by Tzivia Gover

These days it seems everyone has a story about being touched by an angel.

Statuettes of cherubs are downright faddish, and angel motifs appear on everything from T-shirts to wrapping paper. Television shows and best-selling books examine the phenomenon.

So perhaps it shouldn't have been surprising when winged beings began floating into Donna Estabrooks' artwork. But Estabrooks, who specializes in colorful acrylics, pastels and works that incorporate collage and swatches of silver and gold paint, was indeed taken aback.

"People with wings just started occurring in my work," she said. "I don't know why. I didn't think about or believe in angels" when they began to appear.

Angels of all types, including a homeless man on a city street corner, a winged cat and women who fly, are featured in a group show at the Estabrooks Gallery, in Florence.

For Estabrooks, 38, the first angel came, as angels so often do, just when she needed it most. Several years ago, after suffering ART ON VIEW seemingly bottomless depression.

She didn't want to paint. She didn't want to teach the weekly creativity class that meets in her studio. All she wanted to do was destroy the paintings she'd already made. Then, her students began to call, encouraging her to come back to teaching.

"I said 'I have nothing to give, but I'll show up,' " Estabrooks recalls.

Her students gave her a painting assignment, and Estabrooks found herself creating a colorful landscape edged with black flowers. It was very healing," she said. After that painting, people with wings began to fly onto her canvases.

Since then more and more angels have begun to appear in her work.

While angels appear in religions from around the world, Estabrooks is particularly interested in the Buddhist concept of shoten zenjin, or universal protective force. The angels, she decided, may be her embodiment of that concept.

Estabrooks, who now has a 2-year-old son, lives in Belchertown.

She was inspired to organize a angels after seeing artist Miki Boni's series called "Almost Perfect Angels" at the Kaos Gallery in Willmington, VT. "I drove home in my car - I couldn't get them out of my head," Estabrooks said.

At the time, she'd been planning a show on the theme of work, but the angels took hold instead.

For the next several weeks, whenever Estabrooks would run into another artist, she'd ask if they .had any angel paintings they'd be willing to contribute to a show.

The result is an array of works by artists at very different points in their careers. Some have never shown before. Some make their livings from their art.

"Angels," featuring the works of Donna Estabrooks, Miki Boni, Louise Minks, Frank Gregory, Karen Rock, Richard Stewart, Sheryl Jackson, Eva Bennett, Rythea Kaufman, Pamela Stabile, Greg Stone, Gretchen Holesovsky, Tiffany Matrone, Amelia Wright and Sandy Denis is on display at Estabrooks Gallery at the office of Rick Kristek Tax and Business Services, 139 Main St., Florence, through Jan. 15. For information about the show or Estabrooks' creativity classes, call 586-3869.