SCI Forum Reports
Exploring the Arts after SCI
June 10, 2003
Resources are listed at the end of this article.
Seattle native Brom Wikstrom decided at an early age that he wanted to be an artist like his father. Brom studied art in college and worked as a commercial artist. When he was 21 and living in New Orleans, he dove into the Mississippi River one day and broke his neck. After a lengthy hospital stay in New Orleans and the UW Medical Center, Brom moved back into his parents' Seattle home and started painting by holding a brush in his mouth. Today, Brom is a professional mouth painter who exhibits and travels internationally.
Brom's return to art after his injury began as a volunteer teaching art to patients at Children's Hospital in Seattle. He received a grant to teach for a year and organize an exhibit of the children's art. This led to his involvement in the disability arts movement and VSA arts ( http://www.vsarts.org/ ) . He participated in VSA arts' first festival in Washington, DC, in 1979 and has continued a close association with them ever since.
In 1980, Brom applied for membership in the Association of Mouth and Foot Painting Artists (AMFPA) ( http://www.amfpa.com ), an international organization that exhibits and sells the work of its member artists around the world. The AMFPA has high professional standards, and Brom was turned down the first time he applied. Undeterred, he kept working and perfecting his technique. "Eventually I was accepted as a student, and after several more years became a full member," he said. Brom and his wife travel widely for this organization, which has conventions in different international locations every three years and more frequent regional meetings. Brom has done artist residencies in the public schools and finds tremendous satisfaction bringing arts opportunities to children.
Success has taken a toll, however. After years of holding a brush in his mouth for many hours a day, every day, he has recently developed temporomandibular joint (TMJ) problems. "I can't paint 12-14 hours a day anymore," he said. "I may have to alter my style." For more information about Brom's life and work, visit his Web site at http://www.bromwikstrom.com/ .
Charlene Curtiss is a dancer. She is also a person who uses a wheelchair due to an incomplete T12 injury from a gymnastics accident when she was a teenager. "I got involved in wheelchair sports, and that led me to dance," she said. Charlene now has her own dance company, Light Motion, which performs and teaches internationally. She calls her form of dance "integrated" because it combines dancers in wheelchairs with "stand-up" dancers.
"There are about a dozen professional integrated dance companies in the U.S. today," she said. "And another dozen internationally." There is a refreshing amount of variation and experimentation among these companies, from ballet and jazz to physical theatre. Some use dancers in motorized wheelchairs, some in manual, and some disabled performers dance lying on the floor. One company uses a trapeze.
Charlene choreographs most of the dance pieces her company performs. She has conducted artist residences in schools and organizes and choreographs community-based groups all over the U.S.
Like Brom, Garreth Schuh yearned to be an artist as a youth, but was discouraged by parents and others on the grounds that it wasn't practical. He compromised by going into architecture, "but it never really scratched that (artistic) itch," he said. After his injury 12 years ago, he began to revisit his creative urges. He enrolled in painting and drawing technique classes and eventually turned his garage into a studio.
His earliest themes were dark. "When I first started I was consumed with disability and loss, and that's what informed my subjects," he said. Gradually that need diminished and he began expanding his subjects and methods, working with color and large canvasses, and exploring abstract ideas in addition to realist renditions of buildings and cityscapes.
Garreth admits that the marketing side of his art has been a struggle. "It's a full-time job getting your work out there." But as he gains more recognition and receives commissions, it has become more and more gratifying. More recently he has begun showing in juried exhibits and fairs, including a VSA of Washington "No Boundaries" touring exhibit. Like many artists, he struggles to balance his desire to devote more time to painting with the need to accept paid work-in his case, lucrative architectural commissions.
Bruce Hanson, a.k.a. "projectorguy," was injured two years ago. A month before his injury he had completed a fine arts graduate degree program and for a while had been actively engaged in creating large-scale public projects, including a "gorilla" style projection on the side of the newly remodeled Bellevue Art Museum (BAM) just before it opened. "That makes me the first artist to show there," he quipped. In response, BAM commissioned him to do a projection piece for the ceiling of the portico: a video showing an enormous eye, blinking and looking around, the pupil filled with a video of visitors wandering around a museum. He wanted to stimulate visitors to re-think their notions of "who is looking at whom," he said. "An interesting idea, especially for an art museum."
