitation’ - and empathy which seems to be near impossible to hold onto & easy to rationalize ourselves out of. I am compelled to write about these topics because I have been exposed to addiction of all forms.

I can be the next Gabby Douglas with enough core training, another backbend, a straighter cartwheel and a flatter split. I watch the sunrise, contorting my form from one flexuous position to another. A Lifetime movie I once saw in a shabby hotel room, which detailed the intricacies of the renowned gymnast's life, inspired perhaps a sort of obsession, or moreover, guilt at my mother having spent thirty dollars we do not have to buy my first name brand leotard. Here now, the world appears from an inverted perspective. I hold myself up with childish dreams and skinny arms. My palms touch stained carpet as I keep the arch to my spine. Our space, minimal as it is, overturns in my vision.

Flea-filled furniture cast upside down. I am doing it; my form is perfect.

The sickly cats that lurk below my dangled curls are out of mind. I cannot comprehend the filth they live in, and the lack of food they have. When I arise out of my backbend, flailing myself on the Goodwill claret-colored couch, I do not notice the cigarette packs stuffed with marijuana or the symptomatic yellowed walls.What of the fist-shaped hole near the bathroom, and the water that ever flows from the sink cold as ice?

My eyes are on the prize; thoughts like these never occur to me. What am I, a reclusive eleven-year-old, supposed to know of poverty? This, I perceive to be the reality of anyone who lacked Jansport backpacks, cable-knit sweaters from American Eagle, owned a vehicle without heat, or sometimes struggled to find a roof over their head. I am subject to the only version of normal I think a life can be.

I right my world begrudgingly, turning things right side up, and somehow, I still feel out of equilibrium within, just as unsteady on my feet as on my hands. I palm my spine on instinct. I had held my backbend for several minutes, wishing it to be more born talent than habitual practice. I can feel it as I feel my own breaths in my chest, the chartreuse ribbon collared around my nape and the gold medallion weighing heavily on my neck, both indisputable in their presence.

With a bit more practice... It is a vulnerable feeling, having a tangible hope, like an adored piece of antique china my grandmother will not allow my cousins and I to touch. Almost as if she believes our small fingertips could taint a dish in a single brushing. What a violent childhood inheritance, our spindly palms? Similarly, my tangible hope is just a conjuring of wishful imagination, capable too, of shattered ruins across a flea-infested carpet. Its delicacy, innate.

And now in ongoing years, with no medal yet, imagination is to me a better thing than truth.

The brawl begins with a bellow, sharp enough to wake me from a dream. I toss to the side of the pallet, flattening my back against the floor. I listen; I hear. A brusque tone, an imploring upper register. When I woke, I knew middle school would officially begin; I had been counting down the days since May. The same gnawing voices I hear now would wish me luck in the morning, imploring me to try my best.

Piercing shouts over fall wind. Rain peacefully patters outside, yet frantically my mother rushes into it. What of reconciling this macabre way about them tonight with the early risen, caring adults I know they will be in the morning? They will usher me out of bed with warm arms around me, expectant that my own will return theirs in kind. I have my fantasy, though even it withers to become mere distraction eventually.

I throw myself into a subject at school, a book I read, a story I craft, the skill of biking one-handed on windy country roads, gymnastics, Gabby Douglas, and gold around my neck.

But sometimes these desires are all too precarious. Sometimes distraction is not enough. And in those jolting moments where imagination fails me, in between my father's shout and my mother's slamming coke glass on cracked pavement, I hate the truth of her and him both.

I know the combatants, and I know the fight. I wake and drift like Marlboro smoke, down the carpeted stairs and out the open apartment door. My ears turn up. His timbre strikes harsh against the summer’s morning quiet. Charles who had raised me and taught me right from wrong; Charles who my mother let in despite his heavy hand and absent heart. Charles who flings his muscular palm up, like the snap of a bow.

I take it all in; I do not breathe. Her face will not bruise; I know that. She has been hit before. It will sting a while, she will cry, but in the end, she will get back up and chase after him. I rise before she can fall. I forget, or I try to, everything she never said about being careful, staying away from people like him and moments like now. I disregard his face, as I come between them, knocking powerless fists into his unmoving frame.

