Rick L. has a twinkle in his eye. Ask him about his artwork and that twinkle turns to all-out sparkle.

Rick grew up in Indiana, and although his mom abandoned him and his brother when they were small, Rick’s grandmother told him her side of the family was very artistic.

“I never got any art training,” he said. “I can do screen-printing and I’m a certified welder, but never any art. I don’t do it for recognition, though I did have a political cartoon published in an Ogden, Utah, newspaper once. I do it because it’s part of me. It’s what keeps me going.”

With that, he unrolled a beautiful pencil drawing he produced while at the library the day before. It depicted a homeless man on a bench playing the guitar.

“He’s a little bit Jesus, a little bit John Lennon,” Rick said. “I thought that was appropriate.” His singing man has angel wings and a can of beer at his side, with a sign next to him that says: “Homeless Blah, Blah, Blah …”

Rick is homeless, too.

Diane looked on with compassion in her eyes; though she has an apartment, she knows how it feels to be homeless. She said she never thought it could happen to her, and told a story about walking into a local hospital and being refused a simple cup of coffee because she was not a patient there.

“The coffee machine was right there in the lobby. I was not rude, I was not dirty; I just needed a cup of coffee. The receptionist asked if I was a patient there, and though I could have lied and said ‘yes’ and nobody would have known, I was honest and said, ‘No, I would just please like a cup of coffee.’ The receptionist said, ‘Sorry, coffee is just for patients,’ and I left there in tears. All of a sudden, it hit me in the face: I was homeless and I couldn’t even get a cup of coffee.”

Rick thinks that many of the people who disparage the homeless are not motivated by hate, but by fear.

“They’re scared that it could happen to them. They think that if they ignore us or cut us down, it makes them better and takes them farther away from being homeless.”

Though Diane says Rick wakes up every day “positive and ready to face the world,” there have been dark times, including a couple of suicide attempts. Rick credits Diane and his friend Laura with helping him through the rough spots.

“Laura is always there to listen, and that means a lot, especially when you’re out on the street,” Rick said.

His passion for his art also keeps him going, and is a way to “spiritually connect” to God. “I’m looking at life as a spiritual journey,” he said. “But I’m trying to find humor in the journey along the way, and my art helps me to do that.”

On being homeless, Rick said, “I’m grateful every day for the people out there who try to help us: the people who feed us at Demens Landing and at the local churches. Though it’s tough out here, there are people who care. And without my friends, I don’t know where I’d be.”