The art studio sits in the group's headquarters, a 1920s-era building on Peachtree Street in downtown Atlanta. Beaty says the homeless can find a secure place to paint and a creative community environment there.  To get their own free studio space, those interested must show some artistic ability and follow certain rules, including staying drug-free.  There are seven artists working there now, including TieRee Malone and Greg Walcott, who say painting helped them turn their lives around.  Malone arrived at the Task Force after losing his mechanic's job and his work-site apartment about two years ago. He already knew he had artistic talent, but had never found a way to fit it into his workingman's way of life.  "Somewhere I always pushed it in the back of my head, because I didn't see an outlet really." Then he befriended Walcott, who introduced him to the art studio.  Painting sometimes from 7 a.m. until 1 or 2 the following morning, the two learned from their fellow artists and at free workshops Beaty organized with established painters.  Not everyone working at the studio is homeless.  "We love mixing it up between our resident artists, and artists who don't live here, and losing the distinction of 'it's not that homeless gallery where homeless people paint,' " says Beaty.  One of the current artists is Georgia Tech football player Michael Peterson. He was drawn in by the free studio space, but says he's made some great friends and has come away with a changed impression of the homeless community.  That's exactly what Beaty hopes the art studio offers its neighbors -- a new perspective on homelessness. "We are so interested in showing that the arts are the way that people can look through a lens to see issues that they might not want to get up close to, or don't understand."
An art studio doesn't usually make anyone's list of what the homeless need.But when Anita Beaty decided to start painting in the storefront window of a homeless shelter, people were soon looking in