I am aggressive, but with each hit of his flesh I remember his words nudging me, encouraging me, teaching me to glide along effortlessly on the bicycle he helped to buy me. I remember the softness of his hands as he shows me a new handshake, spots me in my backbend or gently calms my mother’s bouncing knee. His teeth bared, but this time behind a Bob Evans' countertop, as he smiles and serves me eggs sunny-side-up. I want to disappear each truth, or make one easier to digest than the other.

Instead, I can think only of the discrepancy between the one who abused his power tonight, and the one who used his dominance to construct my Barbie Dreamhouse. The surprise of each always feels fresh, and I pity this part of my naivety. I envy the girl who had heard bedtime stories about the Olympics and genuine emerald bands, rather than living nightmares of creatures and the dark. It is a feeling akin to the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. However, idealism, as with distraction, cannot cast away part of me which still depends upon the Behemoth.

After all, even Red Riding Hood wanted to believe that the imposter was her granny. I want to disappear each truth, or make one easier to digest than the other. Instead, I can think only of the discrepancy between the one who abused his power tonight, and the one who used his dominance to construct my Barbie Dreamhouse.

The surprise of each always feels fresh, and I pity this part of my naivety. I envy the girl who had heard bedtime stories about the Olympics and genuine emerald bands, rather than living nightmares of creatures and the dark.

I look out my windowpane; she followed me inside. My mother cradles an arm, biting her busted lip. Her sobs linger, and I do not shed a tear.

I cannot. I look anywhere but at her, eyes honing in on Charles. A beast, he is, head upturned, glaring at the skylight shimmer of the gray orb above. The moon is full tonight, and with it, my humility.

Another day, another night, another morning has never felt further away. Anticipation for the upcoming school year is stifled by exhaustion. He comes inside, my mother cocoons herself into his coil, and I go to sleep.

Today, I am without a medal, though the impression on my skin feels ingrained forever: a scaring, an invisible tattoo, a testament to the tangible hope, lost since that treacherous night. Dreams are less distinct now, more hazy and drifting than I remember. I am no Gabby Douglas, nor will I ever be. Gymnastics was my shot at shelter from my situation, at least that is what I thought then. If I could become something like a champion, I could perhaps uproot us from that suffocating apartment and the creature that stalked within. A medal though cannot serve as a savior to my mother, or myself for that matter. The gold was left glistening under the azureus night sky, while I was left with newfound truth and little distraction from it. The dependence you feel, whether it be attached to material or a person, a leotard, or Charles, will never satisfy.

Ritual

By Liah Dick

As someone who celebrated 13 years of sobriety in February 2024 and who also works in substance use disorder research, I want the narrative of recovery to be a celebration of possibility. Over the years, this required- and still requires- making an active practice of staying curious and of ritualizing hope in my daily life and choices.My recovery is not only the foundation of all the best parts of myself and my life, but a reflection of those who have given me their love, life experience, and hope over the years. That includes family, friends, romantic partners, strangers in mutual aid groups, recovery community and harm reduction organizations who have completely changed (and continue to change) the conversation around substance use disorder, and folks in my hometown of Lexington who made it possible to return two years ago and make a real home here.

With Ritual (2022, acrylic and gesso on canvas), I invite you to give, reflect, seek, and create a daily moment of hope for yourself and others.

What is was Like, What Happened, and What it is Like Now

By Mary Fuller-Proffitt

“What it was Like, What Happened, What it is Like Now.” A visual story of an absolutely undeniable miraculous journey of my recovery.

Throughout the entirety of my 67 years on earth, the arts have & will always be the soul of my being. My piece depicts my journey as a “Survivor Sister,” made from fallen tree limbs, textiles & embellishments, meant to be discarded. One of the fundamental impacts in my life was ballet.

The Black Balloon Project

By Gabrielle Deaton

The Black Balloon Project is a collection of photographs that capture the raw devastation that the overdose crisis is having our communities.

