CHARLTON — Ave Hurley was busy pursuing her artistic career in New York City, when she suddenly became disabled.
“My right hand went through a window, severing my wrist,” she stated, “After three microsurgeries, the doctors said I had 85-percent permanent damage and that the nerves would not regenerate.”
That was in 1984.
This year, she climbed up and down a ladder and scaffolding inside Charlton Historic Chapel with little trouble as she painted a mural of Christ sorrowing over Jerusalem.
Hurley knows something about sorrow, considering her bleak diagnosis 24 years ago.
She moved out of the city and later “over the border” from New York State to Mansfield, Pa., to raise her five children, yet never forgot about her artistic talent.
Her forearm muscles were re-attached incorrectly, she reported, requiring her to discover a new way to handle a brush, however awkward it was.
Taking her inspiration from Joni Erickson Tada, bestselling author and quadriplegic who paints with a brush held in her mouth, Hurley gave it a try.
“I began taping brushes to my hand,” she stated. “My work took much longer and was not as precise, so I only painted for family and friends.”
Later, as she got used to her method, she volunteered to paint sponsor signs for Mansfield’s Little League and a few stores.
A couple of years ago, on a visit to Victory Highway Chapel in Painted Post, N.Y., she heard the church ask for volunteers to paint scenery for “Two From Galilee,” a large Christmas production to benefit a food pantry.
You can guess what she did.
“I worked five weeks on their project, becoming their lead artist,” Hurley recalled. “It was stretching my abilities but through the grace of God, I was able to do it and the play was a huge success. The scenery came out so well they left the set up for over a month after the play.”
A few months later she created portable scenery for a dinner production, a mission project of the same church.
“Around that time, my withered hand started to hurt,” Hurley recalled. “I went to a specialist in Sayre to find out that after 20 years, my hand was suddenly regenerating nerves and becoming more useful. Although it hurts all the time, it now has feeling and I can paint again with little difficulty.”
She now displays her artwork online and sells prints on eBay and etsy.com. She has hope that she will be able to establish an art business again.
“I am still disabled with lupus and sarcoidosis and degenerative disc disease, have had gangrene three times in my legs, am prone to cellulitis and have had a few heart attacks,” she added, almost as a side note. “But I am determined to paint anywhere, anytime, since God has given me back the use of my hands.”
The local mural project was “both an honor and a privilege,” she stated. “I feel really blessed to be a small part of the restoration project going on at Charlton Chapel and wish all God’s blessings to be upon their congregation.”
