Graduation came and went. Nearly a week ago. And, I am still processing it all. The day. This milestone. Very slowly processing. Yet, perhaps not yet willing to take the time to full process it all. I've been working on my book this week. By the time this blog post publishes, I'll be on the way back to Louisville for a weekend of art museums and play.
I confess. I hid behind a camera during the ceremony. There were 22 of us there in the Grace Goad Fan Club. Sorry, folks, but only two of you can snap pictures without cutting off body parts, including heads. One of you would have bitched about the camera the whole time and the other one of you doesn't like me. So, I held that big digital device up in front of my face and let er rip on sports mode. ClickClickClickClick. It wasn't until Grace exited the stage that I realized what I'd done.
Missed. The whole thing.
And. I know better.
Once, at a conference many years ago--I can remember the dress I was wearing and my age, 26--an older, wiser woman came up to me and said: "Your reporter pad gives you a chance to hide." Cameras do that, too. I recall reading how someone went whale watching and decided not to try to capture it because in so doing, they'd miss the glory of the actual moment of being in the presence of that incredible creature. I tried to remember that the few times I have been fortunate enough to watch whales.
More on this Grace's graduation and how it's shaking down will come. The continuance will share what I did experience behind the lens. (This post--The Little Drummer that Graduated--shows what I and our family, at least, saw.) And eventually, I'll process the feelings over this momentous occasion. Probably part of the reason I've not yet unpacked them is because they are bittersweet. In ways that only other families of children with autism and other disAbilities can relate.
It will come.
The above photo: one of two in which the photographer was documented being at the actual event.
It was 1998 and we were a year into autism early intervention. What
you did or didn't do beyond the standard speech/language, occupational
and educational therapies was controversial. I found it all grueling.
The rigor. The constancy. Where, I asked, was the childhood pleasure of
creating art, the joy of music and the ecstasy of dance? My daughter needed help to attend the arts classes my friends'
typically developing children attended. I kept on with the rigors of early intervention, but
I ventured toward a very unconventional route, beating the bushes to
find in Middle Tennessee dance/movement, music and art therapists.
What our family discovered was that our preschooler had perfect pitch
and perfect rhythm. To this day she loves to cut a rug. Wildly so. But
visual art? I remember the look of excitement and wonder after the first
session with our first art therapist. We got it then that our daughter
had an affinity for color and composition. She had a gift that she would demonstrate again and again over the next 15 years. An ability that was often years beyond her chronological age.
The creative branch of our journey all began with an exploration for
wonder lost in the deluge of teaching her the basics she didn't possess--much of them still does not. I first heard Temple Grandin
speak around that time. She told parents that when our children turned 14, to zone in on what interested them for it would be their future social
group and career paths. We found ours 10 years before that. We found it
at four.
While I attended a portfolio-based arts high school in South Carolina
and gravitated to art all my life, I never did much overtly with it
come college. I allow my family's taboo attitudes toward art to chain me for many years if not still now. But, in the work of my daughter, I knew what to look for and what I was seeing and I
knew, because it has been my career--30 years in communications--how to package and market like
hell. I also began reporting on art here in Nashville nearly a decade
ago via magazines, newspapers and my blog.
The deal is that my daughter
is not that unique. Well, she is and she isn't. We are all unique.
True. But I just knew what to look for and how to help her. There are
other artists (with autism and other disAbilities) like her world-wide. Just not that many here. We are in a
city of art but a state that does not value education and the education
of art. Nor the education of students with disAbilities. Many parents,
many people, everywhere, do not understand art. They do not realize
there are legions of artists who paint abstractions for thousands of dollars and
more. So, I've watched other classmates of Grace who I knew had talent go
undiscovered by their teachers, the system, their incredulous parents, even when told them their children had ability. I cannot fault them. The world, especially
our culture, does not get art. It is underfunded, underappreciated, misunderstood, devalued. Match that with a severe disAbility and it gets buried more times than not.
