Voices from Home...
In collaboration with Living Studios (Cornerstone)
The Art Center in Corvallis, OR
October 10th- November 22nd, 2023
Voices from Home - OUTPOST1000 (weebly.com)
Voices From Home is a performative installation project examining and exploring dynamics in residential community housing. This is a second iteration of a project presented in Louisville, Kentucky 25 years ago, after the initial deinstitutionalization and towards residential living. Both shows aim to highlight and give a platform to artists reflecting on their home. We now have the opportunity to revisit residential expectations, challenges that many face, and where one can find comfort, community, and contentment in this not so unique living situation. During the length of this installation we will be creating, performing, and exhibiting works which explore the dreams, tensions, and possibilities of residential life, and, most importantly, amplify these voices from home.
What happens when a home is regulated by administrative structure; to have a home where you are always hosting company in the form of staff who are, in a sense, hosting you? Here we find an intersection between the domestic and institutional; two entities generally at odds are in this circumstance, in collision. In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard writes, “the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace…The values that belong to daydreaming mark humanity in its depths…It derives direct pleasure from its own being…the house is one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories and dreams of mankind.” A home takes on so many roles in the life of an artist. The intimate needs of dwelling space are at once utilitarian and soulful. In this exhibition we draw on Bachelard’s text, the work of textile artist Judith Scott, institutional systems, and recounted experiences of Living Studio artists as they reflect on their home life. The work has come in forms of accumulation of activity, amassing, collecting, and iterating with the intention of sharing a sensation, a memory, a vision of home.
In collaboration with Living Studios (Cornerstone)
The Art Center in Corvallis, OR
October 10th- November 22nd, 2023
Voices from Home - OUTPOST1000 (weebly.com)
Voices From Home is a performative installation project examining and exploring dynamics in residential community housing. This is a second iteration of a project presented in Louisville, Kentucky 25 years ago, after the initial deinstitutionalization and towards residential living. Both shows aim to highlight and give a platform to artists reflecting on their home. We now have the opportunity to revisit residential expectations, challenges that many face, and where one can find comfort, community, and contentment in this not so unique living situation. During the length of this installation we will be creating, performing, and exhibiting works which explore the dreams, tensions, and possibilities of residential life, and, most importantly, amplify these voices from home.
What happens when a home is regulated by administrative structure; to have a home where you are always hosting company in the form of staff who are, in a sense, hosting you? Here we find an intersection between the domestic and institutional; two entities generally at odds are in this circumstance, in collision. In The Poetics of Space, Gaston Bachelard writes, “the house shelters daydreaming, the house protects the dreamer, the house allows one to dream in peace…The values that belong to daydreaming mark humanity in its depths…It derives direct pleasure from its own being…the house is one of the greatest powers of integration for the thoughts, memories and dreams of mankind.” A home takes on so many roles in the life of an artist. The intimate needs of dwelling space are at once utilitarian and soulful. In this exhibition we draw on Bachelard’s text, the work of textile artist Judith Scott, institutional systems, and recounted experiences of Living Studio artists as they reflect on their home life. The work has come in forms of accumulation of activity, amassing, collecting, and iterating with the intention of sharing a sensation, a memory, a vision of home.
'B' explaining her drawing depicting her new apartment complex: This is the front entrance. Come in the front entrance to the office and we get the key to my apt. Then we go over here and take the elevator up to my room. Here is the elevator and you walk here, to the door of my apartment. 14. Over here is the laundromat and over here they have different exercises. Apartment here, apartment here, apartment there. I can check my mail down here. If I want to eat I can go to the diner. Now we’re on the second floor. On the third floor, take the elevator up to go to the library. They've got chairs here and movies. Right here is the barber shop. I’m going to get all my things done. You’ll see a new me. Another apartment here, another apartment here, another apartment here, another apartment there.
Archive

Voices from Home
1998 (Project Archive)
language reflects this time...
