The art that lines the walls and dots the garden of the Ecumenical Center is more than décor.

The paintings, drawings, sculptures and textiles are a nod to the fact that the arts are a big part of the behavioral health services that the center provides to people of all ages, including veterans and families. Once a year, the visual arts literally support that work through “Art Heals Hearts,” its annual exhibit and sale.

“To have an art show with purpose, it’s very healing for the artist and it’s very healing for the buyer,” said Lejla Cenanovic, who curates the exhibit as part of her work as special program coordinator and education coordinator. “And for us, we’re like, ‘OK, how many more programs can we invent with these proceeds?’ ”

The current show, featuring 350 pieces of art by 75 artists, opened with a reception in September and runs through February. Proceeds from the sale of each piece are evenly divided between each artist and the center.

Albert Gonzales has been participating in the show for nearly 10 years.

“In my career, being able to have this experience of seeing how doing live art brings smiles to people’s faces, I know it can have an impact,” said Gonzales, who is known for his use of saturated colors and nature imagery.

He knows that making art helps with his mental health, too.

“I’ve been able to develop my own form of therapy through my art and kind of dive into these problems that I’ve had,” he said.

The proceeds from the sale help the center provide counseling and other mental health services on a sliding scale. Most clients pay nothing. The center also trains health care workers, clergy and religious workers, and provides free community-based educational programs.

In addition to Gonzales, the current show features works by such well-known San Antonio-based artists including his wife, Carline, Doerte Weber, Lionel Sosa, Kaldric Dow, Cindy Morawski and Ilna Colemere.

The exhibit also features pieces created by clients as they work through the issues that sent them through the center’s doorway.

“It just is uplifting,” said CEO/Executive Director Mary Beth Fisk, who has been with the center since 2013. “You can see the pain and you can see the scars in so much of the work. We hear the stories from folks that this was helpful in their journey to healing, and it can be helpful to someone else if they understand that story.”

Sometimes, people connect profoundly with the work on display. Cenanovic said that Kim Felts had a piece on exhibit featuring two older men embracing. It resonated with a man who came to the center for a grief support group, and he asked how much it was. 

“It was not cheap, and a lot of people coming for free services, they don’t have $2,200,” she said.

She told him the price, and also said they could work out a payment plan. He told her he’d be right back, left, and returned with the full price.

“He picked it up and left,” she said. “It just meant so much to him.”

The art sale has been part of the Ecumenical Center calendar for about 12 years, springing from an art therapy workshop that a number of artists took part in. The staff invited them to show their work at the center to enhance the space, and someone suggested that it might be beneficial to sell the artwork, too.

The center has been serving the community since 1967, when it began in a single room at Methodist Hospital. It was founded by Episcopal Bishop Everett Holland Joes, Rabbi David Jacobson, Methodist Bishop Eugene Slater, Archbishop Robert Lucey and others.

“We had wonderfully insightful, visionary leaders that said there needed to be a place for hope and healing,” said Fisk. “They just said there has to be a spot where people can be safe, where they can come to get what they need, and that’s how we’ve defined the organization as it has grown over years.”

It is headquartered in a warm, welcoming space tucked just off the busy intersection of Wurzbach and Ewing Halsell.

Its reach extends well beyond San Antonio. It has more than 40 satellite spaces throughout the Hill Country, the Rio Grande Valley and Corpus Christi. Whenever there is a cataclysmic event — such as the mass shootings in Sutherland Springs, El Paso and Uvalde — the center sends counseling teams to help. They come armed with art supplies because creating can help people open up.

“I feel we do amazing things throughout not just San Antonio, but South Texas and we want to be able to serve whoever calls us,” said Cenanovic, who is an artist as well. “That costs money. And everywhere we go, we want to provide the best service with the best materials, and that costs money, too.”

About half of the clients the center serves are children. Their work can be found on the wall of the center, too. One is by a girl who took part in Camp Wellness, a summer camp designed to teach youngsters ages 5 to 15 a range of skills, including anti-bullying and relaxation techniques. The children in her camp were asked to make paintings that incorporated a heart and illustrated hope, resilience and love. 

“The 5-year-old girl gives me this, and an 8-year-old boy goes, ‘That does not even look like a heart.’ And she goes, without skipping a beat, ‘The heart is inside. That’s my abstract,’ ” Cenanovic said. “That’s my favorite piece of art in this whole building. It’s priceless.

“It’s so important at that age to teach them it’s OK to be angry, mad, sad, all of those feelings, and this is what we can do to express that. You’re building that emotional resilience by teaching them how to cope with emotions, not how to bury them. So it’s really important.”