Art Ability 2012

Art Ability 2012, An International Juried Exhibition and Sale of Art And Fine Crafts by Artists with Disabilities at Bryn Mawr Rehab Center

In it’s 17th year, the Art Ability 2012, An International Juried Exhibition and Sale of Art And Fine Crafts by Artists with Disabilities at Bryn Mawr Rehab Center offers a wonderful venue for artwork. The art is all displayed low on the walls so folks in wheelchairs can easily view and the team arrays the work throughout the facility creating a vibrant, colorful environment, it’s almost like a museum there is so much great art. The Art Ability 2012 team also throws a great party with fine food and wine, offers lots of wards and prizes and gathers a terrific sales team to help sell art during the Patron’s Preview Gala. It’s so much fun to get together with the artists, see the excitement on artist’s faces at the sight of red dots – the only downside is we only get together once a year.

Sheryl Yeager has taken her delightful pastels drawings of animals and birds and turned into a business called Sheryl’s Autistic Impressions, a greeting card company. Sheryl Yeager has been an art business person for a long time entering art shows and making sales. Now she has taken the next step to reproduce her art as prints and cards. A self proclaimed high functioning autistic person, Sheryl Yeager‘s disability has been transformed from a liability to an asset. Her wonderfully naive animal drawings capture the imagination of art buyers who easily imagine the art in their homes. Now Sheryl’s art can easily be shared with friends and families as keepsakes.

Barbara Romain is a graduate of The University of the Arts and has has won many fellowships and awards. “Her work progressed from a realistic, figurative style to a more vivid color palette as her retinal degenerative disease progressed. Today her work is less inspired by what she sees and more by what she hears, remembers and imagination.” Art Ability 2012 catalog

As you can see by the big smile, Lauren Jones was thrilled with the red dot on her mixed media painting called Peace, Tranquility and Harmony. But she was just as thrilled that her best friend is included in the show and shared with DoNArTNeWs how they collaborate and develop new ideas and techniques for creating art. My photo of her friend’s work is blurry so I’m missing the name – if anyone knows, please forward the info and DoN will update this post.

David Gerbstadt is an art entrepreneur using art to heal from a devastating injury but he also brings joy to the world through his bright and happy art. When we were all exchanging business cards, David gave out small drawings with a stamp of his personal info that he created for the event, the drawings are suitable for framing and DoN has put his in a 4×6″ frame.  David Gerbstadt is also an author of the inspiring book One Breath At a Time available on Amazon.com or download from his website.

Daniel Neufeld is a fine artist with a great advantage – his mom is an art teacher! The artist works in many media including acrylic, watercolor, colored pencil, charcoal, pastel and pen and ink and his subject matter ranges from still life to landscape to architecture. His inspired paintings and accomplished technique belie the difficulties he has overcome with a pervasive developmental delay but with his big smile and gregarious nature the artist is self assured and confident in his skill. The painting above is inspired by Monet’s Water Lillies.

A mixed media artist, Patrick Cleary creates artwork with dyed shoelaces and found objects. His work ranges from landscapes to an American Flag he created to memorialize his brother, Sergeant Michael Cleary, who lost his life in Iraq. “Through his love of art and the various media he uses, Cleary is able to keep his brother’s memory alive, have fun and ‘feel good inside.'”  Art isn’t a luxury, it is a product that is unique and beautiful and it is a healing activity that brings joy to the world and the artist.

Romaine Samworth has been blind since the age of eight but she learned to sculpt from images she remembered as a child. Her sculpture of a pig with a purple hat won an award and her attitude and beautiful spirit is wonderfully infectious and inspiring. Having a torn retina and annoying floaters in his vision,  DoN is honored to have his own work, Sky Holes, digital photograph, displayed near Romaine Samworth‘s delightful sculpture, making him feel lucky to share his vision and art with the world. Many people don’t recognize DoN‘s disabilities because they’re invisible from the outside, but Romaine Samworth’s blindness was not evident either as she experienced the art show through description, touch and explanations.

Maryann Miller has hyperkalemic, periodic paralysis with myotonia. a genetic disorder which she says informs her prints. “Her work is about the rudiments of human existence, our biological identities and who we are genetically and culturally.”  The art speaks for itself with a wonderfully abstract language which resonates with the modern eye and easily speaks to viewers through color and design. “The prints are Screen Monotypes with added collage of paper and silk. These additions are known as chine colle. Some of the prints are also embellished with hand touches such aspochoir which is a form of stencil printing.” Maryann Miller‘s art challenges the notion that disabled artists aren’t intellectual or the work is naive, her art and theories are of the highest order and argue the stigma of disabilities as misguided and misunderstood.

Robert Davis was a diesel mechanic but chronic back pain, fibromyalgia and spinal stenosis made it impossible for him to continue his career. “His art gives him the connection to the job he enjoyed, along with a sense of self-worth and satisfaction.” The fun and quirky sculptures pair nicely with Maryann Miller‘s print, the tableau shares color, shape and design in an excitingly modern modality that is aspirational and accessible. David proves that even a painful and debilitating condition doesn’t mean you give up or go into isolation, his art is creative and on trend using found material and objet trouve in sculptures that would look perfect in any setting from an office to a gallery to a living room.

