Accessing Visual art for the disabled

Orbit- A local case study

Introduction
There have been many artists such as Beethoven, Van Gogh and Goya who have had disabilities.

Many artists do not advertise their disabilities and unless they are blatantly obvious ones, such as missing limbs, as is the case with Mike Parr, the audience is blissfully unaware of the concerns or issues that people with disabilities may face each day.

Is there a fine line between an artist with a disability and an able bodied artists? Should we question the motives of people working with artists with disabilities? Or moving onto another issue artists such as Diane Arbus and Roslind Soloman who have dealt with the images of disabled people during the 70,s and 80's; have shown the disabled at their best and at their worst. Their work became quiet controversial because of the types of images they produced. The question raised is why did they portray these images? Was it for public awareness self-gratification or for the benefit of the people with the disabilities?

As tempting as these issues may be for the art historian, the research for this paper is to show what is being done in Tasmania for people with disabilities and how they are being given the opportunity to access visual art practices.

Whilst this honours project is about providing exhibition opportunity, for practicing artists with a disability, using new technology, in this essay an important component of my overall research - I am positioning my exhibition project against a broader context. I am placing it against a wider background of people who have few opportunities, little or no training and the chance for them to discover if they have art abilities.

At the other end of the spectrum history has shown us the geniuses who have suffered from disabilities but succeeded as artists despite there disabilities.

Artists with disabilities such as the ones I am working with for my project, have the opportunity to express themselves through visual art. They are all practicing artists who have the ability to articulate what they want. They have the ability to choose, the ability to comprehend what an artist is and the opportunity to achieve a goal to something that is to their cause, a stepping stone and they know it is not a one off situation.

At the other end of the spectrum is a group of people who do not have the same opportunity to experience visual art, do not necessarily understand the concept of choosing to be an artist.

It is not to say that these people can not be artists, or do not have ability. They are not given the opportunity to explore visual art, to explore their abilities and given the opportunity to make a choice. It must also be kept in mind that many of these people do not have the ability to understand what it is to be an artist, because of this they do not have the choice to make a concise decision.

As Julie Porteus said "Their unconscious", nature is not to articulate concepts and meanings, they do not try to consciously say anything. They are naïve in the sense that they are doing it, but not in being aware of what they are saying, that is not to say you can not read anything from their art.

These artists achieve what some professional artists spend a life time seeking a simplistic naiveté, a pureness and innocence, but they achieve it because ironically they are incapable of being hindered by the confines of society and the restrictions of being able to make choices.

This paper is a case study of a recent arts project "Orbit". It follows through from the original concept, to applications for funding, organisers, and clients to the outcomes of a professionally presented exhibition entitled "Imprint".

Recently Phillipa Julien (Till) and Michelle Meijers (Mish) conducted a serious of 18 workshops, entitled "Orbit Art Project", which concluded in an exhibition.

These workshops formed a forum for people with disabilities, enabling them to express themselves "visually through a variety of art forms".

Through a series of interviews with the principale players Michelle (Mish)Meijers, Phillipa Julien (Till), Julie Porteus and Mike Watson, it is my intention to provide a wider perspective or understanding of the many issues, in undertaking and participating in a community project of this magnitude within this paper.

Background
The Cornwall Arts Council is a volunteer based organisation, that focuses on "accessing opportunities for people with disabilities, but ultimately for a wider community to share with the non disabled as well". The council aims to provide interesting, challenging arts experiences, not just keeping participants occupied, but activities that challenge them cognitively and physically.

Over the past four years there have been quite a variety of community based projects. Four of them have been dance projects and there have been several drama workshops. There have also been music workshops organised for both group and individual needs. "Orbit" was the first experience with a visual arts project for both the Cornwall Arts Councel and the Rocherlea Day Care Centre.

Mike Watson reiterated this when he talked about the Rocherlea Day Care Centre's aims of providing a range of community-based projects. They bring people from outside the disabled community into their environment along with new clients. Mike sees one of the roles of the Rocherlea Day Care Centre as being a resource centre for clients.

In the past they have had poetry, music, drama and performance workshops and are currently working towards a puppetry workshop, where the participants will be provided with the opportunity to participate in puppet making.

The Centre also has a regular pottery class, but this is the only art program that is an on going project.

Visual Artists Phillipa Julien (Till) and Michelle Meijers (Mish) both came to this project as graduates of the University of Tasmania. Till's experience being in textiles and Mish's in sculpture, both have a keen interest in disability services and have worked on costume projects with disabled groups within the community.

The concept came about because Mish felt that there was a lack of visual arts projects within this area, just a few craft groups, but nothing challenging. Till could also see an opportunity to put something back into a community that she felt worthwhile. Collaborating together they developed the concept of the Orbit project.

When asked what was the initial starting point they both said it was"a firm belief in the ability and talent of the participants.

The concept was to provide a visual art program for people with disabilities that ended in a professionally mounted exhibition of a high standard. It was also hoped that a collaborative effort would result in a sculpture that would be situated in public space bringing further awareness to the broader community. The aim was to provide a visual art program for people with disabilities culminating in an exhibition.

