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Christine Cassick
In the middle of her working on it she simply cut loose with a peal of the ultimate, cleanest, most wonderful laughter I've ever heard.
And this was the beauty, of so many people working hard together to blast through the limits prevalent in the 'disabilities' world's approach to those with the most severe challenges. Such beauty seeing Day 3 of our studio all-day jam sessions, everyone freed up and reveling in the new world we'd reached. A fresh new world, so satisfying, so exciting--Crissy just cut loose with the music of her laughter. And it was not just Crissy's warm charm and her obviously deep pleasure working on her paintings that blew our minds, but as well it was what she was painting, how she was painting. Like a pro, asserting dynamic aesthetic moves, bolder, freer, more direct than most paintings you'll find in an art school studio. A.R.T. artists just go directly at the canvas, with this absorbed, fearless aura emanating from them. It's so cool to be around.
I'd heard of this technique but paid it little mind. It seemed so ridiculous I couldn't imagine it had any reach. But I was wrong. With a lot of reading, viewing documentaries, compiling scientific findings, Robin and I came face to face with the primary reason many disabilities organizations take a pass on A.R.T. The last 13 years of cold calls and the big 'disabilities' organization's oddly chilly rejection of A.R.T., a system that is as clean and profoundly effective as it gets. This seemed odd in light of A.R.T. having the full backing of The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation -- America's largest and premier health foundation (RWJF gave A.R.T. both its Community Health Leadership Award and it's President's Award), full support from Princeton University where our flagship program is part of the Department of Creative Arts, intense vetting and coverage by Reader's Digest, the New York Times, PBS, CNN, The Essence of A.R.T. Eye on America, the full support from great artists such as Roy Lichtenstein, Robert Rauschenberg, Neil Young, Willem Dafoe, John McPhee, and art historian Sam Hunter. With major articles in every disabilities magazine, funding from the Kessler Foundation, and with A.R.T. programs at 16 sites around America. Why do the big disabilities organizations disappear when we call them? They are afraid of the beast. And the Beast's name? Facilitated Communication. This is the beast that stands in our way, blocking the beautiful breakthrough from bringing pure creative power to those whose lives it could so deeply, deeply effect. What is this 'Facilitated Communication'? Facilitated Communication is a technique in which an able-bodied person holds the hand or arm of a person who is incapable of communicating. The subject's hand is held over a special keyboard and, low and behold, in many cases without the subject or the 'user' of the technique looking at the keyboard, the index finger, conveniently arranged to point out as a single pointer, moves to spell out wonderful messages. The trouble with this magical breakthrough is that when the process was tested with normal logical clinical methods and standards, the subject failed 100 percent of the time. It went like this. The programs that adapted Facilitated Communication claimed the most profound and intimate messages coming from their subjects, when all along it was the facilitator doing the typing, using the subject as a puppet, and as you can easily see, this is surreally wrong, even criminal -- a phony usurping of an individual's self-expression. This is using a human being as your puppet, using a human being as a means of satisfying your own need to be important, part of some magical process. I'm sure you see how bizarre this is, no different from the Ouija board. When objective tests were used, Facilitated Communication failed every single time. Here's one of the tests that makes it horribly, all but unbearably, embarrassingly clear that the technique is phony: The tester would tell the facilitator he or she was going to show them an image of a word they wanted the physically or neurologically challenged subject to spell out, as a means of demonstrating they knew what the object was, and how to spell its name. The facilitator would see an image of a boat, and as the tester moved the booklet with the boat image to show the image to the subject, the tester would switch the image to show that of a dog. So the subject of the test saw only the image of a dog, and the facilitator the image of a boat. 100 percent of the time the word that appeared from the typing was 'boat' and not 'dog'. 100 percent of the time. We will include a link to PBS Frontline documentary on Facilitated Communication. It's a lot worse than I'm sharing here. All I want to say here is that a ton of money was funneled into this approach by disabilities places and they got burned. How embarrassing to be caught believing in such quackery -- quackery so easily tested. Effortlessly tested. But no one tested it. It was a giant savage black eye to those who fell for FC. So now they see A.R.T. uses and able-bodied person to apply the paint, at the quadriplegic's direction, and the big disabilities organizations run for the hills. They hear about A.R.T. and they think, "Facilitated Communication' They think, since the studio assistant is holding the brush, the studio assistant is painting the painting. You kind of can't blame them for thinking this -- but we're hoping they'll stop running away from the best thing they could ever bring to those they're paid to serve. With our system the artist, the kid or young adult with physical and/or neurological challenges, creates the painting. Their authority and ownership over the process, start to finish, is absolutely and totally theirs. The A.R.T. studio assistant 'Tracker' does not touch the artist. They do not hold their elbow, wrist or hand. So they have nothing to do with guiding their production. As an architect directs the builder, as the sculptor directs the steel workers, as the conductor directs the musicians, as the author dictates to his secretary, with A.R.T. the artist directs the Tracker, how much of what goes where. Kant said art is made of two things: relations and proportions. How much of what goes where. By using clear choice menus, the person with severe challenges, who may not be able to speak or use their hands, with the unambiguous use of yes and no signals, can simply, easily, practically, without any shred of outside influence, direct the Tracker where to cut the canvas from the roll, so that they get the precise size they want. And as simply, using choice menus, the artist picks color and ratios of blending, this process fully in their control, the Tracker simply doing as they are directed. The same with the choice of brushes and the same with locating PRECISELY where the paint should be applied to the artist's canvas. There's nothing hard about seeing a landscape company owner or a homeowner directing a laborer where to put the railroad tides, or where to dig the hole for the new tree. Its not voodoo, or a Ouija board. You indicate where you want something and that's were it goes. Simple as that. You make choices based on yes and no. No, I don't want the tree planted there, yes, I want the tree planted here. Yes, no. Almost every non-verbal paraplegic can signal yes and no. And using this, the same way you direct the objects in your life, the A.R.T. artists direct the simple location of paint on canvas. No, I don't want that brush. Yes, I want that brush. Simple, right? Clean, right? No voodoo, but simple, direct, choice-making, right? The tide is coming A.R.T.'s way. We'll win this campaign with or without the damage done by facilitated communication. But why not help us remove the beast from our path? Why not try to get the big disabilities organizations to stop running away from us, based on a case of mistaken identity? |
Last week we were in Sarasota launching our sixth A.R.T. Florida program, working with our wonderful new Partners: Manasota ARC. This young woman, Christine, Crissy, a TOTAL natural abstract painter, immediately directed the cutting of a five foot square canvas, had it painted all bright red, then kicked into gear knocking out this bold painting you see as the August 2007 painting of the month.
It was so real, so pure, that it at once refreshed and made me jealous. Envious for that time when I was younger and the power of painting had an unbridled joy. This month's little essay could be called Beauty and the Beast. The beauty is the power and joy we all saw radiate from Crissy and the pleasure of working with the absolutely dynamic staff including CEO Jim Doherty, Gail Lesko, a team of fabulous new Trackers, our new Top Tracker Nick D'Angelo, and a group of the most remarkable new painters. " A.R.T. at Manasota ARC empowers people with severe disabilities to make consequential creative decisions. The power of their artwork builds confidence and self respect and will be key to a robust integration with the greater community," says Manasota ARC CEO Jim Doherty.
The Beast in this Beauty and the Beast, is a technique used in the 'disabilities world' that has blocked our ability to do our job, has blocked our ability to reach people like Crissy.