January 17: John Stanley (1712-1786)

[visual description: a portrait of composer John Stanley, apparently in middle age, wearing a white powdered wig and a brass-buttoned coat; his eyes are noticeably scarred]

Born on this date 300 years ago today, in London, English composer John Stanley (best click that link before or after Wikipedia goes dark on 18 January). Stanley was blind after a fall in early childhood. The boy turned out to be a musical prodigy while studying with the organist at St. Paul's Cathedral, and, at age 11, was appointed organist at All Hallows Church in Bread Street, a paid position. At fourteen he became organist at St. Andrews in Holborn, and at age 17 he completed a Bachelor of Music degree at Oxford.

Stanley married his copyist's sister, Sarah, a sea captain's daughter. He spent most of his career as organist to the Society of the Inner Temple. Handel was a frequent visitor to the church, to hear Stanley play. The admiration was returned: Stanley directed many Handel oratorios. Stanley's own baroque compositions were many and varied, from an opera to three volumes of organ music. (There are audio files of several Stanley compositions for organ at this site.) He was also elected governor of a Foundling Hospital, which mostly involved his advising the staff on hiring music teachers, and organizing fund-raising concerts.

Stanley's auditory memory and sensitivity were much remarked upon: it was reported that he never forgot a voice, and that he could judge the size of a room by sound. He also, apparently, had an adapted set of playing cards, with tactile markings at the corners, so that he could play whist with guests. Unfortunately for historians of such things, his family auctioned off all his possessions within weeks after he died, including his manuscripts and instruments.

Here's a YouTube video (which is really only a still image of an album cover) of John Stanley's Allegro (V) from Concerto op.2 no.1 in D Major:


I haven't discovered if there are any events marking his 300th birthday, but now we've marked it at DS,TU, anyway. And this early music editor blogger plans to produce some editions of Stanley's concertos this year.

BUT WAIT, THERE'S MORE!

In comments, Sue Schweik added the very exciting news that a UC-Berkeley musicology student, John Prescott, recently completed a dissertation about John Stanley.

Sequel to an Obituary

ARC Handbell Choir, Westwood
Originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca

More than five years ago, I wrote about Dixie Henrikson here, after seeing her obituary in the Los Angeles Times. Henrikson (d. 2006) was one of those mid-20th-century mothers of a disabled child who was tireless in founding programs--in her case, social activities for young adults with developmental disabilities. One of her prides was the English-style handbell choir she founded, which performed a lot in Los Angeles.

Well... five years later, I happened upon that handbell choir Mrs. Henrikson founded, as guest performers at a play day in an accessible playground in Westwood. What fascinated me was the adapted score the conductor used (in the image above), which was devised by Dixie Henrikson herself. The choir of adults are not, mostly, able to read music, so the usual format won't work. The conductor told us that she has to transcribe tunes into this system's boxes of letters and colors, and transfer those transcripts to plastic window shades, so they're both large enough for the ringers to see during a performance, and sturdy enough to last through years of use. By demonstrating how the score works, the conductor made the choir not so "tricky"--oh, the audience can say, it's not magic or charm, it's a clever adaptation that supports the players where they are.

December 18: Edward MacDowell (1860-1908)

[Visual description: 1940 US Postage stamp honoring Edward MacDowell, depicted as a mustachioed white man with a sweep of thick hair, wearing a stiff collar and tie.]

Today is the 150th anniversary of American composer Edward MacDowell, born on this date in 1860 in New York City (though some sources give 1861). He showed promise as a pianist from a young age; when he was 17, his family moved to Paris so he could study at the Paris Conservatoire. He also studied in Frankfurt, and played for Liszt, and taught in Darmstadt. He became a music professor at Columbia University first chairman of the Music Department there, and was a prolific composer. In 1904, he was part of the first group of honorees named to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

