TUPELO, Miss. (WTVA) -- The students who attend the Lee County-Tupelo Juvenile Detention Center are between the ages of 13 and 17 years old and are there for a variety of offenses.
What they are learning is a totally different story.
The Lee County-Tupelo Juvenile Detention Center may not be the first place you think of when you think about artistic works and paintings.
But if that's the way you see it, you might reconsider after seeing some of the work that is on display at the Lee County Library in Tupelo.
Ryan Curry is an art instructor at the Juvenile Detention Center. He says, "The pictures are a representation of the students who are being held at the juvenile detention center. And a way that they can express themselves and show really their potential in a therapeutic way."
Right now there are 20 pictures that are framed and on display and there are others matted that hang in the library's teen center.
Now organizers say that each picture has its own story and represents the life of a child that is trying to turn their lives around at the Juvenile Detention Center in Tupelo.
"The work is actually a representation of the last five or six years of students coming in and out of the facility participating in our program. These are pictures that they've left behind to show case. And we're honoring those wishes just by displaying them in different civic venues like the library and other places around the community," says Curry.
He says all of the artwork are completed class projects.
Some are representational, some are abstract.
All are good say library officials who are happy to have the painting in the library right now.
Curry says, "We love to help with the community through the special programs and give these kids a chance to display their work here at the library. This is the second time, I believe, we've had the artwork here at the library. Our patrons come through and this is the first time we've had it downstairs and they've really,really picked up and come through each day and looked at the pictures and asked questions about it."
Unfortunately, due to confidentiality reasons the names of the artists can't be released nor can these pictures be sold.
The artwork will be on display at the library until December 18.
