Выставка портретов Марка Букельмана в Хантсвилле призвана показать лица за статистикой бездомности

For more than a decade, Huntsville artist Mark Boekelman has painted people connected to The Table Soup Kitchen Foundation, including food bank guests, men’s hostel residents and volunteers. Starting Wednesday, Sept. 9, more than 40 of those portraits will go on display at The Table Art Gallery & Hub for the “ FACE TO FACE” exhibition, which Boekelman hopes will encourage viewers to see the people behind the statistics surrounding food insecurity and homelessness. How did Mark Boekelman begin his project with the Table? ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW For Boekelman, the relationship with The Table began somewhat unexpectedly. He and his wife were looking for a real estate agent to provide a market analysis for insurance purposes. When Boekelman offered to pay the agent for her time, she instead suggested he make a donation. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW This is when he sat down with Heather Cassie, founder of The Table Soup Kitchen Foundation. Boekelman wanted to do more than donate money, so Cassie suggested he could paint the Table’s guests, getting to know them better and “vice versa,” he told the Forester. What the portraits reveal about the Table’s guests ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW After 10 years, the experience also changed his understanding of who might need those services. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW “In the men’s shelter — particularly during COVID, but also after — I noticed more people that I would never expect to end up in a men’s shelter or food bank,” he said. That observation is reflected in the numbers The Table reported in its 2025 impact report. The organization recorded 10,429 family visits to its food bank, with 13,375 baskets of food distributed. The report says those families included 1,430 adults and 625 children. The Table says those numbers represented nine per cent of Huntsville’s 2025 population of 23,948. Eighty per cent of food bank guests came from Huntsville, while the remaining 20 per cent came from 38 surrounding communities. The Table’s other services also saw significant use in 2025. Its soup kitchen provided 6,124 meals, while its men’s hostel recorded 2,718 overnight stays among 37 guests, with an average stay of 109 days. For Boekelman, however, numbers can only tell part of the story. “It is one thing to go over statistical data but another thing to look at the people in a portrait,” he said. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW One portrait in particular remains with him — a veteran who, Boekelman said, had “known better days.” While looking at his portrait, Cassie recalled that the veteran said, “I used to be a somebody, but now I am a nobody — but you saw the somebody in me.” Boekelman said the moment was moving. Cassie told him it captured the theme she wanted the eventual exhibition to convey. What was Boekelman’s process like when painting the portraits? Painting the portraits also presented a technical challenge. Unlike professional models, people Boekelman painted at The Table were not necessarily accustomed to sitting still and posing for hours at a time. “I had to learn to paint fast while we were talking and they were moving,” he said. He would sometimes finish a portrait in his studio using a reference photograph taken during the original session. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW “Our guests are just regular people like you and I,” she said. “They’re just regular people trying to feed their families and themselves.” She said the organization serves singles, families, couples, seniors and people from a range of backgrounds and demographics. Huntsville’s growing demand for food and housing The demand has continued to grow. Cassie said that in recent years, the food bank has seen more than 200 registrants daily, compared to about 120 since its opening about a decade ago. The 2025 impact report similarly describes growing demand, pointing to rising housing costs, inflation and economic uncertainty as factors affecting families and individuals. That increased demand has also created a need for more people to help deliver The Table’s services. Cassie said the organization has been able to hire additional staff since moving to The Table Plaza, including some longtime volunteers, but said it could still “easily hire a bunch more people.” ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW “We also need volunteers pretty badly right now, actually, so that we can just continue to meet the needs of our community,” she said. To volunteer with the Table, click here.  She also pointed to the upcoming municipal election as an opportunity for residents to ask candidates about issues affecting people who rely on services such as the Table. “With the upcoming elections, people are asking questions about how the candidates hope to support the hungry, hurting and homeless,” Cassie said. For Boekelman, the need for greater awareness is precisely why the portraits belong on gallery walls. His work challenges the traditional association of portraiture with political leaders, administrators and elites, instead placing people who have experienced homelessness or food insecurity at the centre of the frame. Ultimately, Boekelman hopes visitors leave understanding that the circumstances represented in the portraits are not abstract. ARTICLE CONTINUES BELOW “My portraits are putting faces behind all these numbers,” he said. “It is my hope that Face to Face of real people with real stories will see that they all have family and that what happened to them to find themselves in need of support can happen to anyone in their own family.” The exhibition opens with a reception Wednesday from 6 to 9 p.m. at The Table Art Gallery & Hub ( 12 Cann St. ). The exhibition runs through Sept. 23.