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Nonprofit helps women escape abusive men

BY GSN NEWS STAFF

Kimberly Miner has lived through two abusive marriages – the first one was 27 years ago and the second is recent.

As a survivor, Miner feels she can help others experiencing domestic abuse and 10 months ago she formed the Envision You Victory Over Violence Nonprofit Foundation.

“I started it because I had a passion for it,” the Mesa woman said. “It’s taken me 25 years of finding my confidence and self-worth and self-esteem and I didn’t want any survivors to go through that time frame of finding it and moving forward with their lives.

“I feel I made so many mistakes and wasted half of my adult life to be able to achieve things and move forward ahead with my career. With my first exhusband, it took me three times to file for divorce before I left him.”

Miner said it’s important for survivors to make the first time they leave their abusive partner the last time.

“The main reason a survivor is reluctant to leave an abusive relationship comes down to lack of confidence, selfworth, and self-esteem,” Miner said.

“They have had a period of time that their abuser has ‘gaslighted’ them with thoughts such as who is going to believe you? how are you going you make it – you’re so stupid, if you try and leave I’ll kill you, or they have stripped away cars, phones (and) proximity of neighbors.

“It takes years to gain back or create a survivor’s confidence and self-worth.”

Miner was still dealing with the aftermath of her recent divorce.

She secured an order of protection against her second husband and is in the Arizona Address Confidentiality Program, which helps victims of domestic violence, sexual offenses, and/or stalking from being located by the perpetrator through public records.

The program provides a substitute address and confidential mail forwarding services to individuals and families across the state. The nonprofit’s mission statement is to provide a road map for domestic violence survivors to face, find and move forward with their confidence, self-worth, and self-esteem intact.

She counts among her supporters the Mesa Prosecutor’s Office, Phoenix Community Advocates, Maricopa County Prosecutor’s Office, the Scottsdale Prosecutor’s Office and the Scottsdale Police Department.

Mesa Police recently teamed up with Miner’s organization because it has services to help survivors of domestic violence, according to Shelly Ward, Victim’s Services administrator.

The foundation’s programs and workshops help survivors move forward with their lives. “I have spent five and a half years working with women and survivors of domestic violence,” said Miner, who also had a career as a regional sales director in the packaging industry for almost 25 years.

“Our mission is to provide a road map for survivors to face, find and move forward with their confidence and self-worth and self-esteem intact.” Miner said. “We work directly with survivors in groups but our programs were also created to be utilized in domestic violence centers, and universities or colleges.”

For instance, The Envision Your Future Today Program is where survivors focus on the next five steps in moving forward after domestic violence, Miner said.

“Each step requires them to take a look at sabotaging behaviors, positive attributes, purpose, ideas, loving

see NONPROFIT page 16

Kimberly Miner formed her nonprofit foundation to help others experiencing domestic abuse.

(Submitted)

Gilbert woman part of quilt exhibition

BY SRIANTHI PERERA

GSN Contributor

Linda McCurry’s art quilt depicts adversity.

Years ago, her Gilbert home caught fire around the chimney; the fire burnt downstairs near the fireplace and upstairs through the master bedroom. Her koi fish died in her pond due to firefighters putting a flame retardant in it. In flaming red, orange, brown and yellow, she traces the story in her quilt titled “From the Ashes.”

“There was a lot of restoration to do,” McCurry said. “You could say from the ashes we rose and came back as strong as we could.”

Stories such as this are what exhibit curator and judge Ellen M. Blalock sought when she was invited to assemble the City of Chandler’s annual art quilt show. Art Quilts XXVI: Stitching Stories, featuring 64 story quilts made by 53 artists from across the country, runs through Jan. 8 at Vision Gallery and CCA Gallery.

A resident of Syracuse, New York, Blalock is passionate about story quilts.

“I know that quilters work and artists work in all kinds of different ways and I wanted to be inclusive of a lot of people’s voices because not everybody does figurative work,” she noted.

“What is also important to me is the story behind the quilt and not just a story the quilt is telling. Somebody may be having the story of why they made the quilt and or it could even be the process,” she added.

