FEATURE COMMUNITY
LIBERATION THROUGH
CREATIVITY
Passion Works Studio is most well-known for their first major design, the passion flower. Alongside the passion flowers, Passion Works Studio also sells apparel, jewelry, quilts, ornaments and books.
Passion Works Studio strives every day to share and celebrate its art and creativity with the community.
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BY CAROLINE GILLEN | PHOTOS BY ELLIE HABEL | DESIGN BY EMME BOWE
n 1996, a small workshop in Athens began with programs for people with developmental differences. Originally called Atco in the 1970s, Passion Works blossomed into what it is today after the title and building switch they made in the ‘90s. The first programs were in a factory-style environment in which people participated in repetitive activities like capping pens or stuffing envelopes. Patty Mitchell, one of the founders and the executive director of Passion Works Studio, had a different plan for the program. “We thought, ‘What if we introduced an art space in this building and in this program?’” Mitchell says. She ran with the idea and in 1998, after receiving a nine-month grant, Passion Works Studio was created. The studio moved out of the sheltered workshop and became a Collaborative Community Arts Center in uptown Athens. “As we did art projects, we noticed people were really highly motivated and having fun while working. So, we thought not only could we make art but also create products that fit the individuals in the studio,” she says. The Passion Works Studio mission is, “to inspire and liberate the human spirit through the arts.” The studio embodies their mission by upcycling materials for their collaborative art projects created by artists with and without developmental differences. “It’s a really simple desire, but the trajectory is
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backdrop || Fall Fall 2021 2021 backdrop
expansive,” Mitchell says. One of the first major designs the studio came up with was for a passion flower. “The passion flower responds to the workers and what they love to do, opposed to asking people to work themselves a certain way to assemble a product,” Michell says. Every single passion flower is collaboratively assembled and hand-painted by the Passion Works artists. The passion flowers are constructed using upcycled aluminum printing plates from a Artist Tina Mckee works on local newspaper. current project at Passion Alongside the passion a Works Studio. McKee has an art flowers, Passion Works book out titled The Adventures Studio also sells of Loxy Foxy and Friends. apparel, jewelry, quilts, ornaments and books. One artist, Tina McKee, recently finished her children’s book, Adventures of Loxy Foxy and Friends. “My book is about animals, which is my favorite type of artwork
