Carolyn stands in front of a sea of colorful mermaid dolls covering a wall of the Florida Craftsmen Gallery. She grins and gazes into the face of each doll. Staring back at her are 18 self-portraits, each of them flawless and beautiful.
A few feet away, Kotaro Itami steps into a pink and green anime-inspired rabbit costume, covering his face with a giant mask. Inside the suit, modeled after a character he created, Itami hides from judging eyes.
Carolyn and Itami are artists. They are also developmentally disabled. Carolyn, 59, has a neurological syndrome. Itami, 21, has autism.
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
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Click here to see the Florida Craftsmen Gallery exhibition.
ARTLINK JAPAN will be on exhibit at the Florida Craftsmen Gallery from June 15 to July 31. Florida Craftsmen is located at 501 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, Fla., and is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. Admission is free. Donations are accepted. Artwork is also available for sale.
For more: For information on how to get involved with Creative Clay and Artlink, contact Grace-Anne Alfiero at (727) 825-0515 or visit the Web site at www.creativeclay.org. Creative Clay is located at 1124 Central Ave., St. Petersburg, Fla.
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Both have found an outlet for expression through Artlink, a program that pairs professional artists with developmentally disabled adults. In St. Petersburg, Fla., Artlink is offered through Creative Clay, an art center for disabled adults. This summer, a joint exhibition with a sister program in Okayama, Japan, is on display at the Florida Craftsmen Gallery.
Itami came from Japan for the opening day. His giant anime bunny costume will remain for the duration of the show.
The Artlink program has paired about 200 professional and disabled artists since its inception in 2000. Each year, the program accepts 10 to 14 artists who work in a variety of mediums, from painting to photography to acting. Last year, nearly twice that number applied, said executive director and co-founder Grace-Anne Alfiero.
Carolyn’s storyOne of the pairs who participated this year was Carolyn and her partner Jill Oldenski, a mixed media doll artist. Oldenski worked with Carolyn for at least 40 hours over the course of the six months as part of the program. She used their time together to teach Carolyn all she could about the different ways to make a doll.
Carolyn is not new to this method of learning. This was her third year participating in the Artlink program and her 11th year taking classes at Creative Clay.
It was Carolyn’s mother, Mary Andrews, who discovered Creative Clay after Carolyn lost her janitorial job at a local nursing home. She was looking for a place for her daughter to go where her limited skill set did not matter. Carolyn can’t count money, Andrew said. She reads at a first-grade level. The programs at Creative Clay focused on the strengths of the participants. For Carolyn that meant working with her social skills.
Carolyn enjoys the program every year, but said this year has been the best.
Her partner, Oldenski, referred to their relationship as “a match made in heaven.”
“It really was very rich to me to see through Carolyn’s eyes,” she said. “It helped me clarify my thinking, to think of things in steps. It was good for me to break it down.”
When the two made dolls, Carolyn was in charge of drawing and painting the designs. Mermaids are her current obsession. Then she stuffed the bodies. Oldenski sewed them up. Carolyn didn’t want to prick her finger.
Carolyn’s favorite part of the process was drawing the faces, which were always a representation of her own rounded features, blunt-cut blond hair and plastic-frame glasses.
The faces Carolyn draws are simple: two oval eyes, a triangular nose and a circle stretched into a smile.
The self-portraits have become Carolyn’s most recognizable trademark. She even has a line of “Beauty Queen” products at Creative Clay, including T-shirts, drinking glasses and note cards. Each one features a classic Carolyn face.
“I named it the “Beauty Queen” because I am a beauty queen,” Carolyn said with a grin.
Carolyn’s mother, Mary Andrews, said her daughter has changed since she began her work at Creative Clay. This year, Carolyn gained enough self-assurance to move out of her mother’s house. She now lives in a group home with two other women with disabilities and a live-in nurse.
Oldenski was so impressed with the progress Carolyn made during Artlink, she decided to keep seeing her after their six-month mark passed.
“The hardest part was letting it end, but now we’ve solved that problem,” Oldenski said.
Kotaro’s storyItami rarely showed his feelings to his Artlink partner, Japanese contemporary artist Koichi Manabe, when they were paired together three years ago. He barely even smiled. But after a year of working together, Itami began opening up and talking. His artwork developed into intricate sketches of Japanese animations that he put together in books.
Now, Itami talks to strangers about his artwork.
“I think the deeper he dips into his world, the more he can expand his world more outside,” Manabe said.
It was this idea that prompted the duo, both part of the Artlink program in Japan, to create a way for Itami to become one of his characters by designing a costume that he could wear.
“Tsugiwusa” is a bright pink and green rabbit with a screw through its head and a heart patched on its chest. Three giant white fangs draw attention away from the beady white eyes.
Itami feels like a different person when he’s inside the costume, he said. He doesn’t talk to anybody, using only gestures to communicate. Behind the mask, Itami said he feels more comfortable than in his own skin.
Except for the discomfort of how hot he gets while walking around, he adds.
Manabe said his whole outlook on life changed after working with Itami.
“Art is something that helps you look into yourself and find out who you are and also helps you to grow as a person.”
Manabe has especially seen this growth in Itami, who has told him he is ready to get a job in Japan and become a professional cartoonist.
“Now no one can stop him from drawing. Now he can expand his world more and more,” Manabe said.
Artlink InternationalCreative Clay executive director Alfiero is still amazed at how her little project to pair professional and disabled artists has grown into a global movement.
When the organization started, guest artists from the community taught the classes. But it didn’t take long for Alfiero to realize that it was one-on-one relationships that produced results.
Within a year, the program gained recognition across the globe. At an international conference she met a group from Japan who wanted to take her ideas back to their country.
Six years later, the partnership evolved into a unique multicultural exchange.
Plans are already underway to start Artlink in New Zealand, Malaysia, Korea and China. The goal is to have almost every continent represented in a worldwide expo of Artlink projects in Shanghai by 2010.
Money is always a challenge. It costs $550,000 a year to run Creative Clay, $90,000 of which is used for the Artlink program. The budget includes money to pay each professional artist partner a $1,000 stipend.
The program is looking to partner with another local institution to help disperse some of the expenses. Alfiero hopes to have the partnership developed in July.
Alfiero is convinced that programs like Artlink are necessary to give people with developmental disabilities an opportunity to build skills through a nontraditional method.
“In my time here, I’ve seen people gain confidence, people go in different directions than they’ve ever expected. I’ve seen people who have been super depressed and really had a turnaround,” she said. “People who never thought they would have a friend now do.”
As Carolyn and Itami depart the art gallery at the end of the night, they aren’t alone. For them, the art is no longer a painting hanging on the wall. It is more than that. It is friendship.