But also in 1904, at age 44, he was run over in a streetcar accident, and his injuries apparently accelerated a progressive neurological condition. He was unable to continue composing or teaching. "His mind became as that of a little child," said Lawrence Gilman, a friend. "He sat quietly, day after day, in a chair by a window, smiling patiently from time to time at those about him, turning the pages of a book of fairy tales that seemed to give him a definite pleasure, and greeting with a fugitive gleam of recognition certain of his more intimate friends." Composer Edvard Grieg ascribed the trouble to MacDowell's remarkable artistic temperament and an "unusually sympathetic and sensitive nervous system": "An artist so ideally endowed as MacDowell must ask himself: Why have I received from nature this delicately strung lyre, if I were better off without it?" (letter quoted in Gilman's biography, p. 35)

There was certainly an awareness of brain injuries at the time, and of dementia, but little was available in the way of medical intervention or rehabilitation, and there was no economic safety net for him or his wife, either. Friends held fundraisers and prominent authors and musicians signed calls for support. MacDowell's wife Marian, herself a musician, refused to consider an institution, and cared for him at home (assisted by a nurse, Anna Baetz) for the three years until he died.

In fulfillment of their shared vision, Marian founded an artists' retreat, the MacDowell Colony at her farm in New Hampshire in 1907. Marian MacDowell (d. 1956) led the Colony for twenty-five years, funding it with her lectures and performances, mainly for women's organizations. Nurse Anna Baetz (d. 1923) stayed on, long past Edward's passing, to help with the colony's day-to-day running. Today, the MacDowell Colony can claim dozens of award-winning works of art that were written or begun at the Edward and Marian's farm.

Keeping Helen Company in Statuary Hall

[Visual description: black-and-white photograph of the statue of Father Damien in the National Statuary Hall]

A statue of Helen Keller was unveiled this week in the US Capitol's Statuary Hall, with great fanfare, because "It’s the first statue in the Capitol showing a person with a disability." Oh?

Regular readers of this blog will know that statements like this send me scurrying to check that list twice. I suspected that she was only the first famously-disabled person represented in Statuary Hall, because disability just isn't that rare. The difficulty of naming a definite "first" also reflects the very fluid nature of disability as a social category.

But even that iffy "famous for being disabled, like really disabled" distinction isn't quite true. Father Damien (1840-1889), Roman Catholic priest, quite famously contracted leprosy during his mission work on Molokai. Damien's statue, by Marisol Escobar, has been in the Capitol since 1969. The stylized bronze figure shows Damien holding a cane with a gnarled hand, and gives some indication of his facial scarring as well.

Hard to call the new Keller statue "the first" if Father Damien and his cane have been there for forty years, isn't it?

UPDATE: Wheelie Catholic also wrote about Father Damien this week--seems he's in the news.

March 17: Josef Sudek (1896-1976)

[Visual description: An older Josef Sudek, seated at a table showing the remains of coffee, smiling, his hand on his lap]

"We traveled down the Italian boot until we came to that place--I had to disappear in the middle of the concert; in the dark I got lost, but I had to search. Far outside the city towards dawn, in the fields bathed by the morning dew, finally I found the place. But my arm wasn't there--only the poor peasant farmhouse was still standing in my place. They had brought me into it the day when I was shot in the right arm. They could never put it together again, and for years I was going from hospital to hospital..."

--Josef Sudek, describing a 1926 trip back to the site of his 1916 battle injury in Italy; found here.

Born on this date in 1896, Czech photographer Josef Sudek. As a young man, he was apprenticed to a bookbinder, who may have been the first to introduce Sudek to photography. The year he turned 20, Sudek's right arm was amputated at the shoulder, after injuries and infection sustained in battle during World War I. Apparently he was given a camera during his convalescence in the veterans hospital, and found it agreed with his interests. Sudek studied photography after the war in Prague, while living on his Army disability pension. In 1924 he co-founded the Czech Photographic Society.

Josef Sudek's work is considered neo-romantic, painterly, haunting. He created series that captured the light inside a cathedral, or the Bohemian woodlands, or panoramic Prague nightscapes. "I love the life of objects," he said. "I like to tell stories about the life of inanimate objects." His own crowded studio was the subject of another series, called "Labyrinths."