It's time to change that. We must change it. We must change it for
those growing up behind us. We must change it for those who are already
grown up. And, sadly, it is often only then that we do discover their
talent for visual art and even begin to give chances for adults with
disAbilities to express their often innate ability. Lost potential. Lost
pleasure. Lost profit.
Let's go back to the beginning. The beginning of making art for the
fun of it. And then see where it can take us. Let's go for the wonder
and surprise.
The video above launched the beginning of Honestly Autism Day
in Baltimore. We'll be sharing this and other videos on music and
dance/movement before our presentations start. We'll be explaining why
having someone educated in developmental disAbilities plus a creative
art is often the strongest link for reaching a person with disAbilities' maximum
abilities. Please share this post with others so that they will know. Everyone deserves the joys of creative arts. Everyone deserves a chance to explore whatever their potential. And, everyone has some sort of potential be it art or otherwise.
The email account I forget to check? Last night it had an invite to this release party scheduled for this afternoon. No can do. Boo hoo! I'd already decided to post this today anyway. So, WATCH THIS! You'll be glad you did. But first: grab a hankee!
Scene: Wednesday after school, Grace delivered freshly assembled GraceArt Notecard II Sets to Tennessee Art League on Nashville's gallery row, Fifth Avenue of the Arts next to The Arts Company. Today, she's off to Disney World with her Dad. I'm traveling to North Carolina to pick up the remains of her solo show there. Hanging two shows this coming week. Details here. Graduation is one week away.
Grace has six more days of traditional public school left. That's minus two for a long weekend trip to Disney World with her Dad. Graduation is May 18. Today, I'll be working with a young adult woman with autism to prepare 450 plus packets of GraceArt Notecards (Series II...not yet shown on her website, but coming soon). The 50-packet stash (10 cards and envelopes, five designs, two each,) above, (Untitled. Pink Pastel, not shown,) was fresh from the printer and taken to her solo show at The Artery Gallery Greensboro, NC, which comes down tomorrow after an extended stay. I'll be making the approximate 1,200-mile trip to pick up GraceArt this weekend. Some of it will be hung at perl Cafe & Market in the Nashville suburb of Bellevue. I decided to give the extra wall space we were offered to Suha Khalil, a young adult woman with Down syndrome who lives in Sudan and whose work is represented here by my friend Massood Taj. Suha's beautiful paintings already hang with GraceArt in Nashville at the offices of psychologist Charles Ihrig, Ph.D. More about them on GraceArt's Facebook page, Grace Goad | Autism Art.Wednesday of next week, I'll be hanging all new works of GraceArt, (produced during her senior year at the superior art program of Hillsboro High School,) in the lobby of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center's Polk Theater. Sponsored by VSA Tennessee, they will remain there for three months.
Am I nuts? ..."Keep Calm & Carry On." The timing just happened this way. Keeping up with recent demand and even asking venues to wait a couple of weeks as new inventory is framed, picked up and delivered. It's a nice "problem" to have.
"One [...] incorporates approximately 3000 individual thumbprints collected by [more than] 30 collaborators [me, Leisa, included]. The [thumb]prints represent the beautiful diversity that makes up our world: children, 90-somethings, men, women, LGBT, various ethnicities, spirtualities and religions, people with autism and other disAbilities. The intention is to make a statement that although individusals, we are all ONE."
Before I decided to post this today, I had talked earlier to my shaman friend who is writing a book about radical spirituality. I called him and asked him to read to me again one of the summary points of his book in progress. Here is how he summed the point and related it to artist Haile's work:
"Each individual thumbprint is each individual's universe of experience. However, when we put them all together, which the artist did, they become a picture of the Unity of One."
Thank you, Pam, for your artist labor of creativity, which reminds us in a world hell-bent on creating separateness, that though we may each be unique in our experiences, we are all one in our humanity. We need that message right now more than ever. Bless the artist messengers.