Family members of loved ones lost to overdose stand for a photo, holding a single black balloon and a photo of their loved one. Below each photo lays a placement card, written by the family, describing the person they lost and what they loved about them. The purpose of this project is to destigmatize substance use disorder and overdose. The purpose of this project is to humanize individuals who suffer from substance use disorder, and acknowledge that people are so much more than the struggles they encounter. We urge you to read their stories, capture a glimpse into who they were and move forward with more compassion and less stigma. I started the Black Balloon Project as a way to articulate my feelings of survivor’s guilt. Why do I get to survive overdose, but they do not? I was no better, no smarter, no more loved than any of these individuals. I created the Black Balloon Project to express that people who suffer from substance use disorder or overdose, are so much more than that. They were loved deeply and they were deserving of that love and so much more.

My Mommy is at the Liberty Place

By Six Gruber

Liberty Place Recovery Center for Women is a long-term treatment center for substance abuse. I am an alumni of Liberty Place; I spent 16 months in the recovery program and then moved into sober living. My proposed submission to the Gaines Exhibit is a coloring book that I wrote and illustrated to show kids what their moms do for treatment at long-term recovery centers. In “My Mommy is at Liberty Place Recovery Center for Women,” children can color along with the unicorns while learning what their mom will be doing while staying at Liberty Place. Children will learn about the 12 steps, motivational track (MT), PHASE 1 & 2, being a peer mentor, and what it means to “drop your 5th step.” The coloring book also includes Mommy & Me activities for the children to do with their mom through the mail. The book also provides resources for children, family, and friends of alcoholics and addicts.

Personified Anguish

By Kelli Jo Johnson

The work featured is meant to represent the feeling of a loved one's blood being on your hands when they battle with and lose the fight with addiction. This piece aims to highlight the complexity of boundaries and guilt when being a bystander in the life of someone struggling with drugs or alcohol. Inspiration for this piece came primarily from my experience with a family member who overdosed from fentanyl poisoning, as well as general observation of the lives of those struggling. The background features geometric lines spiraling around the subject to symbolize a web that creates a sense of overcrowding and confusion.

Shown behind the figure's head, a dark halo alludes to a spiritual experience that the situation ultimately lies within a power higher than the subject. In contrast, the blood that laces the figure's hands formulate a grounded, human experience of anguish, though an internal feeling, manifests through the physical in this piece. Amidst the adverse undertones of this work, the subject is looking up, and the bruises on the hands symbolize the ability to heal and progress.

A Side You Don`t See A Poem by Megan Jones “A Side You Don’t See” is a piece I wrote in response to my reality – in an attempt to make sense of the things I’ve seen and experienced over the last six years, working in a local psychiatric hospital. As time has progressed, the nature of my job has changed (along with the people in it) as we’ve endured the COVID-19 pandemic, an opioid epidemic, and a general mental health crisis within our country. The point of this piece is to provide a critique on the establishment, the systems we have in place, while also highlighting the invisible lives of patients and their providers that are constantly affected by those same structures. Everything in this piece is true although written in a way to protect the privacy of the people I care for.

My name is Megan Jones. I am a twenty-nine year old writer, born and raised in Central Kentucky. I have my B.A. in Psychology, English, and am currently working on my Master’s in Social Work. From an early age, I have always loved writing in all its forms. Whether it be fictional kings traversing the land or journal entries about my own, I’ve always been driven to captivate the world with my words. I want to resonate with readers like so many great works have often resonated with me.

It never stops and it gets hard not to be discouraged when you see the same offenders too many times to count. They are almost always worse than when they last left here. Sometimes this place can be funny. Other times, you might want to pull your own hair out. In an extreme situation, they might want to actually pull your own hair out too. They give you a technique when you start on how to best avoid scalping.

Today alone, a girl made a dildo out of some air clay. Another colored markers onto her head. One of my favorites, Mr. Secretary Of State, asked if I knew his face was currently carved into the side of Mount Rushmore. “Don’t you know me? My name is George, that’s all I’ll say.”

These delusions always manage to add a little delight into the day. In group, a patient told us how his dad died when he was kid - killed himself in prison at twenty-eight. He’s talked about how he’s that age now, in prison as well, and trying so hard to avoid the same fate.

