[Music]
[Music]
I’d like to start by telling you about
my friend Bob I first met Bob when he
was living in North Minneapolis and I
wanted to see what he did on a daily
basis just someone living with muscular
dystrophy I was fortunate to spend time
with him in the summer when he was able
to get out of his house get in his
wheelchair and take his dog for a walk
around the neighborhood he would hand
out bottles of water and strike up
conversations with strangers he’s an
incredibly social and incredibly
friendly man this is the start of his
painting it’s eight feet by 16 feet I
wanted people to be consumed by his
community so I’m the shy introvert
stay-at-home kind of person the one big
thing I learned about Bob is he doesn’t
want to be home he’s a people person but
he really has a hard time getting out of
his house because of his disability not
everybody has access to their neighbors
if you don’t have a ram or you don’t
shovel your sidewalk in the winter Bob
can’t go to his friends house if they
don’t have an accessible home Bob can’t
come to my home one of the other things
that Bob does is he writes poetry he
writes about a lot of different things
but in his poem beauty he writes about
the restrictions on his life and about
how he’s overcome obstacles like
depression and isolation I included his
poem in the painting that we did
together and here’s his painting at the
exhibition there was a woman standing in
front of Bob’s work and I walked over
and she had tears coming down her face
she said this is so beautiful
it’s moments like those that I’ve been
striving for with my art I thought these
moments had added value and would help
me make a connection with people through
art Bob’s painting was part of a project
to learn more about how people who might
be considered to be living in the
shadows of their community people who
may not have access to services and
transportation because of their
disability as someone who is very
privileged and have easy access to my
community easy access to the things they
want access to I thought how better to
try to understand how other people
experience their community because all
this time I’ve been painting from my
perspective and I wanted to see if I
could paint from somebody else’s
perspective even if just a little bit
I was also nearing the completion of a
job transition from a graphic design
career to being a special education
teacher so I met different people with
different disabilities living in my
community I worked with people with
autism I worked with people with Down
syndrome and I worked with people with
muscular dystrophy in high school I had
a wonderful art teacher mr. clerks
thankfully because I wasn’t a very good
student one of the things that mr.
clerks had us do is he had us go out
into the hall about once a week and we
would have a critique he took teach us
about how to do a critique and he had a
rule that went something like say one
thing that you like about the work but
also say something that you have a
question about or something that you
would change so this is the type of
thing I was doing in high school and by
the students the other students gave me
lots of praise about this type of work
that I was doing lots of compliments
about my artistic ability so but one day
we’re having one of these critiques and
the students were going on and on about
how much they liked my my drawings but
mr.clerk stood back and he said that’s
really nice but what else can you do and
that was it
I understood immediately it was for me
to explore it was for me to find out
really what else was that I can do with
my art after that critique I was
painting as fast as I could these big
bold elaborate paintings
mr. clerks also encouraged me to go into
education but I was a bad student I
didn’t have good grades and I just
thought for sure I couldn’t be a good
teacher but over the years I kept asking
myself what else can I do now almost 30
years later I recently finished my
master’s degree in special education and
while working on my master’s project I
chose to work on the idea of how
mindfulness interventions worked with
students with significant behavior
issues and I read all these studies
about how mindfulness and what it did
for students and their families in my
research I found that that often the
parent also goes along with the
mindfulness training so the parent also
practicing mindfulness as well as the
student learning how for the parent
learning how to respond to the student
in new ways help reduce the child’s
behaviors so I’ve dabbled in mindfulness
a little bit but never really practiced
it regularly I thought so with my my
process with my art of wondering what
else I can do and painting all the time
and taking the time to really try to
understand how somebody else is thinking
and feeling and then going through this
master’s project I realized I have been
practicing mindfulness all this time the
result has been these paintings where I
meditate on an idea I watch people study
how they move and wondering about how
they think and feel I also take ideas
and see if I can visualize complex ones
and make them simple this one is about
confronting fear an ongoing theme in my
work different monsters have represented
fear for me over the years the other
characters are confronting the fear
but I like to leave things vague so that
the viewer can participate in and add in
their own values and their own feelings
and identify with any one of the
characters that they want this one is
about celebrating and embracing the
comfort of the city or embracing the
comfort of the unknown this one is about
living in a dream or living your dream
I’ve been noticing these people a lot
more recently they take their time they
listen and they smile I think these
people are living in their dream I don’t
want to be the center of the crowd but I
like to be there watching I really try
to pay attention to my community what
people are doing how people interact and
move this is an older painting I painted
this after watching people at a grocery
store line arms dangled from the side of
a floppy body this is how I imagined a
body would look if it looked like it
felt this one is really about the hustle
of the community like at rush hour I
really love these settings to see how
people navigate through their
environment the emotion the energy the
feeling and visually I think they’re
just wonderful these paintings are also
about the calmness among the chaos about
how you can be lonelier in a crowd than
in a small group or you can be freer in
a crowd than when you’re alone people
often call me very patient I even won an
award at a middle school for being the
most patient teacher I thought I was
being patient with others and that’s
what people notice when I won that award
but I realized I was just learning how
to be patient with myself not others I
was that parent learning how to respond
differently to the child
I read that Nelson Mandela talked about
being liberated from fear what does that
look like for me for others
I’ve learned to connect to people I need
to present personal situations however
complex are simple and allow the viewer
to be part of it
my characters are simple so that anyone
can identify with them there anyone and
everyone somebody can look at my work
and say I feel like that or hey that’s
me and they add their values and
feelings to my work to complete it what
else can you do thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
[Music]
