Collins helps raise awareness

Freedom House Executive Director Connie Doran (left) and Special Projects Manager Stephanie Cartwright (right) accept N. Dana Collins' watercolor, ”Survivor — Tree in the Hidden Lake,” from the artist herself for display at Freedom House, a domestic violence and rape crisis center. Freedom House Board and Foundation Board Member Mike Stahl purchased the piece of artwork at Freedom House's Silver Anniversary Celebration and Ball's silent auction and then donated it back for display at the Princeton shelter. (Photo contributed)

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PRINCETON — N. Dana Collins of Princeton can paint a picture with words just as eloquently as she can with a brush, and because of these broad strokes, she has made waves literally and figuratively in and for the domestic violence movement.

An accomplished watercolorist, Collins not only created “Survivor — Tree in the Hidden Lake” from blank canvas aboard a small rowboat as it bobbed up and down with the current, she donated the original piece to Freedom House’s silver anniversary’s silent auction and raised cash and much needed awareness to the cause that works to end domestic violence.

“I was honored to learn that the man who purchased ‘Tree in the Hidden Lake’ understood its meaning and actually donated the piece back to Freedom House,” said Collins about Wyoming, Ill., resident Mike Stahl, who serves on both Freedom House’s Board of Directors as well as its Foundation Board. “Knowing it will be displayed at Freedom House and that it may be an inspiration to women who are trying to escape the plight that is domestic violence is of particular comfort to me.”

Collins, a feminist who spent much of her early adult years living in New York and later teaching in western Massachusetts, always felt a calling to raise awareness of domestic violence and actually served on the Battered Women’s Task Force while living in Pittsfield, Mass.

“All types of women were involved in consciousness raising. I knew a woman just four months away from earning her Ph.D. and another on welfare. Working side by side, we had so much in common for reasons we were only beginning to understand. Together they, along with me, were working to change mindsets,” said Collins. “In the early ’70s, there were no shelters, no restraining orders, few laws ... Battered women only had us ... a volunteer answering a hotline, followed by another volunteer who went to the police with the victim, another volunteer who found her a safe place to stay, and another one to provide counseling and assess the dangers before her, to help her move on.

“As a hotline volunteer, I was learning as I went, but I felt blessed to have the chance to do something,” she added. “That’s what sisterhood is all about, not simply to better oneself, but to reach others. I knew then just as I do now that this is a journey we travel together, or we don’t go too far.”

Collins spends her time now in Princeton or on her family’s Cassville, Wis., home, where she can row out onto the backwaters in silence, paintbrush in hand and watercolors before her, just as she did decades earlier with her family.

“I never fished much, but I loved going out in the rowboat with my Dad, and because of that, I’ve been coming out here ever since,” said Collins, who was forced to the shore this past spring due to dangerous undercurrents and extremely high water as it raged through this particular network of islands and separated sloughs. “Once it became safe again, I went back through an inlet to a stand of trees where the water had been so high it had virtually choked the life out of everything there. One tree, especially, had been terribly stressed and had very few leaves ... I was sure it would never survive.

“I was glad, no overjoyed, to return to Hidden Lake a few months later and see this tree had leafed out and was doing quite well,” she continued. “My ‘Survivor’ tree, just like domestic violence survivors, suffered many parallels; yet it found a way, amid tremendous odds, to grow and thrive. That’s what I hoped to portray with this piece.”

Proceeds from the painting, along with the rest of the $17,611 raised, will benefit victims of domestic and sexual violence who are served by Freedom House. Freedom House at  440 Elm Place in Princeton. Freedom House primarily serves clients in Bureau, Henry, Marshall, Putnam and Stark counties. Freedom House also offers offices at 716 Elliott, Suite 6, Kewanee, and in the state’s attorney’s office of the Henry County Courthouse, Cambridge.

Stephanie Cartwright is the Freedom House special projects manager.