Tecu’Mish Munha’Ke also has fibromyalgia which causes chronic pain but after her career in government service she discovered that giving new life to discarded and found objects that she found a new expressive life through art. DoN is familiar with her work from her large sculpture’s she has displayed at The Plastic Club, work in the Off the Wall Gallery and 3rd Street Gallery in Old City, Philadelphia. She says, “I cannot now envision my life without art.” And the thing is once you experience her art you will realize her recognizable style, the signification of a true artist.

Ralph Mindicino‘s art is featured on the cover of the beautiful catalog Art Ability 2012 produced for the exhibit including bio’s and information about the awards and committeee’s. DoN had the opportunity to interview the artist at the gala reception on November 3rd, 2012.

DoN: “Tell me about your work. I see influences of De Chirico.”

Ralph Mindicino: “I’ve heard that often, I don’t think it was a conscious influence. I think most of my work is simply I try to create images I like and that I appreciate. Or I try to find something to achieve, like i have an image in my mind and I try to get that. In the mind’s eye. It’s something that just pops into my head and they I try to achieve that. Now, what’s interesting, many of the paintings, the finished work I’m not happy with because I didn’t get what I wanted. However, people will say, ‘Wow! This is great!’

DoN: “Do you ever feel like your painting is finished?”

Ralph Mindicino: “Never. Everything seems to need improvement. Sometimes you have to finish it and say OK this is it. And move on but I always see room for improvement. And I do think my work improves in time.”

DoN: “What would you describe your style as?”

Ralph Mindicino: “I’ve had trouble trying to come up with a signification for my style. In all honesty, I’m not sure it fits any kind of style. Maybe just a surreal perspective on life. I think it reflects my survival, I’ve always been confused by my survival. When I had cancer in 1974 and at that time the cancer was so far advanced that the doctors were sure that I was going to die. They amputated my leg at the hip and put me through an experimental treatment that failed with almost everyone but for some reason I survived the cancer to this day.”

“And for me, how can a failed treatment work for me only? So, I’m very confused and I don’t really understand – why me? And again, we experienced these people, we lived with these people who died. Why didn’t he survive and why did I survive?”

DoN: “How did you get involved with Art Ability 2012?”

Ralph Mindicino: “It was one of the opportunities that I would fit it on, you know? You live for opportunities where you feel your work will fit in. It seemed like a great spot for me, so. I entered the work and they were pleased to take it on.”

Lucky for Art Ability 2012 because Ralph Mindicino‘s work translates beautifully as a metaphor for survival, the confusion of disability and who is afflicted and who is passed by, the cover art for the catalog is the above painting. His large paintings are also given pride of place in the comfy waiting room at Bryn Mawr Rehab, a hospital with a reputation for healing the sickest of the sick and restoring health, vigor and faith to those whose challenges are sometime unimaginable.

Allen Bryan has a genetic eye disease with progressive tunneling and color distortion. Using photography and digital manipulation, the prize winning artist creates dreamscapes from his photography that looks so real that viewers don’t realize that the images a re composites. With a visual field of 10 degrees the artist sees the world in in discrete sections which is mirrored in his panoramic, large scale prints, creating a world with incredible detail and curious contradictions. Losing vision is probably an artists worst fear but this fine art photographer has elevated the disability to an art form that is wildly imaginative, technically exceptional and narratively ambitious.

David Robidoux‘s marker drawings have a sense of landscape with bio-morphic fields and surreal hidden worlds and symbols. Formerly the artist worked in bright color but the  black and white drawings are masterful and intense. Even though the artist is developmentally disabled his art is on trend and desirable as any fine artist proving that art is about the final product and not the situation of the artist.

Maria Crean creates cross stitch samplers that comment on sociologically and psychologically motivated themes of the 21st century elevating the olf fashioned technique to a humorous and insightful art form. the decision to cross stitch is based on her interest in women’s issues and her esperiences with depression, bulimia and self harm. The ironic images have deep meaning even if it gives the viewer a nervous self conscious giggle.

Art Ability 2012 is on view at Bryn Mawr Rehab in Malvern through January 30th, 2013. Many fine works sold at the Patron’s Preview but there are still a wide selection of beautiful paintings, drawings, sculptures and photographs for sale. Buying the art not only supports the efforts of Art Ability to continue to provide this great opportunity for artists living with disabilities, it will make an artist’s efforts be validated and also add work to your collection that has a wonderful back story you can share with visitors to your home or office. Some of the art is naive or outsider style, some is abstract and others are traditional styles like landscapes or still life, there are literally works to suit any artistic taste. This year buy art for your friends and family as holiday gifts, they last a lifetime and never goes out of style.

Written and photographed by DoN Brewer.

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Tagged as: Art Ability 2012, bryn mawr rehab, disabled artists, outsider art, Philadelphia art, Philadelphia art shows, Philadelphia artists