Bridge survivor sees art as healing tool for youth

Walz, 30, opened Courageous HeARTS in April, on a busy corner at Cedar Avenue and E. 42nd Street, where a convenience store once stood. The center's mission is to offer youths a safe space to heal, create and lead through a plethora of artistic endeavors, including gardening, yoga, filmmaking, sewing, tie-dye, songwriting, poetry, hip-hop dance and improv.The center is a work in progress, its walls and beams newly painted in lime green and purple, couches and art supplies trickling in. Walz, too, is a work in progress, patiently stripping away layers that held her back and pushing forward to fulfill a dream she's had since she was 16, although the path has been vastly altered.

On Aug. 1, 2007, 24-year-old Lindsay Petterson was heading to her Minneapolis apartment when her Volkswagen plunged into the Mississippi River as the I-35 bridge collapsed. Now-husband Dave Walz, with whom she worked at a group home for high-risk teens, would have been in the car, too, but he had the overnight shift."That was a good thing," she said.As her car filled with water, she punched and kicked at every surface before somehow breaking free. She spent five months in a back brace with a broken vertebrae, then years trying to regain her physical and emotional footing. Physical and massage therapy, chiropractors and yoga, as well as a survivors' support group, all helped then and help still.

Economic Impact of Construction and Demolition Waste, as the sixth anniversary of the bridge collapse approaches, she's hoping "to change the story a little," she said. "Post-five-years, I wondered, 'What do you do a story about?'?"Her answer began in the hospital, when she read about a class called Soul Painting. "It drew me in right away," Walz said. "Obviously, my soul needed a little work."A month later, still wearing her brace, she attended her first class through St. Louis Park.munity education. She recalls an ice cube tray placed in front of her "with every color you could imagine," plus a blank piece of paper and brushes. Her first painting was of a big brown river. "I was so angry, so sad," she said, recalling reaching for reds, grays and blacks.