The title of the blue, orange and white artwork -- a combination of paint and broken glass on canvas -- is "I Will Survive."

"When I paint, it brings back memories," the teenage artist known as Deep Blue-n-Black said. "I'm here now. I could have been dead a long time ago."

Deep Blue-n-Black is among the students at Holy Family Institute in Emsworth who have been creating art after school, opening up new channels of expression.

"It helps me to think and focus. It just calms me sometimes," Deep Blue-n-Black said.

The works of Deep Blue-n-Black and other students were featured in a Christmas showcase that opened Tuesday at Holy Family and will remain on display through next week.

The students also exhibited at six outside venues this year, including the Three Rivers Arts Festival and the Father Ryan Arts Center.

Some of the works are rotated on display at Catholic Charities, Downtown. Some are published in a Catholic Charities cookbook.

To protect the students' identities, the art is displayed with their art names, such as True Red, Dandelion Yellow, Deepest Blue, Ocean Blue, Aquamarine, Sky Blue, Spectrum, Emerging Yellow and Gold Grandure.

Holy Family houses 47 children from about age 8 to 18, including 27 who are take an optional art class two or three days a week after school and in the summer.

The children have been removed from their homes for various reasons, including child abuse, neglect and parents' inability to provide for them.

Many of the children will live at Holy Family for six to 18 months until they are able to return to their families or find other placements; some stay for years. The students start out at the institute's on-campus school, and some progress to Avonworth schools.

"They're very expressive, and they really pour out their hearts and souls," art instructor Amy DiMichele said. "The kids are really supportive of each other. I think they have a special bond. I'm just amazed to watch them."

Ms. DiMichele teaches the students about the relationships of colors and the styles of great artists such as Picasso and Rembrandt, using themes such as overcoming obstacles, hanging on by a thread, walk on/leave it behind, dining with the masters and away in a manger.

The art classes take place in a trailer at the edge of the Holy Family campus. The classes began as a summer program in 2005, but after an increase in the children's self-esteem was noted, they were expanded to year-round last year.

At a class this week, five boys were each given a stretched canvas to make an acrylic painting as a gift for a family member, friend, staff member or the student himself.

One student, Ocean Blue, who recently had a good visit home, painted a Christmas tree, surrounded by four smiling figures, with squares of color under the tree.

Another drew a rectangle, set on its side, with border after border of color. He called it "Boxes."

"I'm thinking about Christmas presents," said the artist, Deepest Blue.

One artist, True Red, painted a dark portrait of a smiling Jesus, with the words "I love Jesus." That painting was intended for the institute's spiritual director, David DiMichele, the art teacher's husband.

Some of the works in the exhibit showed a special sensitivity, such as one painted for a staff member who lost a young son and another for a nun whose mother died.

"They know what it feels like to have your heart broken," Ms. DiMichele said.

Sky Blue, whose work called "Table of Grace" is included in the cookbook, said that doing art "helps me express my feelings."

Ms. DiMichele's goal is to help the students "just to believe in themselves and to realize that they're wonderful people."

She said, "It's a God-given right for every child to feel good about themselves. As you go along in life, that doesn't always happen."

One of the works on display Tuesday was a drawing -- using pencil, markers and glitter -- of two fish. The work also was selected among those published in a Catholic Charities cookbook.

The artist, named Spectrum, said it was the first thing he had ever drawn and he surprised himself. "I was pretty impressed with myself," he said.

In another painting on display, Spectrum, who likes to play football, painted himself in a tattered yellow and red uniform. A sign with his written words explains what he was thinking:

"I drew this football player with bruises and torn uniform to show that no matter how tough life gets, I keep going ... I'll never quit."

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