The love stories started with children.
It was one year ago when artist Gretchen Shannon walked into the Laguna Beach Youth Shelter and asked teenagers to tell their stories through art.
They did not speak about pain or heartache or lost families. Instead, they spoke about love and hope.
"Every time I go in there, a lot of the kids have just arrived, and they're in crisis, and they are shut down," Shannon said.
But when she hands out supplies — scraps of paper, buttons, things discarded — the youths identify and open up.
"It's always the same; it's love and hope. They put that in everything," she said. "They just went to town and really got very expressive. It's really wonderful."
Shannon decided to expand the visual storytelling program and offer it to a broader audience. So she approached the Laguna Outreach for Community Arts, which gave her a grant. During the past year, she has been working with the Laguna Beach Community and Susi Q Senior Center, and beginning March 28, the project will have its first exhibition.