“It’s been kind of interesting to do the show,” says Artlink director Deb Washler, “We’ve had people that don’t like the show they don’t like the name.

What’s not to like about an art show on the many ways drug mess up, fix up and screw up our lives? America has a love hate relationship with drugs and so do these artists. Wisconsin painter Brigette Boucher includes prozac in this portrait of her sister, implying the drug helps make her sister whole. But this tiny quilt decorated with pills by Indianapolis fibre artist Jodie Hardy is called ‘Small Comfort’..no hidden message there. No hidden message here either, a Viagra pill in the shape of a randy bull. Attitudes toward drugs in America are all over the board, just as they are in this exhibit, which has created quite a buzz since it opened.

Deb: It hit a lot of little buttons around the country when we launched it. I had a national association call me that’s comprised of doctors and different things that think that specifically children are over-prescribed. And they wanted to see if they could have artists enter work they wanted to make it international.

The best artwork stirs emotions and stimulates debate, and this exhibit called ‘Poppin’ Pills’, does that. It is both comic and tragic, like its subject, and leaves visitors with the distinct feeling that we will be wrestling with this issue for a very long time.