In Tuesday’s class, we watched the documentary “Arts: A Film About Possibilities, Disabilities and the Arts.”  It featured various types of artists from different disciplines and different types of training.  Many of the featured artists had some type of disability (Geri Jewell has cerebral palsy and there are others on the autism spectrum), but they were very passionate about how their disability contributed to their work and to their sense of pride.

            Overall, I thought the film was a little cheesy and, at first, hard to take seriously because of the spotty camera work.  However, I think the positive message that the film portrayed shined through well enough.

            I think it was wonderful to hear from the various artists what art meant to them and its role in their lives.  To some artists, their work meant everything to them and was very personal (like the woman with autism who HAD to cut out a piece of every painting she made before selling it), while others just thought it was fun creativity.  No matter the meaning, I got the feeling that it was important for all of the artists to create something that made them happy and made them proud.

            While I was touched by the documentary’s focus on people with disabilities loving the arts, I am more moved by the idea of art as a form of therapy.  Art therapy can work for anyone of any age, gender, race, social class, etc.  In my opinion, art therapy is a form of meditation and reflection.  In high school, when I volunteered at one of our state psychiatric hospitals, I had the chance of working with one of the art therapists and later helping her set up an art show of patients’ works.  It was amazing to see during art therapy sessions how easily patients opened up about their lives and their experiences—making art was a way of calming down and being able to think rationally.  When it came to setting up the art show, I was very surprised at how many pieces each patient (artist) had and I was equally surprised at how impressive the art was.  I was only 17 years old, so you have to forgive me for thinking the art of psychiatric patients would look like the art of hyperactive kindergarteners.  My volunteering experience taught me that just because someone has a mental illness doesn’t mean they are completely out of control or untalented or incompetent or infantile.  It also doesn’t mean that they won’t get better.  I guess you could say art therapy helped me realize that.

            The most inspiring artist in the documentary to me was Geri Jewell.  I was blown away by her ability to perform in front of huge audiences and to make light of her cerebral palsy.  It is also a feat that she has aged with cerebral palsy and still found a way to make her life meaningful, which really brings me back to caring for our senior citizens (I know Geri isn’t a senior citizen, but we all age).  I didn’t see one single senior citizen in the “Arts” documentary (unless they had great plastic surgery.)  Senior citizens still constitute a group that gets overlooked.