The creative works of disabled people are not just `therapy'

[Guest guest]

The creative works of disabled people are not just `therapy'

By Barbara McKee

http://www.abqtrib.com/news/2007/oct/02/barbara-mckee-body-art/

Frida Kahlo is considered one of the greatest surrealist painters of

the 20th century. Her paintings are filled with graphic and

compelling panoramas of pain, self-loathing and imperfection.

She is, in fact, a disabled artist. So, by today's standards, her

work cannot be called " art. " It is occupational and emotional

therapy.

If you disagree with today's standards, as I do, then how is it that

other artists who have disabilities are not called artists? Why is

art created by people with disabilities carelessly labeled as

therapy? It's because of the misguided belief that art created by a

disabled people is therapeutic and only relevant to their recovery

and acceptance of their disability. Therefore it is not to be taken

seriously. Isn't that the most preposterous thing you've ever heard?

By today's standards, art created by people with disabilities has

connotations of being admirable, brave, special - and sort of cute.

Unless you're dead or very rich, artists with disabilities are

categorized as such and shoved into galleries that are state or

federally funded.

Mainstream galleries don't want an artist who will show up at their

opening sporting a wheelchair, an oxygen tank or a urinary catheter.

These realities are just too much for people who get the heebie-

jeebies when they encounter a disabled person.

To admit such shallowness would be tantamount to admitting to racism

or an unusual sexual fetish. Such attitudes toward people with

disabilities is superficially shunned but inwardly understood by

those who consider themselves able-bodied, physically better-looking

and open-minded. This discrimination is much more common than

society will admit.

Disabled people paint, sculpt, draw and write about what they know -

pain, ignorance and humiliation by a world that embraces physical

beauty over every other human trait.

There's an old adage that true artists must suffer for their, art or

it isn't credible. If that's true, then artists with disabilities

are the only true artists. The rest are just posers - people who may

have suffered a bit in their past but overcame their troubles and

went on to be great artists. It's as if the idea of suffering, or a

brief bout of it, is acceptable, but an artist must be returned to

normalcy to be accepted.

Occupational therapy based on artistic expression is an avenue to

acceptance of disabilities. But artists who happen to have a

disability are primarily artists. Disability may be their muse, but

that doesn't negate their art.

Take a drive to the North 4th Art Center, if you want to see real

art. You'll see sides of humanity that will frighten, enlighten and,

most of all, engulf you. Buy a ticket to the North Fourth Theatre

and see a play with substance, meaning and laughter.

Art is the physical expression of the human psyche. It shouldn't

matter what type of body creates it.