Gardeners know that getting their hands dirty is therapeutic. First-time photographers marvel at their own art form and the work they create. Task a group of troubled adults with tending a community garden, and then give them cameras to document their work – and you’ve got a win-win situation.
The free photo exhibit City Seeds Urban Farm depicts work at the community garden of the same name, near Union Station. The garden is tended by folks enrolled with St. Patrick Center, whose clients “seek to overcome homelessness, beat drug addiction and cope with mental illness.”
The gardeners learned from the best – they studied horticulture under the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Gateway Greening program, then learned all about photography, including peeks at the work of Dorothea Lange and Gordon Parks.
View the fruits of their photographic labor at UMSL’s Public Policy Research Center (fourth floor of the Social Sciences and Business Building) from Nov. 17 through Jan. 10, daily from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m., and at McMurphy’s Grill (614 N. 11th St.) from Dec. 15 through Jan. 10, Tuesday through Friday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.
– Byron Kerman
This article appears in Nov 1-30, 2009.