Kaleidoscope Artists Celebrated

Akron, Ohio -  The Akron Art Museum presents the exhibition Creativity Transcends, on view through July 13, 2008, in the museum’s Mary S. and David C. Corbin Foundation Gallery. This specially organized exhibition represents an important next step in a growing relationship between the Akron Art Museum and United Disability Services; Kaleidoscope Artists Celebrated in Special Exhibition.

Over the years, artists and writers with disabilities have submitted their work with the hope of being published in United Disability Services’ Kaleidoscope, a magazine whose mission is to explore the experience of disability through literature and the fine arts. Now, nine of these visual artists from across the country whose art attained that honor are being further celebrated in this exhibition at the Akron Art Museum. They are Jerry Bontrager, Albuquerque, NM; John Bramblitt, Denton, TX; Julie Cohn, Berkeley, CA; Garry Curry, Vancouver Island, British Columbia; Alistair Green, Vancouver Island, British Columbia; Robert Harris, Cincinnati, OH; d’Elaine Johnson, Edmonds, WA; Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton (deceased), Lawrence, KS; and Linda Sibio, Joshua Tree, CA.

The show includes works of painting, drawing and sculpture. The exhibition’s title conveys the concept that it is both inaccurate and limiting to define a person solely by their disability. When the first issue of Kaleidoscope  was published in 1979, the idea was to provide a creative option in the vocational services program of the agency now known as United Disability Services. There was no grand vision for the future – just an opportunity for the people in the program to give shape and form to ideas, experiences and feelings.

Today the magazine is published twice a year and has evolved into an award winning publication that is part of the collections of approximately 75 public and university libraries across the country, has subscribers on several continents and is recognized nationally and internationally for the quality of its articles, essays, fiction, poetry and art.

For those whose work is displayed, this is a thrilling, confirming moment. For visitors with disabilities, this can be a transforming experience of possibility for themselves. For the community in general, the message is that a disability should not define a person, that it is only one piece of who a person is and that in fact, creativity can and often does transcend!

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