Visual Arts

Outside the Lines: Self Portraits by Artists with Disabilities

Artist Statements

Anna Lam
I do lots of art but this is my first self portrait and I wanted to try it. I looked at library books and measured the paper carefully for 15 inches so I would do it right. I woke up at midnight to paint. I painted fast, on many sizes of paper, not just the square. The radio was on and I was talking to myself, “I can do it”.

I don’t think I’m disabled. I learn slowly, but then I can do it. In the beginning when I found out I have a mental illness, I was scared. Some people think it’s a shameful thing that means you did something wrong. But I found out mental illness is not so scary. Now it’s nothing, I’m laughing all the time.

This self portrait is a happy feeling inside me. I like bright colours. Dark colours are ok too, but I don’t like dull, dead colours.

Paul Lang
I am not visibly disabled.

There is an absence of me within the self portrait landscape you see before you. There is space for you to step in, take a throw. Approach the Alice in Wonderland proportions, roll the dice, insert your own weaknesses and hopes. Larger than life, take your chances. Take a chance to score big. Remember the feeling of new possibilities. Even when you know the odds lay with the house. Urban and toxic, this set is thrown into a barren wasteland. Cast out among the lonely trees in the middle of a field.

Take a chance, pick a metaphor, throw the dice.

Death
Love
Hope
Denial
Fear
Desire
Success
Waiting
Boredom
Trust

Jordan Lige
I am very proud of this artwork. I loved working on every picture, because it is so neat to work on all the different things. I really liked using the colours red and blue – they are my favourites. This was a great way of expressing myself in art because it is a great way to show my happiness.

Art is one of the things I enjoy the most, because it makes me feel proud, honoured and appreciated. My learning disability is that I don’t learn as fast because I am a slow learner, but it does not affect my sketching or painting. Art keeps me in a good mood on good days and puts me in a good mood on bad days.

I’m so glad I got a chance to get into a show. Thanks for giving me the chance to do my own self-portrait. I can hardly wait for the show!

sylvi macCormac
studies electroacoustic and soundscape composition with Barry Truax working with voices (spoken & sung), instruments (trad & found) and environmental recordings from her own library, as well as the World Soundscape Project archives at Simon Fraser University, BC, Canada. Like 3 of the artists in Outside the Lines, sylvi has Multiple Sclerosis.

does this Sound like me? with thanks to all the artists and all @ Society for Disability Arts & Culture this Soundscape was composed working with the artists’ voices and sounds of art materials: cameras, wood, hammer, saw, paint brushes in container and on canvas, beads, pencil writing and glass bottles (percussion & wind) ... some interviews were recorded long distance via telephone (rings). i’m honoured to have spent time with them and you can listen for a few minutes or join the artists for an hour dis-cussing (dis) abilities & art.

voices: brice canyon, karen chapnick, dominic fetherston, doreen finnegan, bernadine fox, kelly haydon, alvin hipke, shaira holman, emma kivisild, velveeta krisp, claire kudjundzic, anna lam, paul lang, jordan lige, della mccreary. andrew mccully, geoff mcmurchy, julie milano, cleo pawson, take 5, margaret van der pant, rose l. williams

Della McCreary
I can read. Oh, yes I understand the importance of books;
I struggle to read
for 10 minutes at a time,
understanding
… especially the pictures.

I look athletic. Maybe it’s obvious I used to be into sports;
long distance swimming
tennis
cycling
I can go the distance
to make sure
… you don’t see me limping.

I have a positive outlook. Have been told it’s better that way;
better you don’t know
Narcotics keep me calm
… and pain killers are poisoning
my kidneys.

Andrew McCully
StarGazer is a self portrait floating within a larger picture. Our eyes revolve around and dart in and out of the centre. StarGazer’s world is layered with oscillating imagery. Microscopic worlds of orbiting spheres whirl about in patterns of attraction and repulsion. Stars come out, comets fall and planets are born. The spheres swim and sway, taking StarGazer to uncharted territories. The eyes ascend up through the strata. StarGazer circles back into familiar galaxies. With a fullness of experience. Compounds of interacting celestial bodies hold SarGazer as the universe unfolds.

It is not unusual to insert autobiographical Elements into fiction. In this case I have surrounded my portrait with fiction. I want to underscore the notion that art is and is not about the artist, even as it pertains to self portraiture.

This contextualization of portraiture informs me and places me in relation to others, as we are to nature. These relationships are inseparable from one another, as sight is to blindness and sense of self is to the perceptions of others.

