Yes, it's January, it's freezing cold and flowers won't be blooming for a while.

But those aching for spring can get their dose of daisies at the Georgia Heritage Center for the Arts.

The nonprofit organization is holding "Daisies Won't Tell," its first exhibit of 2009, through Feb. 28 in the center's gallery on U.S. 411 in Tallulah Falls.

The center is open from 10 a.m to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. Sundays.

Some 40 to 50 works from artists throughout Georgia - but mainly the region -will be on display, said Jaymi B. Hampton, co-director of the center.

Marilyn Davis, a member of the center's board of directors, developed the daisies show as part of the Currahee Artists Guild in Toccoa.

"I wanted something that would show the differences in styles artists have with the same theme, how they perceive the same thing in different ways," said Davis, a Clarkesville resident. "We started off with a flower theme, and one of the florists sponsored it."

The Heritage Center show also will be used as an educational tool, with officials producing a DVD that teachers can show to their students.

"We also will bring, say, 10 pieces of art that we consider a wide variety, and one of our artists will go into the school and talk to the kids about the different (works)," Hampton said.

She added the effort will be focused more on elementary students. Davis said she is especially interested in children's responses to artwork.

"Children are very perceptive," she said. "If you show them things in the exhibits, they pick up on it before the adults do."

A daisy is a simple object for art, Davis said.

"When we get ready to take this into the school system, then all the children can draw a daisy and show their individuality," she said. "... That creative thinking, it has been shown, carries over to their class work."

As far as the exhibit's name, the credit belongs to center co-director Deb Goatcher, Hampton said.

"She can think up these crazy titles," she said. "The names just kind of pop out of her head. ... If we just said ‘daisy show,' that wouldn't interest anybody at all."

Each show has a theme that can be applied to any medium and all work is accepted, according to the center's Web site, www.georgiaartists.org. Artists are invited to become center members and participate in each show.

"The majority of the art that gets turned in is more (from) the people that are within an hour's driving," Hampton said.