For these homeless people, art of heart's sake

The paintings tell their stories.

One lit with the glow of soft firelight shows a red-bricked fireplace with mantle and a clock. The scene is something the artist would like to call his own one day.

Others show festively decorated houses, sun-dappled hills, a log cabin in a forest by a river -- scenes far from the reality the artists face every day, but places that remind them of easier and happier times.

While these paintings have a home, as part of an exhibit at the Barbara M. McInnis House in Jamaica Plain, their creators do not.

The artists are members of Boston's homeless population, and their artwork is being featured in an exhibit called ''Healing Hearts With the Arts," a collection of paintings and sketches at the McInnis center, where their creators are finding temporary refuge as they recover from health ailments. The center offers medical care to 90 homeless men and women who are referred by local shelters or emergency room doctors, according to Kip Langello,, development director.

Some of the artists had never picked up a paint brush. They discovered their new calling after volunteer expressive arts therapist Belinda Soncini began bringing brushes and paint for weekly sessions last April. She uses drawing, poetry, singing, and dance to help these people heal emotionally and spiritually.

''It's not about the talent, but the process of making art and self-discovery," said Soncini, a Middlesex and Suffolk county courts Spanish-language interpreter who visits the center twice a week to work with the patients. ''It's empowering. If you feel good about yourself, you are willing to go do something else and improve your situation. It boosts self-esteem and that leaks into other parts of your life. I am not here to teach them technique but to show them how to use the arts in a personal, meaningful way."

The paintings allow people living on the street to express their creative sides through oil paints, markers, and pastels. They say it has helped them through difficult times in their life.

''You can look around here and see a lot of work and it's beautiful. It's like decorating your home," said Agnes Oliver, who has been staying at the McInnis House during extensive dental work. For Oliver, who has shuffled back and forth among shelters including the Pine Street Inn for the past 10 years after she became a widow, the chance to paint and draw and then see her work on display instilled a new passion for art.

One of Oliver's guiding lights on canvas and on the streets, she says, has been Jesus Christ.

''When you look around, Jesus is everywhere," says Oliver, 53, who also recuperated at the center after a hysterectomy.

Oliver is also finishing a painting of a house near a river that reminds her of her hometown, Miami Springs, Fla.

Beaming as she showed her work on a recent weekday evening, she said, ''Since we don't have a home, this is where we hang our art."

The process of creating their art also gives them a hiatus from their struggles finding shelter, food, or filling out housing forms.

Art has also been the mission for another group of homeless people who meet with Boston artist Jo Ann Rothschild at the Pine Street Inn. For the past three years, Rothschild has taught those at the South End shelter how to paint and draw.

That resulted in an exhibit of 30 paintings and drawings called ''Art from the Women's Inn at Pine Street" that was featured in December at the South End branch of the Boston Public Library. Other examples of their artwork have also been displayed during the annual South End Open Studios event.

''It's been a wonderful thing for the women to have a few hours a week where it's not about being homeless but having a few hours to paint," said Shepley Metcalf, a Pine Street spokeswoman who noted that the class at the shelter is not art therapy but mainly a how-to-paint class. ''The artists felt great having their work seen in a public place."

That sort of recognition has lifted the spirits of many of the homeless patients at the McInnis House.

Prior to the expressive arts therapy sessions at the McInnis House, patients said they mainly attended anger management meetings, lay in their hospital beds, or slouched in lobby chairs, bantering and watching television.

''We had nothing to do," said Joe MacDonald, a taxi driver who lived paycheck to paycheck and found himself homeless last year, unable to work after complications from diabetes brought him to the McInnis House to recover.

MacDonald never saw himself as an artist before he participated in McInnis's program.

''It relaxed me, gave me something to do," said MacDonald, 46, who was recovering from a swollen foot and a toe amputation, the result of diabetes. He has painted nine vibrant paintings of fireplaces, one of which was used for a holiday card at the center. ''If you do something that makes others happy, then you have accomplished something."

That sense of achievement is what drives Soncini to come back each week and help the guests at McInnis House remind others that people without homes are human beings too. She stretches supplies because the costs are coming out of her own pocket.

The exhibit will be on display in the lobby of Massachusetts General Hospital within the next two months, Soncini said. She is trying to have future works featured at Boston City Hall later this year to coincide with the annual December homeless census.

''I want them to be proud," said Soncini as she pointed out some of the common themes found in the paintings and sketches -- homes, churches, family, and nature. One group painting features a tree in autumn, with dozens of fingerprints combining to make a burst of yellow, brown, and rust-colored leaves.

Once the homeless patients are released from McInnis they often return to their street life, and Soncini finds it difficult to track them down. Left behind are their works of art.

''I cannot solve the problem of homelessness, yet I can create a lighter journey by returning some happiness or pride where there is not," she said. ''It's good to hear them say for that hour they feel good, happy, even though I know that they will have to face a harsh reality once they leave."

Johnny Diaz can be reached at jodiaz@globe.com