Juanita Beverly has cut slits in a canvas, and woven strips of canvas through the slits. On this textile-like canvas she will create a painting. Art is woven into Juanita Beverly’s life’s canvas. Juanita was drawing by age six. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia.

In the early 1980s Juanita’s life took a few bad turns. A mother to four children, she experienced divorce. She was unable to keep a job. And was suffering from an undiagnosed mental illness. At first she turned to her art to manage her feelings and emotions--later she turned to drugs. She was “trying to fill a void” and “spiraling down.” At one particularly low point, she asked God to “just take me now.”

It wasn’t, however, an uninterrupted descent. Almost immediately afterward her plea to God, she began drawing again. She was surprised at how good her drawings were, and she entered and won a contest with a grand prize of $300.00. Then, her living situation fell apart, and she turned back to drugs. She lived in shelters and on the street for almost two years. She never stopped drawing, though. Juanita would find a corner in a homeless shelter and “doodle.”

In 1994 she entered a Community Rehabilitation Residence (CRR) sponsored by Horizon House for individuals simultaneously suffering from drug addiction and mental illness. Throughout rehabilitation, she was on and off both drugs and drawing. At the suggestion of a counselor at the CRR, she even began to paint again.

In 1996, Juanita Beverly “really started painting.” Since then she has exhibited paintings at Horizon House and at the Journey Home Community Enrichment Center, won a grant from the Leeway Foundation, and participated in the Mural Arts Program.

Juanita considers it a miracle that she is alive, but the miracle goes far beyond that. She has her own apartment, regularly attends Narcotics Anonymous meetings, receives therapy, and “keeps busy” by supporting anti-violence efforts in Philadelphia. For the first time in her life she has a “sense of direction,” and feels “in control of her own destiny.” Last year she auctioned off a painting during a silent auction at the Franklin Institute, and donated the proceeds to the Consortium, a nonprofit corporation that provides behavioral health care services in Philadelphia.

Juanita Beverly inspires others by continuing to grow and experiment as a painter and a person. And many “positive people” have facilitated this growth by helping her weave art in and through her life.