At the Community Gallery in downtown Santa Fe, there are landscapes and abstract canvases on display alongside clay and paper mache sculptures and dreamcatchers.
Brittany Roybal showed two dense canvases she made with paint and pastels during Wednesday classes while staying at the Interfaith Community Shelter, or, as it's more commonly known, Pete's Place.
"I just looked forward to it," she said. "Because my circumstances sucked really bad and as a way to, you know, feel normal."
Wednesdays at Pete's Place: an Art Exhibition showcases the work of people who have experienced homelessness and stayed at the shelter.
Artist Hernan Gomez Chavez has been leading weekly workshops there since 2022. He has funded them partly himself, and partly with support from community donations and grants from the Santa Fe Arts Commission and the nonprofit Artful Life.
Roybal said she felt at peace as she blended colors and textures, a rare experience since she became homeless.
"It's really hard to be positive and peaceful when you're around so much negativity and sorrows and just lost, lost people out there," she said. "You don't want to lose yourself."
She's now living with a relative and plans to continue to make art as she gets back on her feet. One of her paintings has already sold. That money will all go to her.
Pete's Place shelters more than 1,000 people a year, and has many critics in Santa Fe. Residents and businesses near the location on Cerrillos Road complain about crime and drug use near the shelter.
At community meetings, local residents say police respond slowly to complaints, and some call for the shelter to be moved to another location – but people from other neighborhoods have said they don't want it near them.
Exhibit artist Robert Olivas said violence also affects the people who live at the shelter, like him.
"It's all gangs and stuff on the street that fight, you know, you're having to watch over your back," he said.
He described the opportunity to make art as a break from those hardships.
"Being able to sit down and kind of, like, think a little bit," he said.
The exhibit will be at the Santa Fe Community Gallery, inside the Santa Fe Community Convention Center at 201 West Marcy St, through next Friday, Sept. 27.