-
Residents illustrate life in group homes
By Rich Copley HERALD-LEADER ARTS WRITER
Lexington Herald-Leader
-
LOUISVILLE -- Bruce Burris made some amazing discoveries while working on Voices From Home, an exhibit of artwork by residents of group homes in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. It wasn't that he found a new Andy Warhol among the exhibit's participants -- though he says there are four or five promising artists in the show. Burris' findings were about how people communicate and how art can help communication. "We sort of discovered that no one had ever asked people who live in group homes what it was like to live in a group home," says Burris, a Lexington artist. In Voices from Home, there are lots of answers to that question."Group homes are a lot of fun because I can watch TV and movies," "C" (no last name given) of ARC of the Bluegrass writes in one piece. Another unnamed resident writes, "I feel like I belong here. I'd like a sewing room."Project Director Bruce Burris says he had no image in mind of what the exhibit would look like when he started. It involved more than 70 individuals from eight group homes, including three from Lexington. Residents in the homes are mentally disabled.
-
Burris approached Al Gorman of the Louisville Visual Arts Association about another project but wound up discussing what was to become "Voices from Home". Most of the participants were initially involved through workshops in which the residents were asked to discuss group home life. Then they moved on to developing the artwork that illustrated their observations. "I discovered that everyone who lives in a group home understands that they're not living in Ozzie and Harriet land," Burris says. "There are no illusions about these being anything other than group homes."
But there are, for the most part, good feelings in the exhibit. Much of the art is colorful and populated with positive comments such as "I love working for money."
-
Drawings dominate the show, but there is also a section of photographs from Lexington's Castlewood home and a writing display coordinated by Ruthie Maslin of the Kentucky Writers' Coalition. When he stepped back to look at the exhibit, Burris had one dominant impression."It's like 80 people over a cup of coffee talking about some very serious issues," Burris says. "This is what it's like when people talk. It's not so much that it's amazing, the fact that the conversation exists is amazing."
-
Whether it manifests itself in another exhibit or different projects, Burris plans to keep the conversation started in Voices from Home going. He says, "It would be pretty rude if we didn't come back and give people ways to continue talking about life."
-
If you go Voices from Home will be on display until Sept. 6 at the Louisville Visual Art Association, 3005 River Road, Louisville. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, and noon-4 p.m. Sunday. Call (502) 896-2146. Admission is free.
-
Louisville Visual Art Association
Summer 1998 Newsletter
"Voices from Home"
-
How exciting it is for me to write that I have no predetermined image in mind of what this show will look like! Normally, this would be a cause for concern. "Voices From Home,"' however, is not intended to be a typical art exhibition. The chance to try something potentially important and unprecedented is too delicious to resist!
"Voices From Home" is a group installation that will occupy Louisville Visual Art Association's Charlotte Price Gallery. Set up will begin on July 27 and the exhibition will end the first day of September. The "Voices" are people with special needs that live in group home settings in Lexington, Louisville, and southern Indiana.
-
The installation will be a forum on the topic of group home life. Among care givers in this demanding and growing profession the question of what constitutes a group home or residency is a hot topic "Voices from Home" will showcase artwork produced by people in assisted living situations. From the beginning of this project, it was important that multiple viewpoints be given room for expression. Including the residents in this discussion is what distinguishes our efforts. Although we are unsure about the final product, months of planning and work have gone into this living process. By most standards "Voices from Home" is already a success. Our project has generated considerable dialogue among people working in the field. The lack of more gallery space has necessitated limiting participation. The response to our forum has underscored the need for similar programs. At this time, eight group home agencies involving seventy individuals are involved in our exhibition.
-
"Voices From Home" is being coordinated by Bruce Burris, an artist provocateur who is leading events. An accomplished painter, Burris has received many honors including a Southern Arts Federation Fellowship. For most of his career Burris has worked with the disenfranchised in our society for "Voices from Home" he has recruited a number of group home agencies and independent artists to work on our installation. Workshops involving writing, photography, and dance have been scheduled. All participants are encouraged to install their work in the gallery.
