Hannibal photo exhibit puts focus on adoption needs

Emily Mathis sees herself in every photo.
The 17-year-old foster care veteran from St. Louis joined Thursday’s Hannibal opening of the Missouri Adoption Heart Gallery exhibit.
The display is featured in the Mark Twain Museum at 120 N. Main and the Hannibal Arts Council gallery at 1221 Market.
The faces of 242 Missouri children awaiting adoption are captured in 188 pictures taken by professional photographers who donated their time to the project.
“In their eyes, I see a lot of what I saw,” Mathis said. “A picture is worth a lot of words.”
The exhibit helps highlight the plight of the 9,000 Missouri children who are in foster care. An estimated 1,500 will never see their birth parents again.
Mathis entered the system at age 9. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother had mental problems.
Mathis was adopted by a family a year later, but had trouble learning to love and trust. She admits to still having moments of trying to cope.
“It’s still a work in progress,” Mathis said.

Love-less youth
Gregrhi Love also attended Thursday’s opening.
He had a pleasant name, but a troubled childhood.
His mother was a drug-addicted prostitute who lived with her pimp. He didn’t meet his biological father until he was 21.
At age 6, Love was placed in the first of several foster homes and stayed in the system until he was 18.
“It’s a very difficult experience,” he said.
Love believes he would have followed the path most of his relatives took to prison had it not been for an epiphany shortly after he filled out a college admissions form.
It happened while he stalked a man who had abused him as a child. Just before confronting the man, Love thought of the application.
“I said ‘If I get accepted, I’m going to re-invent myself. If I don’t, I’m going to kill this man,’ he remembers thinking. “I got accepted.”
Not only did Love complete his undergraduate work, but he went on to get a master’s degree in educational administration.
At 35, he’s a middle school teacher in Tennessee and recently published the book “There is An Urgency” about his childhood.
As with Mathis, the Heart Gallery exhibit touches a nerve.
“When I look at these pictures, I think ‘What were they thinking before they were told to smile?’” Love said.

Twain parallels
In some ways, the fictional Huck Finn that Twain wrote about shares much with today’s foster children.
Museum director Dr. Cindy Lovell says that while social services didn’t exist in Twain’s day, children with absent or uncaring parents have the same anger and resentment.
Before leaving Hannibal on his epic journey with Jim down the Mississippi River, Huck thought of murdering his abusive, drunken father.
“We have come a long way,” Lovell said. “When you see these faces, you know we still have our work cut out for us.”
Lovell calls the exhibit “overwhelming” and found it “hard to pull myself away.”
“It’s a truly awesome privilege to do this,” Lovell said. “It’s humbling.”
Ron Levy, director of the Missouri Department of Social Services, said the display has had such a “powerful impact” that almost three dozen children in the photos have been adopted or are awaiting approval.
The display is a traveling exhibit that began its cross-state journey in May and will end in November. It will be in Hannibal through July 10.
The museum gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. daily. The arts council gallery is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays.
More about the Missouri Heart Gallery project or adopting a child through the program is available at www.moheartgallery.org or by calling 1-800-554-2222.