DRAWING: John Curtis is surrounded by art supplies as he works on a drawing at the art class at Traveler's Aid in Providence.

Jones remained cheerful but distant. He claimed he can't draw, but he brought depth to the petals of the flower and movement to its green stem. In the show at the Congregational Church, he has a pencil drawing of a butterfly that looks like a study for stained glass.

At the Sarah Doyle gallery, the mood of his work is different. He has taken photographs of houses - havens of light that are blocked by deep shadows in the foreground.

The woman who has brought materials to the artists and has hung their finished words in the galleries is Lee Lee Leonard, a 20-year-old student at the Rhode Island School of Design who volunteers her time.

Even though she's barely out of her teens, Leonard already has had volunteer experience as a health worker in rural Brazil and an English teacher in Vietnam, both as a result of her mother's determination that she grow up to be a giver, not a taker.

Leonard, who calls Denver home, came to RISD in the fall of 1993. She looked up Volunteers in Action, where someone suggested she coordinate an art program for the homeless. Since February 1994, Leonard has been hosting art sessions on Friday mornings in the community room at Traveler's Aid Society, 177 Union St.

Paper, pastels and other materials have been donated by art supply stores. "It's not really a class, but an opportunity for people to express themselves," Leonard says.

"The first time you walk in," she said, recalling her initial session, "the clients look at you like, 'What are you doing here?'"

But as she came back week after week, the barriers dropped.

"When you get down to the bare fact, we're all the same," Leonard says.

Leonard says she is excited about the freshness of the amateur work, something experienced artisits are always trying to capture.

She and Marlene McCarthy of Traveler's Aid toured the gallery at the Congregational Church one day recently, offering their interpretations of the art and the ways it reflected the artists.

"This church has always treated clients of Traveler's Aid as members of their family." said McCarthy, referrint to the title of the show. McCarthy coordinates community services for Traveler's Aid.

In honor of the show, the agency will host a reception at the church on Sunday, after morning worship, she said.

"Art can connect people to high moods and help them disconnect with the low moods," McCarthy said. "Look at the movement you get" in Terry Jones' butterfly.

"Look at the colors you get," added Leonard, picking out the mosaic of pinks and mauves and oranges in the butterfly's wings.

A woman from Miami, who seemed frightened when Leonard met her, made collages from construction paper and magazine pictures.

In one, there are photos of a castle with a romantic aura, an arrangement of vibrantly colored flowers, and placid cows in a meadow. Disconnected from the idyll is a photo of an unsmiling woman.

There is a similar effect in another collage, one in which the woman is locked up in a tiny tower, according to McCarthy's interpretation.

When Leonard looks at the art, she sees the people who made it, like Chris, a man with mental retardation who rubbed a few pastels into a dim glow of yellow and white light on a gray background.

"I can see him rubbing it as he works to get the glow," says Leonard, "It took him a lot of time and great effort. He was totally absorbed."

Then there's a pencil drawing of a mountain lion, pale and cool except for intense yellow-green eyes that could belong to the artist, Edgar Kelley.

Kelley, 43, trained as an artist when he was Leonard's age.

He came to her art table one day in May and sketched his left hand as if he were once again in a life drawing class.

He disagreed with a suggestion that making art gives people an illusion of control over their lives.

"Art is more than an illusion of control," he insisted. "It is control," his eyes taking on that glow.

"That's what an artist does. He communicates things that are ambiguous. He shapes them."

Art is a "universal unspoken language," Kelley said. "It's a very powerful tool. It affects people's sensibilities. It can inspire. It is incisive and insightful."

The art show will run through August at the Central Congregational Church on Angell Street at Diman Place and in the gallery at the Sarah Doyle Women's Center on Meeting Street. Summer hours at the Women's Center are 8 a.m. to noon, Monday through Friday.

Visitors to the Central Congregational Church may ring the bell at the Diman Street entrance Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. The gallery is also open briefly before and after Sunday morning worship, which begins at 9:30.