On July 30"' at 5:30 p.m. the public is invited to a free. disco opening!! That alone should be a tremendous happening. We hope to see you there.
Our thanks to the following organizations and individuals for their contributions to "Voices From Home." A complete list will be available at the opening.
-
RECOGNIZING OURSELVES
A young woman, teeth clenched, her will set on her vision, draws a simple square in the middle of a field of green. She stops to survey the paper on which she has placed a symbol of her home. Inside the box she pencils in the word "PUZZLE". Then she proceeds to spend the next hour drawing a vast array of windows, not within the confines of the square, but spread out on the surrounding green lawn like so many picnic blankets. It is June and Lexington; Kentucky is experiencing one of its many heat waves. "M" is just one of ten participants from Spindletop - a group home for people with developmental disabilities operated by Arc of the Blue Grass. On this day they are involved in a visually-created conversation about the meaning of home and living in a group home community. This art workshop, facilitated by Kentucky artist Bruce Burris, is one of a series of workshops created to ask a simple question: What do those who live in group homes have to say about the places they live?
-
In the United States, over the past 40 years, a conversation has been taking place regarding the pros and cons of group home living. Experts, administrators, social workers and care providers have been involved in the debate which ranges from: "Group homes are great - let's have more of them," to "these people should live independently without any restrictive environment at all." The only problem is those living within the group homes have been left out of the conversation.
-
Today, Mr. Burris asks the question that hasn't been asked before. And he is asking those who haven't been asked before, those who live in group homes: "What is your home like?" And, together, as a single community, these ten people from Spindletop, engage each other with the images coming out of their hands. They watch each others' pictures come alive and push themselves further into their own visions: "M" offers a glowing magenta square topped with a roof full of saturated greens, rustic golds and ruby reds - In the center is a wide opened door of pure white; "D's" green van, the van the group uses for field trips, cannot be separated from the house on which it sits; Next, "K" divides his house into rooms and writes the names of those who sleep there at night; "C's" red house is guarded by a red dog who will be arriving soon; The mood darkens as "J" creates a wash of black and gray coming out of the mouth of his self- portrait; "E" adds her child-like bubble people surrounded by blackened windows; In "T's" picture his face, the house, a flower, a pancake and the sun are all the same size; "T" is finishing his empty, white house set into a deeply textured, blue sky.
-
This workshop, one of many which are taking place throughout Kentucky this summer will culminate in an art installation entitled "Voices from Home". The exhibit will take place at the Louisville Visual Art Association's Charlotte Price Gallery beginning on 27 July 1998 to September first. The installation is designed to simply answer, in visual terms, the simple question Mr. Burris has asked of those who are in assisted living situations: "What is your home like?"
Although it is a simple question it takes a deep commitment to answer it. Kathleen Everhart, Director at Open Doors, Arts with Disabilities, Al Goreman, Curator at Louisville Visual Arts Association, Barbara Ellerbrook, Executive Director for Arc of the Bluegrass and Very Special Arts Kentucky along with Mr. Burris and the countless guest artists, writers, group home staffers and the group home artists themselves provide such a commitment. And although this process may not deepen our knowledge of the ins and outs of group home living, and the results may not tell us to either build more group homes or to tear them down, one thing is discovered - Actually, it is rediscovered because it is nothing new, nothing extraordinary. What we see in these pictures is this: The people whom we label as "developmentally disabled" are no different from ourselves.
-
The labels we give them, the ease with which we dismiss them because of their idiosyncrasies in behavior, do not provide a barrier so high that it cannot be scaled by simply looking at the work produced by these artists rendering their own images of "home". Their stories are the same as the stories we tell of ourselves and our families in our own houses. We can recognize the black mood "J" paints with or the graphically, dark windows etched by "E's" hand. Just as we know the windows opening out on "M's" summer lawn and the longing to be in the warmth of the summer sun. "D's" green van is as much a symbol of freedom to her as the automobiles parked in our own driveways. Go and see the installation. But don't expect to see the work of strangers there. The work will be intimately familiar, something we might wish we had done if someone went to the trouble of asking us what we thought of our own homes and families.