March 9: Granville Redmond (1871-1935)

[Image description: black-and-white photo of two men, facing each other; on the left, artist Granville Redmond; on the right, actor Charlie Chaplin in his trademark costume; Chaplin appears to be signing to Redmond. Redmond has a pen in one hand and a cigar in the other. Found here.]





Well, a Temple U. blog should certainly take note of a prominent deaf Philadelphian's birthday, no?

Granville Redmond was born on this date in 1871, in Philadelphia. He became deaf after surviving scarlet fever when he was a very small child. Perhaps in recognition of young Granville's educational needs, his parents moved the family to San Jose, California, so the boy could attend the Berkeley School for the Deaf.

Granville Redmond was a student at the Berkeley school for eleven years (1879-1890). He was found to be a gifted artist and encouraged to develop his talents at the school. After graduating, he attended the California School of Design in San Francisco, where he was an award-winning student. From 1893 to 1898, Redmond worked and studied in Paris. When he returned to the US, he went to paint beach scenes near Los Angeles, and married a deaf woman, Carrie Ann Jean. They had three children together. Redmond gained a solid reputation as California's first resident Impressionist painter.

So what's with the photo above? Well, Redmond and Charlie Chaplin became friends in Los Angeles (a much smaller town then, of course). Chaplin, being a silent film star, was always interested in visual communication, and wanted Redmond to help him learn how ASL worked--which seems to be what's happening in the photo above. Chaplin also supported Redmond's artistic career--he set up a studio for Redmond on the film set, he bought Redmond's paintings, and he invited Redmond to appear in a few silent films, including the 1931 Chaplin classic City Lights (Redmond plays a sculptor). The Redmond/Chaplin friendship is also mentioned in Martin F. Norden's The Cinema of Isolation: A History of Physical Disability in the Movies (Rutgers UP 1994): 70-71.

Interested readers can go see works by Redmond--mostly landscapes and seascapes--at the Irvine Museum, the Laguna Art Museum, and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, among other collections.

February 24: Gustinus Ambrosi (1893-1975)

[Image description: Gustinus Ambrosi in his later years, outdoors, on a footpath near a stream, holding a fishing rod and a fish; his hair is white and windblown]

Austrian sculptor Gustinus Ambrosi was born on this date in 1893, at Eisenstadt near Vienna. He was a musical prodigy before he contracted meningitis at age 7; he survived with "total deafness." The boy soon turned his artistic inclinations to sculpture: as a teenaged apprentice, he studied sculpture at night. Soon, he'd produced his first sculpture of note, titled "Man with the Broken Neck." While still a teenager, he won a prestigious national prize for sculpture.

Ambrosi went on to create over 3000 works, at least 600 of them portrait busts of many of the leaders of European politics and culture in the 1930s. The story goes that he was allowed to work on his bust of Mussolini during closed government meetings, because it was understood that he could not overhear any confidential discussions. He maintained studios in Vienna, Rome, Paris, London, and Brussels in his lifetime. For the 100th anniversary of Gallaudet University, Ambrosi was commissioned to create a sculpture of Edward Miner Gallaudet. Ambrosi also wrote and published volumes of German poetry.

Today, there is an Ambrosi Museum in Vienna, dedicated to the display of his works. His friend, composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, wrote a piano quintet dedicated to Gustinus Ambrosi.

[Ambrosi is the second alphabetical entry in Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences, Bonnie Meath-Lang, ed. (Greenwood Publishing 1995).]

Re/Formations: Disability, Women, and Sculpture: Exhibit Opening 1/15 (x-SDS)

From January 16 through February 27, the Van Every/ Smith Galleries at Davidson College will present RE/FORMATIONS: Disability, Women, and Sculpture.