I’m twenty-eight. We encouraged him to get better and leave the drugs behind. We gave him papers on how to cope, things to do when panic sets in, and how to manage best when the walls start to close towards him.

They are all on drugs. Let me repeat it: they are all on drugs. They shoot dope, smoke crank, and snort blow. I don’t blame them with what goes on in the world, in our lives. I’d do drugs too if I had gone what they had to go through. I love to listen to the “experts” on the news discuss the legitimacy of this epidemic that I’m a witness to every damn day. You see the cracks in our society, but you’re a small cog who’s unable to solve any of the real stuff that’s part of the problem.

In May, we watched a man plan for his future. He wasn’t going to miss anymore of his son’s birthdays. He died four days later after being released. I hope somewhere he’s finally found some peace.

Patients are rarely the problem. It’s the bureaucracy up top that really boggles us down. Patients held involuntarily here are sometimes nicer than our own bosses. How many times did a patient disrespect me today? Four. How many times did our supervisors? Ten. They tell us we aren’t allowed to worry about our own mental health. You’d think a facility like this would preach the opposite. If we can’t take care of ourselves, then how are we ever going to be able to actually help them?

I’m not kidding, not even a little, that I have a co-worker in a gown on a unit, while I write right now. She’s the one with the markers scribbled onto her forehead. It’s weird and feels like some rule should somehow prevent it. But here she is, in her underwear, telling me how much I’m loved. We can all be on the brink to insanity.

It doesn’t take nearly enough as you’d think. It’s always this interesting here. Keeps you on your toes every time you walk in, to whatever might be happening next. To whoever. It could be us. It could be them. We try our best to navigate the happiness and hardships within. It’s easy to get burnt out, almost everyone I know feels it, but something more than money brings you back every day. A sentence said by someone for the first time after being in a catatonic state. A butterfly painting that looks too good to be made in the confines of these halls. A story of hope. A mantra of motivation. That something you do might make them better, no matter how small it seems. It could stick. A smile, a laugh, ‘good luck’, and goodbye.

Community Input Harm in Reduction

By Samantha Jones

I am currently an undergraduate College of Public Health student working toward the completion of my Bachelor of Public Health degree.

As a student in the college, we learn extensively about how substance use and harm reduction play out across the entire Commonwealth of Kentucky. However, there are often many barriers to receiving care in many communities and that is what I wanted to highlight in my research project. Appalachian populations are often left behind when research is conducted in these areas and that is where Dr. Young, and I, have grown to be very passionate. By showcasing how Appalachian communities view harm reduction at both a physical and social level—I gained a much better understanding of how to tailor harm reduction programs in these communities.

The Role of Fantasy

By Jason Kash

“The Role of Fantasy” was created after a period of substance abuse in my life. I was examining the relationship between pleasure and asceticism. This work embodies my understanding of desire as ever present yet shaped by past experience - eternal yet constantly changing.

Themes of psychological struggle, fragility, and the effects of the passage of time are explored in the work through a raw material language of primarily wood and metal. Identity, at once constructed and inherited, is explored through mechanical, architectural, domestic, and geological references. All of these references are conflated to deemphasize boundaries between the cultural and natural, human and nonhuman. Casting serves as a mode of transformation, recalling an energetic event that is reinterpreted for the present. Rust and gravity suggest the inevitably of such processes, and their tendency toward destruction.

Prescription Opioid Misuse among Black Adults: A Multigenerational Study

By Megan Jones Introduction: Opioid overdoses in Kentucky increased over 54% from 2020-2021. Black Kentuckians are disproportionately affected by opioid overdoses, surpassing Whites for the first time in history in 2020.

Black individuals also experience more persistent/severe depressive and anxiety disorders than other racial/ethnic minorities, and mental health is associated with prescription opioid misuse (POM). Despite these risks, Black Americans often face barriers to treatment, report less positive treatment outcomes, and are less likely to receive medications for opioid use disorder. The current study aims to examine generational POM patterns and treatment experiences among Black Kentuckians with recent POM.

