“Through creativity, comes peace.”

This is the main focus of Ibiyinka Alao’s life; his philosophy, if you will.

Alao has been sharing his story and philosophy while service as Artist in Residence at the Jim Thorpe School District. This is Alao’s 10th year coming to Jim Thorpe.

Last Friday, as part of the celebration of Black History Month, he met with students at the Dimmick Memorial Library on Broadway, letting them express their creativity through artistic expression.

On Friday evening, Alao met with a group of approximately 30 adults at the Dimmick Library to show some of his own art and discuss his life and passion.

“I believe that art heals in a community,” Alao explained. “It can change a person for the better. To be able to do the workshops like with the kids, I have seen its healing power. I have its healing action right in front of me.”

Alao was first place winner of the prestigious United Nations International Art Competition among 61 countries. His entry “Girls and a Greener Environment” chronicles the life of a girl-child from infancy to old age and how her body changes with time.

“The concept of that painting is on how we can learn from each other; and, as much as we are eager to get older when we are children that we realize that all bodies change except for the body of love. When we love fellow human beings, then we love the arts. And if we love the arts, then we try to make it last as long as possible by being clean and being good custodians of it.”

“An artist is a person with a hole in their heart that’s equal to the size of the universe,” Alao said. “This definition makes us all artists. Every time I paint a picture, I’m trying to fill this emptiness in my heart.”

One of Alao’s paintings depicts people around an oyster displaying a pearl.

“The mystery with the oyster is that irritations get into its shell. The oyster doesn’t like the irritations. When it sees that it cannot dispose of the irritations, it chooses to do the loveliest thing that an oyster can do, which is to make it a pearl. The enzymes the oyster uses can be translated as love.

“When the oyster has to deal with irritations, it pours its precious love on the irritations, and creates a pearl.”

Alao will be returning to the area later in the spring as part of his residency.

At that time he plans on staging a musical he wrote on one of his themes, the firefly.

He is also planning an artists conference for local and area artists.

More information will be available later.