After formulating an idea they put a proposal together and took it to the Cornwall Arts Council. Julie Porteus a volunteer working for the Cornwall Arts Council as a secretary, and very experienced in applying for funding for arts related projects, was already familiar with Mish and Till,s previous work in costume design and was very impressed by "their understanding and ability to relax", with the clients.

She stated that "They came with an amazing story of what they wanted", and was "astounded that they had chosen to work at a fine arts level knowing that these participants weren,t recognised as artists". As it was a major project and too big for just the Cornwall Arts Council, she suggested they apply for funding to the Commonwealth arts funding body, the Australia Council for the Arts.

Julia played a major role in assisting Mish and Till's applications for grants and writing a tender for the project. Once the grants were approved the council took over the control of the finances, ensuring that the specified guidelines were adhered to and that the funding was distributed appropriately and also ensuring that all the paper work was completed at the end of the project satisfactorily.

After formulating their proposal the project fell under the umbrella of the Cornwell Arts Council. Their next step was to approach Mike Watson, the director of the Rocherlea Day Care Center.

Mish and Till were interested in running their workshops at the Rochearlea Day Care Center because it provided special needs day services for intellectually disabled people. Its purpose being to provide a range of programs that focus on social, leisure and recreational activities whilst endeavoring to provide a choice for achieving desired positive personal outcomes.

Mike was also able to assist Mish and Till in receiving funding from'disability services',, as well as arranging forin-kind support, with volunteers and carers.

The clients for this center were also the people that Mish and Till envisioned working with; people over the age of 18 with intellectual disabilities and who had had little or no training in visual art concepts and practices.

Mike Watson also saw the potential behind this project, and was happy for the planned workshops to be run two mornings and two afternoons per week over a period of five weeks. The 'Orbit Project', began to take shape.

Next Mish and Till negotiated for materials, networked with other specialist organisations and network in the community in order to get this project of the ground. The planning stages took from February to September 1999.

The Participants
The sort of people that attended the workshops had a range of disabilities, all but two were born with brain injuries.

Mike Watson felt very strongly that acquired brain injury clients should not be involved as he felt that their social skills were vastly different and that they"don,t perceive themselves as having that type of disability". He believes that their needs are different for acquired brain damage clients."They have a higher social skill".

Mish and Till agreed that the two acquired brain injury clients in the group were very different to deal with. They were "harder to deal with, it was harder to get them to free up".

All that the clients of the Day Centre have intellectual disabilities while some also have multiple disabilities. The centre supports more than 86 people over each week and 16 of those have multiple disabilities. Mish and Till found that within their project group the disabilities ranged from Down Syndrome, physical incapacitation, and clients confined to wheel chairs, unable to move. When asked to elaborate on the disabilities Mish stated "they were just participants regardless of the disability". They thought some of the clients had cerebral palsey or autism but weren,t sure."It was irrelevant.

Mish stated"If we were trained in art therapy it would be an issue, but this is purely fine art, a chance for the public to see what they can do and for them to see what they can do".

Till, response was, "Treat them the same as anyone".

Mish and Till found that they had to change a lot of their planning because they were not prepared for the concentration levels, stating that they were "very very short" and that they had to make their sentences very concise.

Mike Watson said that it was hard to categorize the, "expressive capabilities". He said that they"may be limited and it is difficult to know what level of functioning many of the clients are really at". It is a case of an individual basis for assessment. The concentration levels "range from very good on some tasks some can sit even longer than a non disabled person while others have a very limited concentration level".

The sessions, which ran for 2 hours, had to be well structured and organised in steps to keep the participants focused. They found that the participant's concentration varied greatly and that the learning capacity was also very varied. They were not really sure of what the learning capacity was but they did notice a progression of work as it noticeably changed.

The participants potential for learning increased when routines were introduced. Mish said "we don,t really know how much they retained. We interviewed the participant,s for a title or comment for the exhibition, and a lot didn,t remember their particular art piece that had been selected, but they remembered the experience".

When asked about the learning capacity of these clients Mike replied"It,s hard to generalise, they have many types of skills, one can not think there is an in-point of learning a skills. You can not assess if they have learnt, it,s a continuous thing, a degree of learning and remembering, constantly using it, reiterating it, just going over it and making it interesting and fresh and new".

Julia Porteus believes that the concentration levels varies with the individuals, to a great variety, but she feels that of all other stimulus experience the arts develops a level of concentration, heightened in pressure by public performance, and the participants tend to respond to that stimuli of public performance.

Teaching People with Disabilities
Till informed me that teaching people with disabilities was just the same as teaching anyone. They both said if anything they had to hold the participants back, but that they also learnt very quickly to be very concise with their instructions, "we had to keep it very simple and concise when giving instructions". Mish went on to say "but we never had to lower the standard". This was a point that Mish and Till continually came back to.

There were between 12-14 participants to each group session and some definitely needed carers to assist them. But the carers tended to flitter around the room and assist anyone that needed assistance. Mish and Till would do samples and demonstrate what they were going to do, then the participants would participate.

