Skip to main content

Who Says Blind Girls Can't Paint?

When I am not doing workforce development or family stuff, I am busy in my community. My long time community activity has been my voluntary work with my community’s arts council. This not only gives me the opportunity to give back to the community, but to organize and contribute to the cultural arts in my area.

For the second year, we just hosted our Artists with Disabilities Art Show. This art show featured artists from all over my state that had a disability.  People with any kind of disabilities are allowed to participate and this year we had a representation of a broad spectrum of disabilities.  We had people with visual disabilities, intellectual disabilities, people with physical disabilities, and people with mental illness. This was a juried art show. In the end, a team of judges, including myself decided on a first, second, and third place winner. There was a monetary award for each prize and each piece of art was judged on artistic merit and not on the artist’s disability.  Everyone that participated was honored to participate in the show.

The most amazing part of the show was the quality of art work presented. Had you seen this art, you would not have known that the artists had a disability. Regardless of what ever disability each person had, they had amazing abilities and talents to create beautiful pieces of art.  They were dedicated to their craft.

As I met each artist, I learned amazing things about the artists. One of our participants was a legally blind painter. As a child, she was told “blind girls can’t paint.” Not only did she paint, but her art work depicted a beautiful canal in Venice and used vivid colors to capture her story. There was also a potter with a visual impairment. This potter maximized the abilities she had exceled at to create a magnificent piece. Another interesting story is about a man that had a major stroke that paralyzed his entire right side of his body. Suddenly this man found himself unable to use his dominant hand. He had to learn to write and draw with his left hand side.  The work he presented was detailed and precise. The first place winner was a young woman with an intellectual disability that created a spectacular watercolor landscape of a beach.  Looking at this magnificent piece of art, you would think that it was created by a professional, not a soft-spoken, petite woman with a disability.

So what does all this have to do with workforce development?

Looking at the art, you would have never guessed that any of these artists had disabilities by looking at the quality of their work. As we go forward in our day to day world of workforce development, it is important to remind ourselves that some of the most successful people in the world have disabilities and have become successful, not because of their disabilities, but because of their abilities.  So as we work with people with disabilities to find employment, we should focus less on their disability and more on the abilities that they have.

Someone with a disability should not be forced to work at a job that does not maximize their abilities, skills, and talents. Maybe we should look more closely at the world we live in and the jobs that are available? Can a computer programmer have an intellectual disability? Can a dentist be in a wheel chair? The answer is a firm “yes” to both!  So how can you unleash the power of people with disabilities into the work force? It is important to make sure to find your local area experts in this area and partner with them.  There are also resources online. The federal government has a website called Disability.gov where you can find information on programs and resources for people with disabilities? The site can be accessed at https://www.disability.gov/. Does one of your job seekers need an accommodation from an employer to perform a job? Check out the Job Accommodations Network (JAN) website at https://askjan.org/.  As workforce development grows and changes, it is time to leave behind the “can’t” and embrace the “can” in all our people with disabilities and without.  
 
For more information on the Artists with Disabilities Art Show and to see the amazing pictures, visit the Facebook page of the Southington Arts Council, Inc., located in Southington, CT, at https://www.facebook.com/SouthingtonArtsCouncil.   Thank you for reading. I hope everyone is maximizing their abilities. I can be reached at kcirincione@gmail.com. Feel free to leave questions and comments below or send me an email. ~ Karen Cirincione

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mastering the Grilled Cheese Sandwich Project

An engaging book club discussion about email, how we work, and also just how we as people manage our lives. The more we talked the more I started to realize that essentially project management is essentially a life skill everyone needs to master to be successful. If we simplify Project Management down to the easiest way of explain it and applying, we can define it as taking a big end goal and break it down to smaller goals, figuring out the tasks with each smaller goal, and then allocating lots of resources along the way. Ultimately at the core of project management is planning and organizing, but communication is really at the heart of it all. A project may be big, like building a bridge, creating and implementing software, or it can be as small as figuring out what to make for dinner. Along the way to said goal, every step needs to be clear and everyone needs to communicate about all the said steps along the way. Sounds easy, but apparently it is not so simple. One would think ev...
Post a Comment
Read more

A WIOA Fairy Tale

I thought it was time to have a little fun with WIOA and write a fairy tale. My last fairy tale was published in June of 2014 and was before WIOA legislation. To read the first workforce development fairy tale, check out the archives. Once upon a time in a far off land called Weeoha, lived a community of residents. Many of these residents had jobs and careers, but some found themselves in need of services and assistance to get jobs. Some were reliant on the government for assistance with basic needs because they could not find jobs. Three of these residents, Jack Butcher, John Baker, and Josie Candlemaker, found themselves not satisfied with their lack of opportunity and decided to go on a pilgrimage to find the legendary Cup of Career Success.   According to urban legend, whomever drank from this cup was promised eternal employment and self-sufficient wages as long as they desired. Jack, John, and Josie set out on foot to find the legendary cup. Their first stop was to ...
Post a Comment
Read more

How do you Birthday?

Another year in my life has passed. It’s time for another birthday. Each year as the day approaches, I take the time to reflect on my past year, my accomplishments, and my goals for the year. My birthday is like my personal New Years’ celebration with another opportunity to have the best year ever.   I am not afraid of a birthday. Age is just a number, but each year is what you make of it. Each year I have seen the sun rise, the rain fall, and the snow melt, I have been given a gift from the universe. Many people do not get to see another birthday. I owe myself the opportunity to set goals and feel proud as I work towards achieving them. Sometimes these goals have been born from unhappy feelings and bad situations, but growth brings wisdom.   In my working life, and especially as a workforce professional, I know some of my growth must be professionally. Having experience working with job seekers looking for jobs, I understand how crucial professional growth is...
Post a Comment
Read more