March 8 2014: VSA Day of Arts For All

                                         Janine Moore's "Orange Groves", 1st Place Emerging Artist

                                                     Henry Hess’s “No Place Like Home”

               (Spartan meets Pyramid Head” by Jonah Farmer.)

If you follow my blog, you know I usually go to The Day of Arts for All on March 8, to report on it. But this year, I was even in it! My piece was called “Pig Head”, which used bright colors and saturation to illustrate a pig head via digital art. Aside from art, there was also some music by Sarah Bellish, a young soloist who uses her experience with disability to write music. A great opportunity to listen to some of the great life experience disability brings, in a soulful way! There were also videos meant to illustrate the experience of disability. The theme of the day seemed  to be representing these perceptive  personal experiences.

 Then the awards came. All who participated got an award. Including me! All the pieces were great, but the two I liked best were Henry Hess’s “No Place Like Home”, showing Dorothy’s ruby slippers, which won third place in the Youth Artist category. 2nd Place in the same category went to a Halo/Silent Hill inspired piece! “Spartan meets Pyramid Head” by Jonah Farmer. 1st place in the same category went to Nathaniel Curtiss of Worthington for Where Miles Davis Recorded The Birth of Cool! A super cool use of perspective! Best in Show was called: “Beautiful Nature Life: Where Everyone Would Like to Be”, a mixed media piece by the team of Wendi Olszewski, Shawnda Osswald, and Stephanie Spencer, depicting a brightly colored rural life.

But, everyone wins in my book, because we all told our stories through art: “Why the pig head?” Someone asked me in front of my piece. “Why not?” I said. The point for me is just to create something that didn’t exist before. The image that jumped out at me in the framework of my color scheme was a pig head. I’m interested in seeing how my mind and experience as a disabled person translates to my creations, as each
artist did through their own perspective. By his/her own experience.

Going back to perspectives, the films Be My Brother is an Australian short film about a man with Down Syndrome who records everything he observes, but he cannot get his brother to record something on the bench with him. He displays a dazzling intelligence, quoting everything from Shakespeare to The Lion King, and even charms a woman who he describes as the “most attractive woman in the world”. The film ends on a bus, with his brother hugging him.    

Sensory Overload is a film from the perspective of an autistic. As such, there is intermittent sound, and sometimes it becomes increasing overwhelming. From the blaring of city sirens to a cashier tapping a pen in a café. Wild colors add to the disorientation, and autistic perspective. The film ends in silence as a woman helps the boy pick up papers he lost from his backpack.

We ended with a comedy called Jazz Hand. In this a Californian woman with a prosthetic hand enters a dance audition. While tap dancing, her hand falls off and the choreographer recoils in exaggerated disgust. She puts her hand back on! But backwards! Lots of big laughs from this one, and nice to see a “disability movie” that is a comedy. “Do you think he noticed?” Asks the dancer. Duh! Yes!

I’m pleased to have been a part of The Day of Arts for all. It was a fun time, and I got to get my art out and look and other people’s art! That’s always a good day for me when I can get positive messages about disability! We are all capable of becoming more than we appear to be. Thanks, VSA! I had a great time.

For a full list of Day of Arts for All winners visit VSA's website: www.vsao.org

                                                     ("Pig Head" by Chris Bowsman.)

                               

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989)

My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown (1989)

Christy Brown: I need a light.

Mary Carr: Don’t go thinking I’m your mother now, just ‘cause I’m takin’ care of ya.

Christy Brown: I don’t need a [expletive] psychology lesson. Just get me a [expletive] light.

    I’ve gotten several requests to review this film, and I wasn’t disappointed! My Left Foot: The Story of Christy Brown is the story of the Irish painter Christy Brown, who has CP (Cerebral palsy.) It covers from his birth in a crowded Irish family to the opening of his own exhibition. As someone who has a more moderate form of CP (Christy grabs everything with his left foot. I also don’t have Christy’s speech problems as severely.) I really have to give credit to Daniel Day Lewis’s method acting. I can almost feel his muscle twitches, spasms, and the battle he must’ve had to create within himself to perform the role.

    Daniel Day Lewis plays Christy Brown as a man who is held together by his sheer will to survive.  Early on, when his mother has a heart attack Christy drops down from the bed where he was placed by his mom, scrapes his way down the stairs and bangs on the door with his left foot. This tenacity endures all throughout the film, into his later adult life, when he’s played by Daniel Day Lewis. Even though throughout his childhood he’s called a dunce and a burden by adults. Surprisingly, like me, he gets along well with able-bodied children, enjoys football, and even for a time rides in a cart for lack of a wheelchair until his 18th birthday.
   
Obviously, as a person with CP myself, I identified with much in this film. I never took speech therapy, but little things like Christy’s artistic impulses I deeply identified with, as well as his search for intimacy. I suppose sometimes I’m even difficult to understand due to my slight tongue thrust. I suppose what I’m getting at is I don’t agree with the idea that able-bodied actors shouldn’t play disabled characters. If I can’t tell the difference, I don’t see how anyone else could.

    Indeed, one of the things I really like about this movie is that it’s not played for sympathy. From the moment he grabs a piece of chalk in his left foot as a child, Christy displays a stubbornness that allows him to overcome his disability as well as  display a deep intelligence behind the stubbornness. Later, he enters speech therapy (At first, so that he can impress his good-looking therapist…) but they fall out when…in a powerful scene…she announces she’s  getting married. He doesn’t handle this well.

    You see, Christy Brown seems to have inherited his father’s love of drink as a coping mechanism, and does not take this very lightly. While they were supposed to be celebrating opening his exhibition, Christy instead launches a tirade against platonic love. The only love he’s ever gotten. Also, his family tries to build him a new art studio, in the hopes that he’ll become motivated to paint again and come out of his depression. Which ultimately culminates in a bar fight, and of course the opening of the exhibition where he meets Mary, who we are later informed Christy married in 1972.

     Daniel Day Lewis’s portrayal of the adult Christy really makes this a good “disability” movie. Christy always aims to prove people wrong about his limits, even if it is to spite them. He first tells his therapist to “[expletive] off!” but she tells him that with therapy he could learn to say it more clearly. But, I think also, his rhetoric and art reveal a deep striving and human understanding which lie beneath his stubbornness. Christy always had to prove people wrong…he also strove to connect with them…though not always successfully.

    Overall, it’s a great film. It is inspiring, but not in a way that inspires pity…which is what I suspect is what most people mean when nowadays people say “I’m not here to inspire you.” in connection with the disability rights movement. Of course, I’m here to inspire people. I’m just not here to be pitied. We as humans must continually strive to inspire ourselves to keep living; to make life meaningful. Which is I think what Christy Brown does in this movie…both with his painting, and continual self-improvement.

I mean, he learns to crawl with his foot, then to grab things, then to speak…this is a story of continual overcoming, but a realistic one…full of rejection and hope deferred. 5/5 stars from me! I fully support able-bodied actors playing disabled characters! (And think the modern controversy…is to be blunt…ridiculous.)  I don’t think you could’ve gotten a better Christy Brown. I think all disability advocates should see this! Or if you just like great movies!