Dr. Brittany Miller-Roenigk is a Research Assistant Professor of Counseling Psychology at the University of Kentucky. Her research interests include health and racial disparities in mental health and substance misuse among Black adults. Dr. Miller-Roenigk has worked on the Research Examining Factors associated with the Opioid Crisis among Underserved African Americans (REFOCUS) study at the University of Kentucky (NIDA; R01-DA049333, PI: Danelle Stevens-Watkins, PhD) with Dean Stevens-Watkins and Dr. Hargons for four years. The co-authors of this work are also dedicated to research to help reduce disparities, such as opioid overdose disparities, among Black adults in Kentucky.

The co-authors include Dean Stevens-Watkins, who is the Acting Dean of the College of Education, a Professor of Counseling Psychology, and the Associate Vice President for Research in Equity, and Dr. Hargons, who is an Associate Professor of Counseling Psychology.

Methods: Participants (n = 39) were Black adults, aged 18-65, stratified into four age cohorts with a 50% gender split per cohort.

Participants completed a qualitative interview.

Results: Results revealed generational patterns for reasons for POM, common opioids used, drug obtainment, and POM onset. Pain and mental health concerns were prevalent and contributed to POM. Treatment themes included autonomous accessibility, provider characteristics, and relational support.

Conclusions: Culturally-relevant POM interventions may benefit from idiographic, dual-diagnosis approaches, with attention to patient preferences for race- and gender-matched providers and peer integration, and strategies to increase motivation/readiness, especially in mandated treatment settings.

His Exigency

By Thomas Luke Ruberg

My name is Thomas Luke Ruberg. I have been doing art all my life. What started out as another way to convey imaginative stories with my friends has grown and evolved into its own language. I am majoring in psychology with a dual minor in business and art studio. I don't necessarily believe that the art studio minor will carry me to any financial peaks, but I can assure you that art is something I simply cannot and will not live without. Deep down I feel a continual need and impulse towards the creative. Whether the medium is poetry, visual art, music, dancing, photography, skating, billiards, and even living.

Everything can be enjoyed so much deeper if you understand it as an art. Living is an art. Through the creation of an art piece or the grammar of a poem, you can begin to understand what this whole life thing is about in the first.

Picture Proof

By Jena Seiler

As artists, educators, and individuals who have witnessed the effects of substance use disorder in our own families, we feel compelled to push back against representations of addiction that too often perpetuate notions of personal failing and community apathy. We are particularly mindful of the tremendous loss that people, families, and communities have experienced from the ongoing drug crisis. In the summer of 2018, when we began filming, we were immediately drawn to Ashley and Debi. They were radiant: Ashley with her long golden hair and Debi with her distinctive pink highlights framing her face. And they were generous; they welcomed us into their lives with kindness and humor. Both women believed that by sharing their story of Ashley’s struggle with substance use, it might help save someone else’s life. In the summer light, we knew we wanted to be near Ashley, Debi, and Piper and that we wanted to make a film about these three generations of women. We set out to document the subtle, ordinary, and material ways that substance use disorder and recovery shape life, motherhood, family, and community.

Twiggy Electric

By Patrick Smith

Reliance

By Jasmine Singer

Jasmine Singer is a dancer, choreographer, and overall creator that shows intricate stories, relationships, and emotions through movement.

With a background in theatre, she aims to bring theatrical concepts into her choreography. As a choreographer, Jasmine aspires to create works that evoke emotion and thought from the audience. When choreographing, Jasmine likes to have a story or concept in mind. She then draws on personal experiences in order to build and strengthen her concepts.

Composition #2

By Anonymous

Composition #2 is part of a series of form explorations titled Interior Landscapes. The piece's subject matter is the complex emotional experiences a child collects when growing up with a substance abuser parent. Further clarifications about the piece are not necessary.

Experience it for yourself.

ABOUT THE GAINES CENTER Founded in 1984 by a generous gift from John and Joan Gaines, the Gaines Center for the Humanities functions as a laboratory for imaginative and innovative education on the University of Kentucky's campus. Devoted to cultivating an appreciation of the humanities in its students and faculty, the Center embraces varied paths of knowledge, and particularly strives to integrate creative work with traditional academic learning.

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