FAIRHOPE, Ala. — Vanessa Ai arrived at the Eastern Shore Art Center at 7 Thursday night, thinking she was there to discuss some of her paintings with Nancy Raia, ESAC’s Artists Bridging Creativity (ABC) project director.

Instead, she received a surprise reception and preview of a special exhibit of her artwork.

“When we walked in that room, she was shocked,” said her husband, Antonio Ai. “We had to work hard to keep it a secret. She gave me a look that told me we’d be talking about this later tonight.”

As Ai first walked through the main gallery, she did not notice two of her paintings framed and hanging on the wall with a new show, “Healing Arts,” on display through Jan. 26.

The official opening of that show was not until the next night, Friday, Jan. 4.

Ai’s work was a late addition to the show. And she knew nothing about it, or the other displays of her work in several rooms throughout ESAC, until Thursday night.

“I’m very happy for her,” said Howard Holcomb, vice president of Thomas Hospital in Fairhope and Thomas Medical Center in Daphne. “Her artwork to me really reflects her personality. It’s reflected in her work ethic and how she relates to people. As great an artist as she is, she’s a better person.”

Ai has worked as a housekeeper at TMC for five years but did not start making art until about two and a half years ago when her oldest son became ill.

“I just began to draw pictures of Jesus with my son down below praying and asking for healing,” Ai said. “I just needed something to ease my mind, and this does it.”

That first creative impulse led to an outpouring of work by the local art community’s newest star.

“She started making me cards, and then other people cards, if she thought they were having a hard time,” said JoAnn Wellborn, her supervisor at TMC and a breast cancer survivor. “She gives a hug and a little card. Everyone admired her work. She has become very productive. The simplicity and the innocence of the work just touches your heart and your eye.”

Wellborn said she and Holcomb knew that the work Ai was doing was special, and they wanted to do something to let other people enjoy it.

Early last year, she called Raia who is known to help new artists get started and asked her to come look at some of Ai’s cards.

Raia said that she went to TMC to see Ai’s work and brought with her another local artist, whom she thought might help encourage Ai.

“Ricky (Trione) is the well-known local blind artist from Fairhope who overcame all odds to find his art direction after his blindness,” Raia writes in a description of Ai’s new life as an artist that hangs next to some of her work at ESAC.

Wellborn said that when Raia and Trione entered the room where she, Holcomb and Ai were waiting, something special happened.

“It was like instant bonding. Both Howard and I had to leave the room, it was so powerful,” Wellborn said, wiping her eye. “It was like kindred souls meeting for the first time.”

Raia said that encounter was important validation for Ai as an artist, who has been painting new works almost daily for the past year, several dozen of which are on display at ESAC in Fairhope this month.

“I am absolutely blown away by the broad range of your subject matter,” one local artist told Ai, as a group of more than 30 people stood admiring her work Thursday night.

Several other artists who attended the surprise reception and preview party commented on Ai’s work, praising the vivid colors, graphic elements and creative use of perspective.

“She has a natural talent,” said B.J. Cooper, who invited Ai to participate in the African American Artists show on exhibit at ESAC in February. “So many new artists have to struggle. But she just paints daily and look what comes out. I think she will go places.”

Seven of Ai’s paintings were purchased Thursday night.

“”I think it’s priced a little low at $50,” said Ashley Gallagher, who bought the first painting.

Ai, 48, was born in Point Clear, the youngest of 14 children and the first to be born in a hospital, the Jordan Clinic where her mother worked and where Thomas Hospital is now located.

She graduated from Fairhope High School in 1977 and married in 1983. Her two sons, Antonio Jr., 17, and Zannier, 15, also attended Thursday’s reception.

Ai said she paints mainly in acrylic on various materials including the white cardboard between X-ray film.

“I try and do at least two a day,” she said. “I have to do at least one a day. I relax and ask for help and sometimes look up and say, ‘God, did I do that.”

Ai said that she has no artistic training and did not start drawing or painting until her son became ill. The closest thing she could think of was that she collected butterflies many years ago. She did say she loves the water, and her artwork includes many paintings of fish, crabs and people on beaches. But it also includes jazz musicians and a dizzying array of other subjects in bright colors.

Ai said her work really went to a new level when she began giving cards to patients where she works.

“The cards I give, if I know something personal about them, I’ll try and do something to make it relate to that,” she said. “The responses I get back make me feel good. It’s not costing anything. But the love they give back, that does a lot for me.”