FAIRHOPE, Ala.—“It looks like maybe he’s been in trouble.”

“I wish I knew why they are so sad.”

“I like her face, and I wish I could give her macaroni and cheese.”

“How do you spell hunger?”

These are just a few of the questions Nancy Raia has been fielding from students across the area since San Antonio artist Michael Nye’s “About Hunger and Resilience” exhibit opened at the Eastern Shore Art Center in Fairhope Oct. 7.

Raia, the center’s community-arts director, said she has been using the exhibit that chronicles 30 personal stories of hunger — including those of four Baldwin County families — to teach her youngest patrons that “people can be artists and teach a lesson everybody needs to hear.”

The photography and audio exhibit, which runs through Nov. 12, features first-person recordings of people from across the country recounting their personal descents into hunger and their resolve to persevere despite it. A five-week series of community-education events and fundraisers has also been scheduled around the show by Prodisee Pantry, the Spanish Fort-based emergency food and assistance agency serving families across Baldwin County.

Charlotte Green’s photography students at Satsuma High School were asked if they “know the face of hunger in their own neighborhoods,” and Raia said most of them nodded soberly.

They’ve been asked to capture a portrait and story of someone who is hungry. The work and narratives will become their own exhibit in the museum’s “student hallway” gallery.

Fourth- and fifth-graders from Stapleton were asked to draw pencil portraits and write letters.

Raia said she also hosted a group of 13 students from the Fairhope Rotary Youth interested in forming their own art club. By the tour’s conclusion, the fledgling artists had dubbed themselves “Artists with a Purpose.”

Children’s perspective

Raia said she asked students to look at the portraits accompanying the audio recordings and tell her what they saw. Students were allowed to listen to a select few of the 30 recordings because some of the material included can be graphic.

The answers began simply: sad and hungry.

But then they paid more attention to detail, and replies got more descriptive: He looks beaten up. Burned.

Raia then asked them to stand beside a photo of a person they’d like to learn more about and draw a plate with a fork and knife and fill it with the food they’d like to share with the person in the portrait.

Raia said she wasn’t surprised to hear the students say they’d like to share fried chicken and biscuits, but she was amazed when they began adding bowls and desserts to their make-believe table settings.

In addition to creating a student exhibit, Raia said she wants to somehow get the creations to Nye in hopes he can pass them along to his muses.

 “I want him to know how his exhibit impacted this community and its children,” she said. “We all have to take the time to listen to people’s stories, so we know how we’re all connected.”