HeArt & Soul // Beauty from Brokenness

By Christy Carley

Lori Blevins-Schilling is no stranger to major lifestyle adjustments. She founded Bainbridge HeArt & Soul: Art as Therapy Studio with her family, after a head-on car crash that left her with a traumatic brain injury and the need for several surgeries. Dealing with physical, mental and emotional challenges, Blevins-Schilling found her life thrown off course. Through art, she found the strength to move forward and the peace to focus on the positive. In the midst of a global pandemic, when people across the world are being asked to drastically alter the way they live, Blevins-Schilling hopes she can help our community do the same.

HeArt & Soul has been providing a welcoming space for community members to make art since 2012. Last December, the studio expanded its space in Winslow Green as part of Blevins-Schilling’s Passion Outreach Project, aimed at offering support to other community organizations and providing wellness education through monthly speaking events and retreats. Given the circumstances, Blevins-Schilling postponed the launch of her project, but looks forward to helping rejuvenate the community when her studio opens back up.

For Blevins-Schilling, broken glass mosaics, one of the media offered at HeArt and Soul, provide a powerful metaphor for her life, and for the current moment.

“I can take broken pieces, and I can make something beautiful with them,” Blevins-Schilling said. “And that’s kind of where we’re at now. Our country’s broken right now. And we need to take those pieces and put them together and make them beautiful.”