Scott Menzel, www.menzelfineart.com

Scott Menzel, Artist – Hope helps shape art for mental health center De Pere artist creating works for new Brown County site By Malavika Jagannathan [email protected] Four pieces of art that will hang over the main fireplace at the new Brown County Community Treatment Center focus on hope. That’s something artist Scott Menzel wants to reflect in the mission of the center. Menzel is a De Pere artist commissioned to create four pieces of digital art to decorate the million facility expects to open in June 2010 at Curry Lane and Gershwin Drive in Green Bay near the current mental health center. “When you go to the center, you’re trying to change yourself,” Menzel said. “I wanted to do something that would inspire others and I used my personal life.” The county commissioned the four pieces — ranging in size from 2 by 5 feet to 4 by 10 feet — for the new mental health center after seeing a presentation from the Northeast Wisconsin Technical College Center for Entrepreneurship that works with Menzel. It’s unclear how much the county paid for the pieces. “In our new community treatment center, it’s going to give people some hope,” said county Executive Tom Hinz, adding that he often saw Menzel’s work at NWTC without knowing the artist. Menzel, an artist in residence at the Neville Public Museum of Brown County, uses his laptop to create art because he suffers from a physical condition called spinal muscular atrophy that doesn’t allow him to use many of …