Welcome to the Recovery in the Arts
Project 2026
Painting
Local artist Ryan the Wheelbarrow joined us to teach the basics of bubble letters. We created custom works of art with paint markers on mini 8”x10” canvases. We began with example worksheets of stylish alphabets to inspire the crew. With pencils and markers, we started sketching ideas on sheets of blank paper and across the tables on brown butcher paper.
Poetry
Moving Past Fear
for Voices of Renewal: Recovery in the Arts
I wrote a bucket list thinking it was about adventure — skydiving, swimming, horseback riding, driving — but the truth rose up quiet and undeniable.
This wasn’t a list of thrills. It was an inventory of every place fear told me not to go. Every doorway I closed to stay safe, or so I thought.
My whole being had been shaped by playing small, coloring inside the lines, staying indoors, staying quiet, staying in the panic that masqueraded as protection.
But as I kept writing, something shifted. The pen warmed in my hand. The truth cracked open.
These weren’t forbidden things — they were dreams waiting for permission. They were the edges of my life calling me forward.
Skydiving became trust. Swimming became breath. Horseback riding became balanced. Driving became direction.
And I realized: moving past fear is not about being fearless. It is about being willing — willing to step outside the box, outside the hysteria, outside the old stories that kept me small.
This poem is my renewal. My recovery. My art.
And it belongs to the movement we are building — Voices of Renewal, where fear becomes color, avoidance becomes expression, and every story finds its courage again.
Written by Meadow M.
Where the Hidden Things Live
Voices of Renewal: Recovery in the Arts
A light breeze brushed past on a hot, sun-kissed Miami day. My horse and I lolled forward, stepping around mud‑caked puddles and clumps of half‑chewed hay left behind by the morning herd.
This was a Miami moment that didn’t fit the postcard — no beaches, no boats, no neon skyline humming in the heat. Just a hidden gem of a horse farm nested behind a family of green, bushy trees that guarded it like a secret.
People think Miami is only what they see on the surface — the glitter, the water, the rush. But so many things here wait quietly for discovery, if your imagination lets you look for the unknown.
And on that trail, with the breeze, the hay, and the steady rhythm of hooves carrying me forward, I realized something simple and something true —
Recovery is just like this place. Unexpected. Unmapped. Found only when you wander past what is familiar and let yourself believe that hidden things still exist.
Written by: Meadow M
Photography with Roxy Azuaje