This work is presented as a collection of computer prints. The medium is quite degenerative. The prints will fade and surfaces will degrade rapidly. This is comparable to the rods and cones of my retina. This degeneration is represented as the hallowed centre of the image which floods with light, like a holograph turned inside out, wherein the Individual images inform us as to the whole and reciprocally the whole illuminates the individual parts. It begs the question, how much vision is enough and what is the nature of that vision?

The images are essentially information and that is continually undergoing change. In conclusion I assert that given the mechanical loss of photo receptors I am no less a visual person. I am capable of informing myself as to the whole picture given a small fraction of the absorbed light.

Julie Milano
My name is Julie Milano. I am 17 years old. I paint canvas. I use different colours on them, blue, red and yellow. I feel relaxed when I paint and have a good time doing my art. I love to paint colourfully. I have Down syndrome. My paintings are beautiful.

Cleo Pawson
My self portrait begins with a 11”X11” painting within the painting. I created this smaller border to symbolize how I begin by going within. This painting, like all my paintings, is of my inner reality. The images are from my dreams and meditations. They take time to do. I started this image in 1999 and completed it in 2001. It is like I have to grow, so I can understand the teachings of the images enough to be able to finish the paintings.

My paintings are all part of an ongoing series which I began in 1989, the year I started the process to become officially “disabled”, due to chronic back pain from severe spinal curvature (scoliosis). I choose, then, to use my creativity to empower myself by painting self definition(s) to counter all the labels, attitudes, systems, etc. that “disability” brings with it, which, I felt, left too little positive room for me. I paint to remind myself who I am, and where I am growing to. To Live surrounded by my Art is very healing, especially on the challenging days.

The next dissolving border in the painting is a 15”X15” one, in keeping with the Outside the Lines theme. This is made of 3 greatly reduced photocopies from an x-ray of the Harrington Rods that have been bone grafted to my spine since 1969, in an attempt to stop my spinal curvature. The Rods actually involve most of my spine. They have been my issue, since age 12 when they were installed, with no one even asking my permission.

In my self portrait, I choose to show the Rods so reduced that they may even be hard to see because my “disability” is one that is not that apparent to others. Not apparent either, is my dedicated and constant self care which is essential to appear so “well” to others. I’ve lived with my Rods for 32 years now, and I’ve experienced so many feelings about them, like anger, resentment, grief, denial etc., but I’ve come to accept them, as just a part of my “Garden”. So, I’ve painted them with Beauty. An accomplishment of my healing is that I can show the Rods as small, where for years they overwhelmed me. I flower despite my challenges. I have come to love, instead of being caught up in resistance. This is a huge gift that my “disability” has given me.

Margaret Van der Pant
Emotionally, perceptually, psychologically making Art has always been a vehicle for me to access the world. This process consists of seizing a moment in time, in our ever-changing panorama of visual images – gardens, fields, lakes, and portraits have been constant themes since the mid-eighties. Gradually mobility became an issue, from a limp: time I stopped teaching; to having to wear a half brace, and now a full brace on my left leg. Since February 2000, mobility has improved with the use of a scooter.

This winter, I am changing my themes to “Interior-scapes”. I am partially crippled physically. I am also struggling to support my medical needs on a fixed pension. One third of this is left to forage for food and other necessities – My work correspondingly got smaller. However, to produce art in some form is vital, in spite of seemingly insurmountable difficulties. The only way seems to me is to withdraw in order to survive a world that doesn’t understand poverty, hardship. Making art is a life force for me.

Rose L. Williams
I took my 15 inch square and broke it up into its component pieces. One ten inch, several five and two and a half inch square images of my grandmothers and myself. They are scrunched up and floating aimlessly about, some of the disparate components that make up the whole of me. I wanted to break outside of the box in my self-portrait, as I’ve spent my whole life being forced into pigeonholes, boxes, that were not of my choosing.

black – white – coloured – visible minority – anglophone – allophone – bilingual – runt – sickly – psychosomatic – disabled – exotic – skinny – tiny – petite – crippled – coolie – trinidadian – canadian – dogla – mixed race – non-christian – single mom – …………..

My healing and my journey have brought me to a place where “I am the only author of the dictionary that defines me”. And my artistry affords me an outlet and a means of expressing my soul. A method of sharing my uncontained, unprejudiced, limitless perception of myself that has survived since earliest childhood.

I am thrilled to discover that throughout the creation of this piece I have consistently accessed the joy, sensuality and freedom that artmaking can bring. As well as the frustration, anger and pain that pushing my physical limitations always stirs. The balance is precarious, difficult, challenging, rewarding and creative. Grateful am I for the opportunity to share my inner world, for the acknowledgment of my persistence and courage, and the support I have received from my peers during this process. I know that it will help carry me beyond, into more fulfilling, challenging and art-filled endeavours.