A new program titled “Express Yourself!” at MSU has given some local, Ackerman and Jackson artists a chance to showcase their creativity.
“The T.K. Martin Center has a grant that we received from the Mississippi Council of Developmental Disabilities to do art using the techniques of a gentleman by the name of Tim Lefens,” Express Yourself! staff member Judy Duncan said. “He’s at Princeton. Everything that we do here are his ideas and techniques. Through our project, we do art with individuals with disabilities.”
“The individuals with disabilities are the artists,” Duncan said. “All of the artwork is their art. They make all of the choices of everything that we do. They choose the size of the canvas, the paint, the techniques, everything is their decision.”
The program involves an intricate process in which the artist creates his or her pieces with the help of an assistant such as Duncan, who follows a laser pointer the artist uses to direct the painting. The assistants are referred to as “trackers” and act as the arms and hands of the artist, who is not physically able to use the painting tools.
“Every little line and every little color (is my decision),” artist Candice Stevenson said. “I point my laser and say, ‘I want from here to here purple.’ And that’s how it goes.”
The method of the program is the brainchild of renowned artist Tim Lefens, as laid out in his recent critically-acclaimed book, “Flying Colors.” According to Publishers Weekly, Lefens developed the method after visiting a school for students with severe physical disabilities. He is the founder of the nonprofit organization A.R.T. (Artistic Realization Technologies), whose mission objective, as stated on its Web site, is to “create systems that enable the uncompromised creative self expression of people with the most severe physical challenges.”
Lefens was invited to the T.K. Martin Center three years ago to present his work, at which time three artists participated in the program and decided to continue it, Duncan said.
“In my life, I’ve always had to wait for somebody to go to the bathroom, to eat, to get something to drink,” Stevenson said. When I start and finish a piece, it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I did this all by myself. Don’t get me wrong, I know I have trackers, and I know I have help, but they didn’t come up with the design. They didn’t come up with the idea. That was totally me, and it’s expressed on a piece of canvas. It gives me the sense that we’re like everybody else.
“When you see our finished pieces of work, you don’t look at that piece and say, ‘Oh it’s done by Candice, poor Candice, she has cerebral palsy.’ You see a finished piece of artwork, and it’s very true and original, and it doesn’t matter how we got the paint on the canvas.”
The art will be displayed through Wednesday at Giles Architecture building, after which it will be displayed in the T. K. Martin Center lobby. All pieces are available for purchase.