With her art, Myra Mullins wants to show abuse inside and out.

Mullins survived an abusive relationship. Memories of what she experienced drove her to create in photographs and ceramics a show she is calling "Behind Closed Doors, Surviving Domestic Violence."

The work will be on display in the top floor of Covenant House starting Sept. 19.

"My goal with the show is to be brave enough to say: I'm still here. This is my past. I want to go forward."

In her case and so many others, abusers try to isolate victims, she said. But if people can take in her work, they may understand there are other people out there, she said.

With photographs, she created several series of self-portraits. She wrote around the pictures the words "the rape of my soul."

Contrasting the red tinted photos, she has a blue series. She said they represent how she felt "a shell of a human being, despair, hopelessness, pain."

She also made ceramic casts of her hips. One has a hole in it. "It was like a punch through my body, a punch through my soul," she said.

The words, "You are worthless, you are pathetic, you are nothing," are etched into the ceramics.

Mullins said she always had artistic abilities, but she pursued a degree in respiratory therapy because she did not believe she could earn a living with her art. But now at age 32, after she escaped from an abusive relationship, she felt the need to create and express herself. She is now taking art classes at West Virginia State College.

"The hardest thing I have ever done was create this work and to let people see it," she said. In some images she is naked. She said she wanted to show the vulnerability victims feel.

Although she has had her work included in other exhibits, her exhibit at Covenant House is the first time she is having a sole exhibit.

"I have been internalizing all of this. Now I am externalizing it in the exhibit. It helps me work things out," she said. The images are difficult to look at. Even she has trouble looking at them.

"Surviving right now is my goal. This was cleansing for me," she said.

To contact staff writer Susan Williams, use e-mail or call 348-5112.

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