Blalock herself is a narrative artist documentarian who works in photography, video, drawing and fiber. Most of her creations come in series form,

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QUILTS from page 14

such as the 32-piece Family Quilt Project; Not Crazy, which looks at mental illness in the African American community; and the one on feminism.

In addition to creating picturesque fabric art, Chandler artist-novelist Laurie Fagen often portrays causes important to her. For this show, Fagen chose to highlight a photograph her brother, a nurse practitioner, sent of himself: gowned, gloved and masked for work in the COVID ward.

“I don’t typically manipulate photos in Photoshop for my fiber art, but this one I specifically did because it was the year of the pandemic, he was frazzled and (From left) Linda McCurry’s “From the Ashes” depicts a story about her Gilbert home catching on fire. (Courtesy of Linda McCurry.) In her story quilt titled “Seeking Center/Finding Balance,” Shelly White creates a visual snapshot of her goal of “calm” as she navigates competing concerns, an overload of information and confusion. The layered colors of nature, repetitive patterns and topographic lines help chart a path to peace, order, and beauty,” she said. (Courtesy of Shelly White.) Laurie Fagen of Chandler created “Frazzled,” a story quilt portraying her nurse practitioner brother outfitted to work in the COVID ward. (Courtesy of Laurie Fagen.) Annemarie Comes of Mesa created her art quilt “Branching Out” by “weaving” into fabric a cyanotype of a photograph of tree trunks. (Courtesy of Annemarie Comes.)

the world was frazzled,” she said. “So, I changed the colors, I left threads attached to it, I just made it as frazzled as possible.” Fagen, who also authors crime fiction novels and creates polymer clay jewelry, imparts texture and dimension to her work. Her recent line of fiber art involves taking photos, printing them on the fabric and thread painting with a few miles of thread.

“I embellish the art quilt with thread, give it texture and dimension. That’s my basic technique that I’ve been doing recently. Oftentimes they’re embellished with other things – charms, yarn, ribbon, surface designs, foiling techniques and adding paint,” she said.

“I love the tactile feel of the fabric and being able to take any fabric and work with them is always just something that’s very satisfying to me,” she said, adding “everything from the design to the creation to the actual manipulation of the fabric, I enjoy the whole process.”

Annemarie Comes of Mesa works in a similar process to weave photography to fabric.

Her quilt titled “Branching Out” is a cyanotype of one of her photographs.

“My image was printed in my dark room in black and white, then turned into a large-scale transparency which was exposed overtop of chemically coated fabric,” she said. “Our Arizona sun was then used to transfer the image onto the fabric.”

“As an Arizona-based photographer, I try to capture special moments in time – a lot of sunsets – so others can enjoy the beauty, as well,” she added.

After isolating for much of the past months due to the pandemic, Comes relishes the freedom to create art.

“It was wonderful to revisit fabrics/ quilting and the cyanotype process in the past year. It’s so wonderful to allow others to enjoy my image in a quilted form once again,” she said.

Details: visiongallery.org/event/artquilts-xxvi-stitching-stories/

NONPROFIT from page 14

oneself maybe for the first time (and) setting goals,” she said. “These are areas most have lost about themselves or may have never seen in themselves.”

Miner also said her foundation through its Domestic Violence Victim Focusing Training works with city government agencies, park rangers and first responders.

“In our Victim Focusing Training we focus on several areas – what the victim wants you to know and how to get their story, when you notice a ‘flipped lid’ to get the victim to connect again, and victim history to domestic violence relationship and much more,” she said. “The more tools first responders are regularly updated, the more effective as a

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community we can be to help in striving in making the numbers in domestic violence go down.”

Miner noted that Arizona ranked No. 5 in the country in domestic violence cases.

Since the start of 2020, an average of two Arizonans have died every week from causes directly related to domestic violence, according to the Arizona Department of Health Services.

This year was on track with 2020 that saw 102 people in Arizona die from domestic violence, the state agency said, adding that “nearly 22,000 people called domestic violence hotlines in Arizona to find help and options to stay safe between June 2020 and July 2021. To learn more about the nonprofit: envisionyouvictory.org.