And if this familiarity sends a message, to those involved in the debate concerning the pros and cons of group home living, it is this: Design group homes and develop programs for those living in group homes as if they were members of your own family... Oh, and don't forget to ask those who live there to tell you what they think is important about their homes. If you don't understand they'll draw you a picture.
Dante Ventresca
For more information, please call either Louisville Visual Art Association
-
MOVIN AND GROOVIN
At first I didn't know which house it was, they all looked pretty much the same, a nestled group of suburban brick dwellings, small apartment buildings it seemed. Finally I found the driveway to the one actual house; the driveway took me into a side yard shaded by wonderful trees. I walked the sidewalk to the front door, rang the bell, and was greeted by one of the staff members. She welcomed me in and escorted me down the hall to the living room where five other people were gathered. The TV was on, but people were talking as they sat variously around two big couches. Kevin was in a wheelchair and I recognized him as the superb artist who had sketched likenesses of the other residents during an arts workshop I had attended at the ARC offices a couple of weeks before. I was introduced to the rest of the group, and I remembered most of them from a creative movement class I had taught two years ago for the College for Living.
I chatted a minute with "A", who informed me that her birthday was coming up in a few weeks--her words came out very rapidly and some were repeated--I had to listen very hard to keep up. "D's" voice was very deep, and loud, and she said only a couple of words at a time, emphasizing vowels. I listened hard to keep up with her too. "R" paced around the group but he was obviously listening and catching every word of the conversations, interjecting sometimes.
We gathered in a circle. "K" said he'd watch."R" told me that "A" might come down and join us but she was taking a shower. "T" left the circle a couple of times to check on his laundry. We did some stretching first. "D" didn't want to stand so she did hers from the edge of her chair. Then I asked them to go around the circle and one at a time make up a movement that we could all then repeat. A variety of things came out--hands on shoulders and hips, a swing of the leg, deep knee bend, then "R" surprised me by imitating an older man walking with a cane. As we all repeated it too, I realized as I so often do when I facilitate any kind of class that there's just no telling what we've got inside us, what invention, what interpretation of directions. And I wondered again what unexamined assumptions I might still be dragging around inside me that might limit my invention and creativity--that might limit what I bring to the group. At that point "A" came down and joined the circle, and we were seven.
-
The focus of the work was to find ways to have the group express their experience of living in this home--a group home. They all said that the staff was excellent. And so I asked them to show me their favorite things or activities--whether something special or the everyday stuff. "T" said he loves shooting threes. When I asked him to show us, he grinned this huge grin and flicked the wrists of both hands. I asked him if it went in and he said of course. "R" likes cooking--making hot dogs for everybody in the microwave. I finally realized he was showing us the opening of the buns and the spreading of mustard. Ronnie suggested to "R" that he should make the gestures bigger, and he told me in more detail what "R" was doing. "R" loves going to his Lion's Club meetings, and going to church. He bowed his head for a few seconds and we all did too. "D" loves cleaning her room and "A" likes to listen to music and sing along in her room.
-
A said she loves talking on the phone, and "D" and "Ad" agreed. "Ad" held her hand up to the side of her face, making that internationally recognized sign of the phone, and showed us a conversation she might have with her Mom. I wanted to encourage "D" to follow up and demonstrate what her phone calls were like. I put my hand phone to my ear, and said to "D", can you hear the conversation? She said Yes, as she put a phone to her ear. I asked, who are you talking to? You, she said. She started laughing and everybody thought it was pretty funny. I thought this would be a great sequence for a standup comedy routine.
I wanted to see if we could discover movement and walking patterns that were part of their daily living.. No sooner had I said that, but "Ad" started walking down the hall, stopping at every room and naming whose or what room it was, placing her hand out as if to touch the person or identity of the room. I followed along with her, and observed this incredible sense of clarity, respect and ritual about her choice of showing me the space. It was a sequence of movement I could happily incorporate directly into some choreography.