Each session had the two tutors Mish and Till and there were between three and four carers, at times this was as high as five. The carers were encouraged to be participants and it was hoped by Mish and Till that they would also learn and take away skills for their clients.

The learning direction is like that for any student. Mish and Till selected colours, giving the participant,s limited choices, in order to keep things basic and simple for them. The topics were directed, but "if the participant,s didn't do what was asked that was fine as it was just a starting point".

At times they found they could extend and push the participants to encourage their own style but it wasn,t always possible. They said that some of the participants would draw the same thing day in and day out, "so you couldn't really say they did something different, the only difference in their work was the tools and the method of mark making."

Julie Porteus saw the workshops as being positive for the participant's because the learning was not directed. She stated that she was quite proud of the project because of its sound educational bases.

Mike Watson suggested that teaching people with disabilities was "an element of principles", and that there were various ways such as "small"steps, "planed" sessions, "good" communication,"openness" and "commitment" from the organisers to the participants as individuals that were key elements. He said other than introducing the different mediums, tools, manipulation processes on paper with brushes or pens, that the learning was"totally open ended whilst the actual content was broadly suggested it was not directed".

Mish and Till used good quality paper, equipment and mediums for this project giving the participant's access to mediums that they had not been able to access previously.

Assisting the Disabled
Mike Watson believes that projects such as Orbits, gives the participants a look at what art is, what the purpose for it is it exposes them to a range of art mediums, professional quality materials and, it assists in the feelings of being valued and taken seriously. It is good for personal self value, as individuals and for self esteem, and self image, it is a ositive reinforcing for them as people within the community. He says it gives them the "opportunity to appreciate art processes as being a way to express them selves".

Mike says"it is a way of having to use language, in a non structured way to communicate meanings and provides access to a communication medium that they were unaware of".

For Julie Poteus she sees her role in the Cornwall Arts Council as an active part of contributing to the disabled community. She sees the service that the Cornwall Arts Council provides being the only place in Tasmanian where they can access money for workshops. "I believe very strongly that it gives them confidence through participation, another form of communication and a way of socialicing while participating in a worth while project, and at the same time being a opportunity to support each other".

She went on to say that she saw it as a form of stimulating them intellectually, stimulating their social reaction, and giving them new confidence in their own ability as well as given them a chance to celebrate something together as a community.

At the same time she believed it gave them a chance to experiment and explore the extent of their abilities, and gave them an opportunity to use a large variety of mediums that they had not been able to access before. She said that because Mish and Till focused on certain concepts of self and surrounding,, it allowed them to focus on themselves, family, and environment.

Audience and Impact
Julie sees visual arts projects such as Orbit, as being a good opportunity for the family members to celebrate the talents of the disabled community, and sees it as providing the disabled with an opportunity where they can celebrate. The general audience gains a heightened awareness of the untapped talent that is available in the disabled community. She also said it broadened the circle within the disabled community by bringing in people both able bodied and disabled that previously had not been involved. She sated that "I find that when the process ends in an event there is a very new interested group". She went on to say that the people that attended Mish and Till,s curated exhibition included their personal friends and peers whom had previously not taken the time to appreciate the disabled community.

Approximately 130 people were present at the opening of "Imprints", this include family friends carers and participants. Whilst there was a small element of drop in audience this was restricted to the lack of exhibition space in a major traffic area.

Mish and Till both said the feedback form family, friends and passer-byers was all positive. They felt that they were most impressed, and had a new understanding, of the talents within this community.

Conclusion
Mish and Till fell that the participants have a lot to show and had interesting compositions. They believe this project helped to break down, barriers of people with disabilities. They believe that if the general public become used to an awareness of people with disabilities and their abilities (rather than disabilities) instead of focusing on 'people with disabilities'they will be eroding barriers. Mish said the "focus should be on their abilities".

Workshops such as Orbit, are not cheap to fund, on top of the actual cost there is the cost of in-kind, it takes a lot of organisation, patience and perseverance to achieve a high level product that this project reached. In this project there were only winners, the participants built social skills,learnt new art practices, had fun, and improved on their self-esteem. The families of these artists gained a sense of pride at the finished-framed product and a sense of worth-while-ness for their disabled relatives. People previously unassociated with the disabled community also gained from a new awareness to the untapped talent in this community.

The participants accepted what they were taught but did not necessarily assimilate the skills they had learned. They don,t have the ability to make a choice to become artists, but out of this group one participant showed promise, and given the right funding and a carer assistance, he could go on and become a practicing artist. But without further exposure and assistance he is unable to function on his own as an artist.

When interviewed after the workshops and shown some of their selected works many of the participants could not remember doing them. One of the joys of the project for Mish and Till was the expression in their faces of the participant,s as they were handed back the framed art piece and the joy on the proud families as they were hung on walls.

This project was successful because it reached so many people. It has also been accepted at an arts festival in South Australia, High beam, and will tour.

The principle players in this project see it as being an opportunity to further develop skills in the visual arts area, and see it as a window of opportunity for further projects.

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