Untitled (blue high heeled women's pumps, with bent wooden heels). Part of the RE/FORMATIONS installation, Molt, with Scurs*, 2008

Five female artists will exhibit sculpture that examines disability not as mental or physical insufficiency, but as a cultural identity. The artists included are Nancy Fried, Rebecca Horn, Judith Scott, Harriet Sanderson, and Laura Splan. Re/Formations, the first exhibit of its kind, was born of the desire to explore the intersection of disability and female identity as expressed through the medium of sculpture. These identities, while not identical, hold so much in common. Women and the disabled have been relegated to secondary status in society, cast as those excessive and unruly bodies against which the normate defines itself. The exhibit contains both sculptures and installations that are by turns contemplative and confrontational, and explore a number of questions: what is the new disability art? How can art make material the disability experience? If an artist’s mobility or intentionality do not match what we think of as “typical,” what possibilities does that open up for invigorating how we understand art itself?

There will be a panel discussion on “Women, Disability, and Art” on January 15th at 7 p.m. in the C. Shaw Smith 900 Room of The Alvarez College Union featuring Dr. Rosemarie Garland-Thomson, Dr. Ann Millet-Gallant, Laura Splan, Harriet Sanderson, Jessica Cooley, and moderated by myself.

Untitled (JS 33), 2004 Mixed Media (fiber and found objects including a child-sized chair and tire rim with spokes) 17x21x29”

The exhibition opening and dessert reception will follow the panel discussion from 8 p.m. - 9:30 p.m. at the Van Every/Smith Galleries in the Katherine and Tom Belk Visual Arts Center. The galleries are open weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and weekends from noon to 4 p.m. For information, call 704-894-2575. Please note that the exhibit is fully accessible and audio described.

Please note that there are two other exhibits complementing Re/Formations; an exhibit of works from the Davidson College collection with disability themes, and an exhibit in the Union of works from Charlotte’s LifeSpan, Inc., a local arts organization that works with disabled artists.

This exhibit has been co-curated by Jessica Cooley ‘05, Assistant Curator of the Van Every/Smith Galleries, and Ann M. Fox, Associate Professor of English. After Davidson College, it will travel to the National Institute of Art & Disabilities in Richmond, CA.

RE/FORMATIONS: Disability, Women, and Sculpture is made possible through the generous support of:

The Mary Duke Biddle Foundation
The Ethel Louise Armstrong Foundation, Inc
Wachovia Corporation
Davidson College Friends of the Arts
Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice, PLLC
Anonymous
Davidson College Dean of Students Office
Davidson College English Department
Davidson College German Department
Davidson College Gender Studies Concentration
Davidson College Medical Humanities Program
Davidson College Public Lectures Committee
LifeSpan Incorporated
The Arts & Science Council and the Grassroots Program of the North Carolina Arts Council (a state agency)
The National Endowment for the Arts
The North Carolina Arts Council with funding from the state of North Carolina and the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art.

November 9: Walter Geikie (1795-1837)

[visual description: a memorial plaque that reads:

Walter Geikie RSA 1795-1837
Deaf Artist of Renown Co-Founder of the World's First Deaf Church and Society
Beloved of all in this Parish and City
Installed by his fellow deaf Scots of the Donaldsonian Association 6th April 1996
His true memorial may be seen in our city art galleries and in the quality of life and dignity accorded to deaf citizens of Edinburgh today
'Come join wi' me, folk of Auld Reekie
To weave a wreath for glorious Geikie'

engraved in gold lettering on dark stone]

Scottish painter Walter Geikie was born 9 November 1795, in Edinburgh. When he was two years old, he survived a serious illness with total deafness; because of his early age at the time, he didn't develop spoken language, either. Geikie's father, a wigmaker, believed the boy could learn, and taught Walter to read and do basic math. At 15, Walter was admitted to the new Institute for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb in Edinburgh, but soon his skills prompted a transfer to the Trustees' Academy of Industrial Design.

Geikie studied drawing at the Academy, and became a successful artist, specializing in scenes of urban life. He exhibited paintings in Edinburgh to critical acclaim. He also published two volumes of etchings. Walter Geikie was voted into the Scottish Academy of Painting, Sculpture and Architecture as a academician in 1834.