I’d like to start by telling you about
my friend Bob I first met Bob when he
was living in North Minneapolis and I
wanted to see what he did on a daily
basis just someone living with muscular
dystrophy I was fortunate to spend time
with him in the summer when he was able
to get out of his house get in his
wheelchair and take his dog for a walk
around the neighborhood he would hand
out bottles of water and strike up
conversations with strangers he’s an
incredibly social and incredibly
friendly man this is the start of his
painting it’s eight feet by 16 feet I
wanted people to be consumed by his
community so I’m the shy introvert
stay-at-home kind of person the one big
thing I learned about Bob is he doesn’t
want to be home he’s a people person but
he really has a hard time getting out of
his house because of his disability not
everybody has access to their neighbors
if you don’t have a ram or you don’t
shovel your sidewalk in the winter Bob
can’t go to his friends house if they
don’t have an accessible home Bob can’t
come to my home one of the other things
that Bob does is he writes poetry he
writes about a lot of different things
but in his poem beauty he writes about
the restrictions on his life and about
how he’s overcome obstacles like
depression and isolation I included his
poem in the painting that we did
together and here’s his painting at the
exhibition there was a woman standing in
front of Bob’s work and I walked over
and she had tears coming down her face
she said this is so beautiful
it’s moments like those that I’ve been
striving for with my art I thought these
moments had added value and would help
me make a connection with people through
art Bob’s painting was part of a project
to learn more about how people who might
be considered to be living in the
shadows of their community people who
may not have access to services and
transportation because of their
disability as someone who is very
privileged and have easy access to my
community easy access to the things they
want access to I thought how better to
try to understand how other people
experience their community because all
this time I’ve been painting from my
perspective and I wanted to see if I
could paint from somebody else’s
perspective even if just a little bit
I was also nearing the completion of a
job transition from a graphic design
career to being a special education
teacher so I met different people with
different disabilities living in my
community I worked with people with
autism I worked with people with Down
syndrome and I worked with people with
muscular dystrophy in high school I had
a wonderful art teacher mr. clerks
thankfully because I wasn’t a very good
student one of the things that mr.
clerks had us do is he had us go out
into the hall about once a week and we
would have a critique he took teach us
about how to do a critique and he had a
rule that went something like say one
thing that you like about the work but
also say something that you have a
question about or something that you
would change so this is the type of
thing I was doing in high school and by
the students the other students gave me
lots of praise about this type of work
that I was doing lots of compliments
about my artistic ability so but one day
we’re having one of these critiques and
the students were going on and on about
how much they liked my my drawings but
mr.clerk stood back and he said that’s
really nice but what else can you do and
that was it
I understood immediately it was for me
to explore it was for me to find out
really what else was that I can do with
my art after that critique I was
painting as fast as I could these big
bold elaborate paintings
mr. clerks also encouraged me to go into
education but I was a bad student I
didn’t have good grades and I just
thought for sure I couldn’t be a good
teacher but over the years I kept asking
myself what else can I do now almost 30
years later I recently finished my
master’s degree in special education and
while working on my master’s project I
chose to work on the idea of how
mindfulness interventions worked with
students with significant behavior
issues and I read all these studies
about how mindfulness and what it did
for students and their families in my
research I found that that often the
parent also goes along with the
mindfulness training so the parent also
practicing mindfulness as well as the
student learning how for the parent
learning how to respond to the student
in new ways help reduce the child’s
behaviors so I’ve dabbled in mindfulness
a little bit but never really practiced
it regularly I thought so with my my
process with my art of wondering what
else I can do and painting all the time
and taking the time to really try to
understand how somebody else is thinking
and feeling and then going through this
master’s project I realized I have been
practicing mindfulness all this time the
result has been these paintings where I
meditate on an idea I watch people study
how they move and wondering about how
they think and feel I also take ideas
and see if I can visualize complex ones
and make them simple this one is about
confronting fear an ongoing theme in my
work different monsters have represented
fear for me over the years the other
characters are confronting the fear
but I like to leave things vague so that
the viewer can participate in and add in
their own values and their own feelings
and identify with any one of the
characters that they want this one is
about celebrating and embracing the
comfort of the city or embracing the
comfort of the unknown this one is about
living in a dream or living your dream
I’ve been noticing these people a lot
more recently they take their time they
listen and they smile I think these
people are living in their dream I don’t
want to be the center of the crowd but I
like to be there watching I really try
to pay attention to my community what
people are doing how people interact and
move this is an older painting I painted
this after watching people at a grocery
store line arms dangled from the side of
a floppy body this is how I imagined a
body would look if it looked like it
felt this one is really about the hustle
of the community like at rush hour I
really love these settings to see how
people navigate through their
environment the emotion the energy the
feeling and visually I think they’re
just wonderful these paintings are also
about the calmness among the chaos about
how you can be lonelier in a crowd than
in a small group or you can be freer in
a crowd than when you’re alone people
often call me very patient I even won an
award at a middle school for being the
most patient teacher I thought I was
being patient with others and that’s
what people notice when I won that award
but I realized I was just learning how
to be patient with myself not others I
was that parent learning how to respond
differently to the child
I read that Nelson Mandela talked about
being liberated from fear what does that
look like for me for others
I’ve learned to connect to people I need
to present personal situations however
complex are simple and allow the viewer
to be part of it
my characters are simple so that anyone
can identify with them there anyone and
everyone somebody can look at my work
and say I feel like that or hey that’s
me and they add their values and
feelings to my work to complete it what
else can you do thank you
[Applause]
[Music]
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