The Brick Store Museum’s summer exhibit, The Art of Mending, curated by Illustration Institute (of Portland), runs through Sept. 5. The exhibit, which opened in June, features works of art that reflect on three kinds of mending: practical mending or restoring of an object, the aesthetic mending that comes from art that has a healing effect, and cultural mending or art that engages the community in a conversation about healing.

Given the range of ideas about mending the organizers wanted to include, the artworks range widely, too.

Artist and photographer Joshua Dixon, who studied at Maine College of Art, was attacked by two pit bulls when he was 8 years old and has undergone 59 surgeries to reconstruct his face. He has poignant photos of himself in the exhibit.

“I am cathartically releasing my emotions; to create an empathic space where I and the audience can develop conversations regarding our society,” Dixon wrote in his artist statement for the exhibit.

According to  Brick Store Museum news release, “Artist Michael Velliquette created a colorful, exuberant creature out of cut paper figures, some shaped like hands.”

The artist’s statement says that in the piece, “the notion of mending manifests through the emotional catharsis of the figures’ gestures and expressions – whereby the release of strong emotion can have healing and restorative effects.”

Painter Edith Vonnegut, daughter of author Kurt Vonnegut, has done paintings of various essential workers, the folks who kept clocking in when the world shut down. These include a postal worker and store clerk.

The exhibit, which includes nearly 30 artists of all types of media, will close on Sunday, Sept. 5. The museum is open Tuesday through Friday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.;  Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Sundays, noon to 4 p.m. General admission is $5. Children under 16, veterans and active duty military, and museum members are always admitted free.