LIBERTY TWP. — Art is everywhere at Liberty Center since the art room opened up last year.
Not only has the lobby been livened up by a dynamic installation, but even the garbage cans have taken on a colorful air.
“We wanted to offer opportunities for folks that wanted to express themselves in different ways,” said Sherry Dillon, manager of program development for the Butler County Board of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities drop-in center. “It started out small, but we’ve doubled in size in the last four months, venturing out into pottery and ceramics — and now we even have a budding photographer.”
Dubbed “InsideOut Studio,” the art room has not only given the MRDD clients a creative outlet, but some of them have even gained a bit of regional notoriety.
An exhibition of work by Alicia Ann Jones and Andrew Piercy, two of the center’s regular visitors, will be part of the Pendelton Arts Center’s Final Friday exhibitions on Friday, May 29.
InsideOut artists also have had their work on display at Kona Bistro in Oxford and the new West Chester Medical Center.
“We had a couple of folks who just weren’t interested in any of the things we offer,” Dillon said. “Now they talk more, they are more engaged in general.”
Initial funding for the studio came from MRDD funds, but grants from the Ohio Arts Council and the Ohio Developmental Disabilities Council has added to the program, including the a purchase of a kiln that will soon be installed.
Their work sells, too, and what doesn’t go to the artists goes toward the purchase of materials.
The studio artists also get instruction and help from professional artists, including Debbie Brod, who coordinated the lobby installation, and Suzanne Fisher, who helped land the Pendleton exhibition.
“It’s been an amazing experience,” said Tracy Boraz, one of the art room facilitators. “The simple task of putting paint on canvas has an incredible impact on their self-esteem.”
For two days in June, InsideOut Studio will host Tim Lefens, an artist nationally known for his work with the developmentally disabled.
Lefens’ Artistic Realization Technologies (A.R.T.) program, founded almost 20 years ago, will further expand the art room’s offerings to clients who have not been able to participate because of physical limitations.
Liberty Center’s facility is one of 10 studios Lefens is visiting through a grant he received from the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation to train artists to use a headgear piece that utilizes sophisticated lasers, enabling the artists to look at the canvas where they want paint to go, so that an assistant “tracker” can follow the light of the laser with a brush loaded with the color chosen by the artist.
Contact this reporter at (513) 820-2188 or rjones@coxohio.com.
