Adjectives-schmadjectives
If you see a work of art and then find out that the artist is "disabled", does that change your opinion about the art?
I got to thinking about this question after I posted last week’s blog on "suffering". As you know, the word "disabled" has its controversies, which include the "pity factor" the term evokes in many "non-disabled" people. I mentioned in the "suffering" essay that there can be secondary gain from using the term, and I believe that is true for "disabled" as well.
I periodically get fund-raising phone calls in which the caller introduces himself as "a 100% disabled [person]". Having spent more than 20 years providing services in a work. comp. system, I view the "100% disabled" characterization in this context as misleading – perhaps deliberately on the part of the fund raising script writer(s). This introduction annoys me: as hated as telemarketers are, it’s still a job (even if only as a volunteer); and in my book, anyone with a job isn’t "100% disabled." Insurance/indemnity definitions of degrees of disability are an entirely separate topic, and irrelevant to this essay.
Another fund-raising tool is to offer items such as greeting cards featuring artwork by participants in programs for people with "special needs." Are you more likely to make a donation to the organization – via buying the art – than you would if you received something not produced by the organization’s clients?
If you go to an art exhibition, would you be more inclined to purchase something if you found out that the artist "had problems" than if you had no information about the artist’s "personal characteristics"? Would you decide you liked a piece after all once you found out the artist had "suffered" or had a disability?
As a professional bead artist with vision and visual processing impairments, I have an interest beyond OT in such things. My impairments have significantly affected the way I’ve acquired my skills, as well as my designs and artistic style. Yet I hesitate to mention my visual challenges in the Artist Bio. that’s part of my portfolio and marketing to galleries. I don’t know how such information will affect people’s reaction to my art. Part of me is shameless and greedy enough to welcome any sales I might make because someone pities me. But a much larger part of me wants my work to be appreciated for itself, regardless of what people know about me. Therefore, I don’t include the "tidbit" about my vision in my portfolio.
In my essay on suffering, I cited a quote by a painter who has quadriplegia. For all I know as an OT about the challenges people with quadriplegia face, I consider them somewhat incidental to what it takes to be a painter. A person who paints with brushes held in his/her teeth has an easier time of creating a painting than I, with no talent for painting, do, even with the use of my entire body. So who’s the "disabled" artist here?
Many people who see my creations comment "oh, I wouldn’t have the patience to do that!" I have to laugh, because patience is definitely not one of my virtues. But even though the often-tedious processes of my creations take longer than "normal" as a result of my visual impairments, I find them soothing. If the design challenges outweigh the satisfaction of the problem-solving processes, I quickly get impatient and abandon the piece. Thus, anything I lack the patience for doesn’t get created. Patience stems from many component skills that OTs address by using arts and crafts. So who has the "disability" here – me or the person who "lacks the patience" to do my type of art?