-
My time was up for that week. As I have returned for more sessions over the past several weeks, I have noticed that members of our group are beginning to make their movements larger, and further out from their bodies into space. R hasn't quite participated as much, but he likes to be in the room and talk with us. I have observed that "D" is very good at deciding for herself what movement exercises she will do from her chair, and then deciding when to stand up and join us or get down on the floor and move. I have also observed that when I leave them to their own invention of movement in and out of different positions, they will sometimes repeat themselves or each other, and sometimes come to something altogether new--there's no predicting and it makes for the most interesting choreography. It also feels like pure play to me and I think to all of us. It seems that "A" has slowed her rate of talking to me, or maybe I am just a better listener now. "D" gave me a big hug when I had to leave last time, and she told everybody they should do the same. I need to pick my nights of the week more carefully from now on when I schedule these sessions, because "R" has been at his Lion's Club meetings and I think he's disappointed at having to miss class. I finally got that message from the fact that different members of the group mentioned several times that that was where he was and that they weren't sure if he'd be back in time for class. Anyway, I miss seeing him.
-
Rhea Lehman
1998 (Project Archive)
language reflects this time...
-
Residents illustrate life in group homes
By Rich Copley HERALD-LEADER ARTS WRITER
Lexington Herald-Leader
-
LOUISVILLE -- Bruce Burris made some amazing discoveries while working on Voices From Home, an exhibit of artwork by residents of group homes in Kentucky and Southern Indiana. It wasn't that he found a new Andy Warhol among the exhibit's participants -- though he says there are four or five promising artists in the show. Burris' findings were about how people communicate and how art can help communication. "We sort of discovered that no one had ever asked people who live in group homes what it was like to live in a group home," says Burris, a Lexington artist. In Voices from Home, there are lots of answers to that question."Group homes are a lot of fun because I can watch TV and movies," "C" (no last name given) of ARC of the Bluegrass writes in one piece. Another unnamed resident writes, "I feel like I belong here. I'd like a sewing room."Project Director Bruce Burris says he had no image in mind of what the exhibit would look like when he started. It involved more than 70 individuals from eight group homes, including three from Lexington. Residents in the homes are mentally disabled.
-
Burris approached Al Gorman of the Louisville Visual Arts Association about another project but wound up discussing what was to become "Voices from Home". Most of the participants were initially involved through workshops in which the residents were asked to discuss group home life. Then they moved on to developing the artwork that illustrated their observations. "I discovered that everyone who lives in a group home understands that they're not living in Ozzie and Harriet land," Burris says. "There are no illusions about these being anything other than group homes."
But there are, for the most part, good feelings in the exhibit. Much of the art is colorful and populated with positive comments such as "I love working for money."
-
Drawings dominate the show, but there is also a section of photographs from Lexington's Castlewood home and a writing display coordinated by Ruthie Maslin of the Kentucky Writers' Coalition. When he stepped back to look at the exhibit, Burris had one dominant impression."It's like 80 people over a cup of coffee talking about some very serious issues," Burris says. "This is what it's like when people talk. It's not so much that it's amazing, the fact that the conversation exists is amazing."
-
Whether it manifests itself in another exhibit or different projects, Burris plans to keep the conversation started in Voices from Home going. He says, "It would be pretty rude if we didn't come back and give people ways to continue talking about life."
-
If you go Voices from Home will be on display until Sept. 6 at the Louisville Visual Art Association, 3005 River Road, Louisville. Hours: 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday, 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, and noon-4 p.m. Sunday. Call (502) 896-2146. Admission is free.
-
Louisville Visual Art Association
Summer 1998 Newsletter
"Voices from Home"
-
How exciting it is for me to write that I have no predetermined image in mind of what this show will look like! Normally, this would be a cause for concern. "Voices From Home,"' however, is not intended to be a typical art exhibition. The chance to try something potentially important and unprecedented is too delicious to resist!
