Vicky
After we got ignobly driven out of the place where we started using the A.R.T. techniques, our first strong studio program was with Woodbridge Developmental Center in of all places: Woodbridge. That's in New Jersey.
Foundations that offer advice to A.R.T. said we should not go there because it was an old-fashioned place, polar opposite of PC. But we went anyway, and how glad we are we did.
When we stepped into the room to meet the artists they were lined up, in their wheelchairs, in a row. They looked dead. But with A.R.T.? They all came to life. It didn't take them any time at all to kick into high gear. Their hunger to work, to create, to operate in a place where they are taken most seriously, was a tonic that ignited them like you would not believe.
They are superlative painters, with many many big exhibitions under their belts, many sales of their paintings, articles in the likes of the New York Times. They are the best. Always upbeat, always fired up to work on their latest paintings.
We've been there a long time now. Eleven years? Week in, week out, including holidays, A.R.T. is there, and they are there, fired up to dig deeper into the richness of the blank canvas and its limitless possibilities.
I want to tell you the artists at WDC are serious top echelon painters. Super-cultured art collectors have fought over their work. Unlike the average person might react to this crew at WDC, all of us at A.R.T., are always knocked out to be with them again. They are troopers. So strong. So focused. So into their work. So good at what they do, this highest form of self-expression.
 Vicky took to the laser system the first day. She painted with a mesmerizing rhythm, covering her canvas with a web of green. Next session she did the same, the entire canvas covered but her directing the Tracker to mix up more green, get her the laser head gear, and to let her get to work, moving through her field of dreams.
When Vicky had used the laser to paint her canvas all green a few times? The typical art therapist would most likely have ditched the canvas or convinced Vicky to choose another color, them thinking this repetition was a sign of retardation.
Not A.R.T.
A.R.T. knows what color-field painting is. We know great paintings have been made with a single color, so as always, we let her drive the system, free of outside interference.One month, two, three, four, five, six, green, green, green, green, Vicky continued to laser the same canvas with greens, moving over the whole surface, so there was no typical 'composition' but this whole, singular, field of color, slightest variation of the greens, this very subtle build-up of the texture. Very subtle, very real, light traces of the months of her building her web of wordless richness.
When Vicky signaled she was through we offered her an alphabet board in order to see if she wanted to name her masterpiece. We didn't know if she could spell, but our way is to assume the best, to ignore the limits clinicians lay on these people.
J, N, G, L.
‘Jungle?’ we ask?
Big smile, big nodding yes.
‘The Jungle?’ we ask.
NO.
Not ‘The Jungle?’
Head shake NO.
‘Jungle?’
Yes.
‘Jungle.’
YES.
And so the piece made its way to the gallery opening night, Vicky hanging out near her painting, a grip on my wrist, swinging my arm with the pleasure of her painting looking so good, stretched professionally taut, bathed in the track lights.
This guy, a real cool cat, a Manhattan broker, Armani suit, his turbo Porsche outside, is looking at her painting.
'Who did this?' he asks me.
Nod to Vicky ,Vicky calmly, warmly smiling up at him.
'My God,’ he says, ‘this painting is phenomenal. May I purchase it?'
Vicky releases my swinging wrist, reaches for his wrist, giving it a slow, gentle, rhythmic swing.
And so it has been since that first show. Vicky smiling, working in her true artist's dream zone. One of her recent paintings, these sort of origami paper airplane shapes on a black ground, chosen by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to grace the cover of all their conference materials, dual images of the sophisticated high art image, projected in giant scale either side of the speakers podium. The same piece was featured in the Chicago Reader, and American Profiles magazine, circulation ten million. The painting of course, sold, and lives now in a good home, a home like the one Vicky might wish she had.  |