Geikie is also remembered, as the memorial plaque above indicates, for co-founding the first deaf church in Scotland (or maybe anywhere), where scriptures were discussed and sermons delivered in sign language, by and for deaf believers. (An offshoot of the church, the Edinburgh and East of Scotland Society for the Deaf, still exists.)

Geikie died suddenly from typhoid fever at the age of 41. A posthumous collection of his works, titled "Etchings Illustrative of Scottish Character and Scenery," was popular and helped keep his name before Scottish audiences through the mid-nineteenth century.

For further reading:

Elizabeth Bredberg, "Walter Geikie: The Life Schooling and Work of a Deaf Artist at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century," Disability & Society 10(1)(1995): 21-39.

Archibald Geikie, "Brief Sketch of the Life of Walter Geikie, Esq., R. A. S., Edinburgh, Scotland," American Annals of the Deaf and Dumb 7(4)(July 1855): 229-237.

Harry G. Lang and Bonnie Meath-Lang, Deaf Persons in the Arts and Sciences: A Biographical Dictionary (Greenwood Publishing 1995): 141-143.

Chalk Art at Lincoln School

Chalk Art at Lincoln School
Originally uploaded by pennylrichardsca
[Image description: A portrait of Vincent van Gogh in chalk, on a sidewalk, with an easel display of various art books above, and a piece of blue chalk on the edge of the drawing.]

In anticipation of a community-wide chalk-art event on Saturday, we had a chalk-art preview session at our local elementary school this morning. So hmmmm, chalk art AND disability history? No problem! I did a Vincent (above) and a Frida... (just had to be sure they were kid-appropriate images).

Disability Arts and Culture Center at Access Living, Chicago

We have been hearing about the great things about the disability arts initiatives in Chicagoland. In this WLS Chicago, ABC 7 News video, curator and award-winning artist Riva Lehrer leads us on a tour of the new Disability Arts and Culture Center that recently opened at the new eco-friendly home of Access Living, at 115 West Chicago Avenue.

Curators Sharon Snyder and David Mitchell are to be applauded for their Disability History installation, also featured in the video, which has served as a key vehicle for documenting and celebrating the many creative acts of resistance by and on behalf of people with disabilities. See the DS.TU post from April 25, 2006 on the Not Dead Yet 10th Anniversary Celebration. Access Living is one Center for Independent Living that has truly embraced the arts as a mode of expression and reflection on the changing place of disabled people in today's society. If you are in Chicago, I certainly invite you to check out these installations.

Additional coverage: Beth Haller, at media dis&dat

The Unruly Salon Series, Vancouver, Spring 2008

This looks like a spectacular series. Registration is now open; they're also looking for local volunteers to help with set-up and such. Here (below) is the homepage blurb, but go check out the individual events scheduled--a nice mix of performing and visual arts, scholarship and storytelling formats, with a wide range of topics.

The Unruly Salon Series Presented by Green College at UBC January 12-March 29th, 2008

Join The Unruly Salon to further the discourse on diversity, humanity and civil society; contribute to a fundamental reshaping of the disability narrative; challenge ideas of ‘global citizenship’; and work to realize the full inclusion of all people.

In the context of a burgeoning disability arts and cultural movement in Canada and internationally, the Unruly Salon Series is an historical first at UBC. Drawing from both internationally renowned scholars of disability studies and professional artists from the visual, performing, musical arts’ sectors, the Salons will demonstrate a belief that the pursuit of equality and inclusion is a cultural task as much as it is an academic or political one.

Salon scholars and artists variously ask:

• How do varied experiences of dis/ability transform and vitalize the meaning of an education, the public sphere and social justice?
• How can disability arts, culture and struggles by people with disabilities transform and inform undergraduate and graduate education at UBC and in the wider province, Pacific Rim and internationally?
• What can we all learn from artists and scholars with disabilities currently participating in disability scholarship and the arts locally and globally.

