Robin Gilliam stood in front of a group of people sitting at rows of cafeteria tables and posed a question.

“How many of you do not want to be homeless next year?” she asked.

Hands went up around the room.

Gilliam, who runs Recovery Art Studio in her Annapolis home, was hosting an art class at The Light House shelter. The challenge to residents of the Annapolis shelter: Make “dream” collages for 2017.

She instructed the approximately 30 people in attendance to scan magazines passed around the room and tear out images and words that represented what they wanted for themselves in the year ahead.

Gilliam, as a recovering addict since 1991, offers art workshops and speaks publicly about how art can be used as a tool to navigate life issues such as loss, homelessness, addiction and abuse. She has hosted workshops throughout the region, not only for people facing challenges, but also for caregivers, hospital staffs and others.

Light House, a nonprofit that has operated in Annapolis for more than 25 years, bills itself as “both a facility and a program,” and works to curb homelessness and “empower people as they transition toward employment, housing and self-sufficiency,” according to its website.

On Thursday, Gilliam told the Light House group that the exercise was, in part, about “learning how to use art as a way to process life.”

“I want to teach them a way to relax,” she said before the class. “I know that life is really stressful, and collaging and doing art is a way to de-stress. And, also, they'll have a piece of artwork when they finish.”

The collages were also a way for people to set their intentions and goals for 2017, she said.

Around the room, women and men flipped through magazines spread across the tables. A handful of children played nearby, some helping some of the adults.

At one table, Lisa Jones quietly and earnestly tore images from glossy pages and pasted them, piece by piece, onto white paper. Near the top of her project she glued phrases:

“Roll with it.” “Reconnect with your life.” “Breathe.”

Jones pointed to a picture of a neat gray house with red borders, tore it gently from its page and applied glue to the back.

“I like this,” she said, “because I want a house.”

Next to her, Dominic Knight's collage burst with color and imagery.

Every image had meaning for him.

A sliver of a map, with a dark red line darting north, reflected his focus to move forward in the new year. The word “OWN,” in white uppercase letters, spoke of his desire for his own place. And a picture of white daisies sprouting from cracks in the street symbolized, Knights said, that “life can happen anywhere.”

Across the top of his collage, in big white letters atop a sky background, he pasted the words: “Will be just fine.”

It was a reminder to himself.

“No matter what I'm dealing with right now, it's gonna be all right,” he said.