Bruce's C6 incomplete injury hasn't derailed his artistic career. Working with video has enabled him to continue working in the same medium as before his injury. This would have been difficult had he been a painter (as he originally intended when he started graduate school) because he has lost function in his right hand.
Bruce's approach tends toward the confrontational-he enjoys surprising people and forcing them to think about things in new ways. Recently he was invited to participate in the Boston Cyberarts Festival, where he projected images of wounds onto the torsos of passersby. "I wanted to push the boundaries of personal space," he said. "I appropriated (images of) wounds from crucifixion paintings, surgical procedures and violence." In spite of the grim subject matter, Bruce noticed that "some of the wounds were very beautiful." The Festival took place during the bombing in Iraq, adding a degree of intensity and relevance to Bruce's work, which garnered positive mention in the Boston Globe. Bruce's work can be seen on his Web site, www.projectorguy.com.
"Artists with disabilities are really making a difference in the world," Charlene Curtiss remarked in closing. "If something here tonight has intrigued you, we encourage you to get involved."
RESOURCES
Organizations supporting the disabled artist:
Ethel Louise Armstrong Foundation
2460 North Lake Avenue, PMB #128
Altadena, CA 91001
626.398.8840
http://www.ela.org
National Arts and Disabilities Center
300 UCLA MP Ste. 3310
Los Angeles, CA 90095-6967
310.825.5054
http://nadc.ucla.edu
VSA arts of Washington
305 Harrison Street
Seattle, WA 98109
206.443.1843
http://wa.vsarts.org
Light Motion
Director: Charlene Curtiss
1520 32nd Avenue So.
Seattle, WA 98144
206.328.0818
email: cacurtiss@msn.com
Mouth & Foot Painters Association
2070 Peach Tree Industrial Court
Atlanta, GA 30341
770.986.7764
http://www.amfpa.com/
Organizations supporting artists:
Office of Arts and Cultural Affairs (formerly the Seattle Arts Commission)
City of Seattle
700 5th Ave. Suite 1766
Seattle, WA 98104
206-684-7171
http://www.cityofseattle.net/arts/
Subscribe to the monthly newsletter at http://www.cityofseattle.net/arts/publications/default.asp
Artist Trust ( http://www.artisttrust.org/ ; 1835 12th Avenue, Seattle, WA 98122; 206-467-8734; toll-free: 866-21TRUST) offers individual grant awards and information services to Washington State artists.
Exhibition opportunities:
James Pinney
Williamsburg Art and Historical Center
135 Broadway
Brooklyn, NY 11211
http://wahcenter.net/
(718) 486-7372 or (718) 486-6012
Ann Herring
Director Marketing
Burke Rehabilitation Hospital
785 Mamaroneck Ave.
White Plains, NY 10605
http://www.burke.org/
914-597-2500
Sister Kenny Rehabilitation Institute
800 E. 28th St.
Minneapolis, MN 55407
http://www.allina.com/ahs/ski.nsf/
612-863-4466
Annual Exhibitions locally:
City of Tukwila
Dept. of Parks and Recreation
Arts Commission
12424 42nd Ave. S.
Tukwila, WA 98168
Magnolia Art Show
Chamber of Commerce
3213 W. Wheeler PMB#518
Seattle, WA 98199
Local Arts Networks:
L. Kelly Lyles runs a local email service dispersing announcements, arts news and opportunities. She can be reached at kelly@kellyspot.com Just send her an email asking to be added to her distribution list.
Doreen Mitchum runs a similar email service. Doreen.Mitchum@culturaldevelopment.org Just ask to be added to her distribution list.
Art Calendar is a monthly Business Magazine for Visual Artists. For about $33 per year it's a great resource and can be received in hard copy or email.
http://www.ArtCalendar.com or http://www.ArtScuttlebutt.com
P.O. Box 2675
Salisbury, MD 21802
Classes:
Seattle Academy of Fine Art
5031 University Way NE, Room 111
Seattle, Washington 98105
206.526.2787.
http://www.realistart.com/
Pratt Fine Arts Center
1902 South Main Street
Seattle, WA 98144
206-328-2200
http://www.pratt.org
Local Community Colleges also offer art classes for the general public.