The Series is the inspired creation of Dr. Leslie G. Roman, Associate Professor, Dept. of Educational Studies at the UBC Faculty of Education, in partnership with Mr. Geoff McMurchy, visionary artistic director of S4DAC (The Society for Disability Arts and Culture) and Artistic Director for The Unruly Salon Series.

Leg splints and mid-century modern design

"What works is better than what looks good. The 'looks good' can change, but what works, works."

--Ray Eames

I was enjoying the extensive online Library of Congress exhibit, The Work of Charles and Ray Eames: A Legacy of Invention today. The Eameses were important mid-20c. designers, who are best known for plywood, fiberglass and wire-mesh chairs and other furniture, among their many other endeavors. Even if you don't know their name, some element of their work is probably familiar to most Americans.

Why is this relevant to disability studies? Well... during World War II, they were part of a team of designers hired by the US government. (This wasn't unusual; my great-aunt Mimi was a shoe designer during the war; the government needed designs that could be mass-produced within the limits of wartime supplies, thus... canvas shoes.) One of the items Ray and Charles Eames designed was a molded plywood leg splint for the US Navy. Note that the original splints are now prized by collectors, like most Eames designs. The Eameses even featured a sculpture made from their splint on their 1944 Christmas card. The splint label above was designed by Ray Eames.

The technical solutions, materials, and sinuous shapes the Eameses used in the splint project were turned, after the war, to the design of durable, ergonomic, molded plywood furniture. Just one more example--like the audiobook, TV captions, Montessori schools, etc. etc.--where innovations are worked out first for disability-related applications, and only later translated to wider use.

Embellished cast

Found this on the blog of artist Aileen Roberts, it's what she did for her sister's cast:We should all have such cool sisters! (Go see it at Aileen's blog to catch the other side of the design.) Reminds me of the bling kit Sara's true love gave her, to decorate her leg. Or my own son's Christmas stockings. Kinda gives holiday decorating a whole new dimension, eh?

Look who turned up for the October Meetup!

Panorama taken at our DS Meetup, originally uploaded by Edu-Tourist.

We had a great turnout for our monthly Disability Studies Meetup at Temple University's TECH Center. It definitely had a literary and artistic flair. Carol asked each attendee to write down the name that they would like to give to their autobiography. I think we have the notes somewhere, but my favorite title was "I Learned Everything from Carol."

The more formal program consisted of a presentation by Sarah Drury on some of the basic computer circuitry that underlay eVokability, a project to expand the emotional expressive range of people with disabilities through new media. Photos from the public performance of the eVokability: The Walking Project can be seen elsewhere on this blog.

Shoutout to Lydia for the bringing the veggies! We are open to suggestions on artists and performers to bring in next month, in conjuction with the Philadelphia's own Independence Starts Here Festival of Disability Arts and Culture.

Next Week in London: Journeys into Madness, 1850-1930

From the H-Net Announcements digest:

Journeys Into Madness: The Representation of Mental Illness in the Arts and Sciences , 1850-1930

The conference Journeys into Madness: Representing Mental Illness in the Arts and Sciences, 1850-1930 will take place at the Wellcome Collection Conference Centre, London, on 11 and 12 October 2007. This conference has been supported by the University of Plymouth, the Wellcome Trust and the British Academy. To book your place, please contact Gemma Blackshaw. Payment can be sent electronically or by post.

The program includes papers on "male hysteria," the rest cure, asylum photography, German psychiatry, patients' writings, farm work, art brut, avant-garde film, asylum art, trauma... check it out. Even when I can't possibly attend, I love looking at conference programs, seeing who's doing what...

