wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Arts work at PHEWA conference

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8621 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05044
January 25, 2005

Arts work at PHEWA conference

Artists with disabilities find creative outlets to communicate

by Jerry L. Van Marter

TUCSON - The artwork is stunning. Bold, unconventional composition. Vibrant
color. Arresting images.

	Participants in the Presbyterian Health, Education and Welfare
Association (PHEWA)'s biennial social justice conference here Jan. 13-16
seemed drawn to it like moths to a flame.

	And as unconventional as the art itself are the artists who created
it - members of VSA arts of New Mexico, a Tucson group dedicated to providing
creative learning and employment opportunities for people with disabilities
or limited access to the arts.

	It shouldn't surprise people without obvious disabilities that these
artists are so brilliant, says Gerry E. Hendershot, an elder at Church of the
Pilgrims, a PC(USA) church  in Washington, DC, and a consultant to many
organizations on disability research.

	"The artworks created by people with disabilities tend to reflect the
core values of disability culture," he said at a biennial workshop entitled
"Disability, Art and the People of God." Those values, he added, citing
University of Chicago researcher Carol Gill, "include the acceptance of human
interdependence, dark humor, tolerance for all kinds of differences, and
creativity marked by a lack of rigidity."

	It is certainly so for No. B. Coe, a wildly impressionistic painter
and sculptor who has lived with numerous mental illnesses during her 40-year
career. "In my work, I attempt to first catch and hold the viewer's attention
with color, then stimulate an awareness in thought and feeling," she says.

	Coe is frank about the personal challenges she faces and how she
makes her illness enrich her art. "Everyone has a story. Life can be
complicated with its twists and turns," she says. "For an artist these twists
and turns change the flavor of the work. The goal of the work is to express
the facts of any given imagery while maintaining the integrity of the human's
being."

	The arts have given Roger Torres the key to expressing himself and
sharing with others that is not available to him through normal speech.
Torres, who lives with extreme cerebral palsy, has over the years become more
controlled and with the support of adaptive painting methods suited to his
disability has evolved into an artist whose work his been exhibited and sold
throughout his native New Mexico.

	And the church is uniquely equipped to provide venues for artists
like Coe and Torres to exhibit their work, Hendershot insists. "Empirically,
churches do more with the arts than they do with either political or social
action. Fully 17 percent of churches show art in some fashion."

	Much of Hendershot's workshop was devoted to practical tips for
displaying art - from equipping gallery space to recruiting artists with
disabilities to organizing and planning exhibitions to providing hospitality
to artists and visitors.

	For more information about how to establish or accommodate art
exhibitions featuring artists with disabilities, contact Hendershot by email
at ghendershot@earthlink.net. For more information about VSA arts, a national
organization, visit the Web site www.vsarts.org.

To subscribe or unsubscribe, please send an email to
pcusanews-subscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org or
pcusanews-unsubscribe-request@halak.pcusa.org

To contact the owner of the list, please send an email to
pcusanews-request@halak.pcusa.org