Feature Family Member

Hiram Trillo wants you to love his paintings. Or hate them. Either emotion is fine, as long as you draw some feeling from his canvases.

Hiram, a first-grade teacher at Castleberry ISD in Fort Worth, recently completed a series of paintings' for the THERAPY 2000 North Branch office in Plano. The series is titled "Lines," alluding to the connection all humans have with each other.

"We're all somehow, some way drawn together," he said. "We stand under the same sun, under the same moon. Through rain, through air, we're all connected. There's a line that draws all of us together."

Hiram's series of paintings is not his first project with THERAPY 2000. At some point or another, every employee has seen — or worn — his artwork, as he has been responsible for the images found on THERAPY 2000's T-shirts. His creative efforts will continue with another series of paintings that will be displayed in the West Branch of the company when it opens in Fort Worth.

The theme of the series in Plano relates to everyday struggles and everyday things that people take for granted, Hiram said. He said that because we are human, we don't pay attention to all the things that surround us.

"All of my paintings are very personal, and I try to show human emotion," he said. "I try to put myself in every single one of the paintings I do. I wouldn't sit there in front of a painting and describe all the feelings. I would much rather have an individual look at a painting, and draw his own emotions from it."

Hiram studied linguistics at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, and he has painted since he was 10 years old. He is also a photographer, and has recently started his own photography company.

True to his "Lines" series, Hiram has plenty of connections within THERAPY 2000. His sister, Leslie Trillo, works with Human Relations, and his wife, Nancy, is a physical therapist. Hiram and Nancy Trillo were just married in September.

Hiram also has done translation work for the company on a few occasions. He said he is grateful for the opportunity to work on his paintings for the company. He said he thinks that patients and their families, as well as everyone else who sees his art, can look at each canvas individually, or try to view the whole series together, and draw an emotion that allows them to appreciate life a little better.

"I don't want to put my input on the work and say: ‘Oh, I did this because I want people to feel this'," he said. "I just want people to have feelings. Whether they love it or whether they hate it, as long as it stirs a feeling, it's fine. They are just emotions on canvas, and that's what every single one of my paintings does."

You can see some of Hiram's photography work at www.hiramtrillo.com, where he is also working on setting up a gallery of some of his other work.