Super Heroes, Super Villains (San Francisco, October 4-November 21)

The Bay Area nonprofit visual arts center Creativity Explored, which welcomes artists with developmental disabilities to create, exhibit, and sell their work, has a studio blog, and a frequently updated website--and they need it, because the place is constantly having events, exhibits, sales, and screenings. This one caught my eye, in light of the upcoming Disability Blog Carnival edition on a "supercrip" theme: Super Heroes Super Villains Gallery Exhibition, which opens next month. Here's the gallery's blurb about it:

Fly, leap or zoom over to Creativity Explored for a special exhibition straight off the pages of your favorite comic book. Studio artists reinterpret famous saviors of the universe and those who would thwart them. Laron Bickerstaff gives a new look to heroes like The Flash and Green Arrow, while Edana Contreras contributes an ode to Oracle — the only major super heroine in a wheelchair. Michael Bernard Loggins imagines his own cast of super characters including Super Toothbrush Hero, Super Serious Man and even Super Average Girl — “Trying to stay as average as she can be.” Curator Francis Kohler of Creativity Explored also contributes food for thought placing text panels throughout the show to highlight real life heroes and villains of the disability movement.

Seems the opening reception will include a live band, too.

Image description: A piece of art depicting a superhero in (best I can tell) ink outlines and blue and red pastels, with an intense yellow background. The superhero appears to be running straight at the viewer, with three out of four limbs bent in a stylized "L" shape. The artist is Jay Herndon.

Perfect Ain't Cool

I'll admit I don't usually go in for the heavy-metal t-shirt aesthetic of skulls and flames (despite my previously revealed interest in NHRA drag racing). But while passing a gallery named Gasoline in El Segundo yesterday, I spotted this sticker (above) in the window, and thought the sentiment (along the lines of "symmetry is overrated") might appeal to some DS,TU readers. It's by car-culture graphic artist Jeral Tidwell, and the stickers are available at his website, Humantree.

[Visual description: A black rectangular bumpersticker with the words "Cool Ain't Perfect, Perfect Ain't Cool" in red all-caps, and in much smaller type at the bottom edge, "www.humantree.com"]

The New Face of Disability in the Arts (New York City, 31 July)

Cool stuff from New York: A Theatre by the Blind production of John Belluso's The Rules of Charity is now playing (May 26-June 24) at the Lion Theatre in New York City. In July (the 11th to the 29th), noted disabled actor Henry Holden will play the "rudely stamp'd" Richard the III--a Shakespeare character who is often portrayed as disabled (hat tip to Troy Wittren for the news of that show). And...

From the Theatre Resources Unlimited website (links added here):

Tuesday evening, July 31st, 7:30pm
Beyond Handicaps and Handouts:
The New Face of Disability In The Arts

Co-produced with Stephanie Barton-Farcas, artistic director of Nicu's Spoon. Confirmed panelists: Christine Bruno, Disability Advocate, Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts; Lawrence Carter-Long, Director of the Disabled Network of NYC; Professor Thomas Donnarumma, Iona College Dept. of Performing Arts; Henry Holden, Disabled International Activist, Actor and Speaker; Anita Hollander, East coast SAG/AFTRA rep. for disabled artists; June Rachelson-Ospa, Writer, Producer, Director; Ike Shambelan, Artistic Director, Theatre by The Blind.

We'll discuss what accommodations are needed to hire the disabled, and how the costs are surprisingly nominal and outweigh the benefit of working with some extraordinary talent. Plus the added dimension that can be brought to a work through non-traditional casting.

The Spoon Theater, 38 W. 38th Street, 5th floor

April 7: Alison Lapper (b. 1965)

Happy 42nd birthday to English artist Alison Lapper (pictured at right), born on this date in 1965.

She's perhaps best known as the subject of the Marc Quinn statue, "Alison Lapper Pregnant," a larger-than-life marble which has stood on Trafalgar Square's "Fourth Plinth" since 2005. This month, it's scheduled to be taken down, and replaced with another work of public art (so those of us who never got to London to see it are out of luck). The statue was featured on Ouch! podcast #4--how do you feature a statue on an audio program? I'll say only that a megaphone was possibly involved.

There's an edited excerpt from Lapper's autobiography, My Life in My Hands (Simon and Schuster 2005), online here, concentrating on her childhood in a residential hospital, and her young adult years, seeking independence, education, a career, love, the usual stuff.