ZIONSVILLE, Ind. — For D. Anne Jones, art has always been her passion.
"Just the little hairs and things can make a big difference in the detail," said Jones as she touched up one of her portraits Wednesday inside the Zionsville COhatch.
She loves how art can help heal.
"I do pray over the portraits while I'm doing them," said Jones.
Jones knows grief all too well. Her sister died from a brain tumor.
"So she died in March 17, 2012, and then seven weeks later, my mother who was a 22-year pancreatic cancer survivor, she passed away," said Jones. "Her funeral was the day before Mother's Day and a week after her funeral was my son's wedding day and my husband did not wake up."
Jones said she was lost, so she turned to art.
She started a nonprofit called Face to Face Fine Art, which offers a free portrait to families who have lost someone suddenly, unexpectedly or tragically.
"This is Matthew Guerrero. He is my friend Pam's son and he passed away in the spring of acute fentanyl poisoning, which I would say about half of my applications right now are for fentanyl deaths. It's an epidemic and my own daughter passed from that," said Jones.
Jones met Pam Condron to give her a second portrait of her son Matthew.
"And his sisters and his brother, they were like look at his forehead, that's his forehead in a nutshell, ya know," said Condron.
Condron also lost her niece and submitted an application to get her portrait done. She surprised her sister and drove her from Valparaiso to Zionsville to receive the finished sketch of her daughter, Kylee.
"It's beautiful. "It's beautiful. Looks just like her," Kylee's mother, Kathy Wells, said through tears.
Kylee was Guerrero's cousin.
"They were the best buds, too," said Condron.
"Some people I showed the picture to were like, 'Oh my God. Looks just like her. And it is her. She always had a smile for everybody," said Wells.
A smile captured in a portrait to create a lasting memory.
For more information on Face To Face Fine Art, click here.