California based, Hosseini is a mother, like me, of a
young adult with autism who is also an artist. She is the author of two
books in a series also entitled The Art of Autism. Grace is
featured in the 2012 edition. In both the aforementioned shows and other
shows nationwide, The Art of Autism brings together artists on the
spectrum across the world to showcase their
work.
Here, above, The Art of Autism has teamed with the
Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, in Nashville, to feature several Southeast
regional artists with ASD. Grace's painting (is it another horse?) is
the purple tones on top. (The purple frame is a graphic design effect created by Vanderbilt for the flyer.)
Hosseini knows, as many of us parents of older youth do, that
entrepreneurship is a key path for many of our adults on the spectrum.
Stay tuned to "The Journey with Grace" as I and others envision ways to
collectively and locally integrate artists with disAbilities and those
without, in ways to create, show and sell their works. I'm currently
fleshing out the vision and looking for ways to grow its arms and legs. The
encouraging factor? No one has to reinvent the wheel. All over the
country, parents are getting smart to the fact that we must use our own
elbow grease and elevate the gifts of our differently abled offspring.
So
here's to the visionary mothers, such as Hosseini who carry torches for
their own offspring and light the way for others as well. Kudos, thanks & hats off girlfriends (and Dads, too).
Today I'm joining my Nashville friend, Courtney Taylor Evans, of the Vanderbilt Kennedy Center, in coaching parents and adults with disAbilites on how to write their story via Tennessee's Kindred Stories project. (I've one on their website somewhere. I think it's this one: "[...]I'm giving this summer the finger!") We are presenting at the Chattanooga Autism Center's Fourth Annual Community Conference, this year themed: "Autism: Life's Transitions." Our afternoon talk--right after lunch ;) --is called "Sharing Your Stories: Advocacy Through Personal Storytelling." We presented this last year at the Tennessee Disability Mega Conference in Nashville and will do likewise at this year's Mega conference in late May. Here's a blog post summarizing part of my portion in the presentation for those of you who cannot attend: Kindred Stories & Writing Yours.
I'm happy to return to the fun town of the Choo-Choo and spend the weekend afterwards walking, viewing their plethora of public art, visiting their Hunter Museum of Art, maybe take in an IMAX and soak up some of their hip downtown vibe. Pictures are sure to pop up here at some point on "The Journey with Grace" and most definitely on Instagram and possibly Facebook, Pinterest....I'm also looking forward to catching a couple of the other conference seminars and meet another author whose work I admire: Susan Senator. Last weekend's Honestly Autism Day in Baltimore proved to be a boon in many ways, not in the least was my fast friendship with successful author Ellen Notbohm.
Life is Good. Enjoy your last weekend in April, folks!
Today, I am Baltimore
bound where I'll be speaking tomorrow, Saturday, April 20, at the Honestly Autism Day
conference. wOOT! These folks share my ideas on autism, apparently, and I'm very
happy the internet led their very friendly and competent conference
coordinator, Debbie Page, to my blogsite, here, which led her to invite me to present
twice during the day's events. Author/columnist Ellen Notbohm of the popular
"Ten Things About Autism" book series will keynote. I look forward to
meeting her. I'll be delivering my expanded personal version of the Autism Society of Middle Tennessee's popular autism parent orientation, which I've been presenting for about 10 years every other Third Thursday at Vanderbilt Kennedy Center. (Next one's May 16.) I premiered my individualized on-the-road version at last year's Tennessee Megadisability Conference. The name is "The DisAbility Journey: Loss, Grief and the Path to Acceptance."
According to Page, "the whole day is about honesty,
gratitude and collaboration. It is a combined effort of the Autism
Society of Baltimore-Chesapeake, Baltimore County Public School’s Office of
Special Education and the Towson University’s Department of Special Education. We call ourselves
the Partnership Project! For this year’s event we have 444 registrants
plus another 156 speakers, guests, panelists and vendors!"
About the conference logo art,
above: Chris Kendall, a young man with autism, created it four years ago for the
premiere conference in this annual series. Then he was a high school junior at that time.
Good work Chris!