"Voices From Home" is a group installation that will occupy Louisville Visual Art Association's Charlotte Price Gallery. Set up will begin on July 27 and the exhibition will end the first day of September. The "Voices" are people with special needs that live in group home settings in Lexington, Louisville, and southern Indiana.
-
The installation will be a forum on the topic of group home life. Among care givers in this demanding and growing profession the question of what constitutes a group home or residency is a hot topic "Voices from Home" will showcase artwork produced by people in assisted living situations. From the beginning of this project, it was important that multiple viewpoints be given room for expression. Including the residents in this discussion is what distinguishes our efforts. Although we are unsure about the final product, months of planning and work have gone into this living process. By most standards "Voices from Home" is already a success. Our project has generated considerable dialogue among people working in the field. The lack of more gallery space has necessitated limiting participation. The response to our forum has underscored the need for similar programs. At this time, eight group home agencies involving seventy individuals are involved in our exhibition.
-
"Voices From Home" is being coordinated by Bruce Burris, an artist provocateur who is leading events. An accomplished painter, Burris has received many honors including a Southern Arts Federation Fellowship. For most of his career Burris has worked with the disenfranchised in our society for "Voices from Home" he has recruited a number of group home agencies and independent artists to work on our installation. Workshops involving writing, photography, and dance have been scheduled. All participants are encouraged to install their work in the gallery.
On July 30"' at 5:30 p.m. the public is invited to a free. disco opening!! That alone should be a tremendous happening. We hope to see you there.
Our thanks to the following organizations and individuals for their contributions to "Voices From Home." A complete list will be available at the opening.
-
RECOGNIZING OURSELVES
A young woman, teeth clenched, her will set on her vision, draws a simple square in the middle of a field of green. She stops to survey the paper on which she has placed a symbol of her home. Inside the box she pencils in the word "PUZZLE". Then she proceeds to spend the next hour drawing a vast array of windows, not within the confines of the square, but spread out on the surrounding green lawn like so many picnic blankets. It is June and Lexington; Kentucky is experiencing one of its many heat waves. "M" is just one of ten participants from Spindletop - a group home for people with developmental disabilities operated by Arc of the Blue Grass. On this day they are involved in a visually-created conversation about the meaning of home and living in a group home community. This art workshop, facilitated by Kentucky artist Bruce Burris, is one of a series of workshops created to ask a simple question: What do those who live in group homes have to say about the places they live?
-
In the United States, over the past 40 years, a conversation has been taking place regarding the pros and cons of group home living. Experts, administrators, social workers and care providers have been involved in the debate which ranges from: "Group homes are great - let's have more of them," to "these people should live independently without any restrictive environment at all." The only problem is those living within the group homes have been left out of the conversation.
-
Today, Mr. Burris asks the question that hasn't been asked before. And he is asking those who haven't been asked before, those who live in group homes: "What is your home like?" And, together, as a single community, these ten people from Spindletop, engage each other with the images coming out of their hands. They watch each others' pictures come alive and push themselves further into their own visions: "M" offers a glowing magenta square topped with a roof full of saturated greens, rustic golds and ruby reds - In the center is a wide opened door of pure white; "D's" green van, the van the group uses for field trips, cannot be separated from the house on which it sits; Next, "K" divides his house into rooms and writes the names of those who sleep there at night; "C's" red house is guarded by a red dog who will be arriving soon; The mood darkens as "J" creates a wash of black and gray coming out of the mouth of his self- portrait; "E" adds her child-like bubble people surrounded by blackened windows; In "T's" picture his face, the house, a flower, a pancake and the sun are all the same size; "T" is finishing his empty, white house set into a deeply textured, blue sky.
-
This workshop, one of many which are taking place throughout Kentucky this summer will culminate in an art installation entitled "Voices from Home". The exhibit will take place at the Louisville Visual Art Association's Charlotte Price Gallery beginning on 27 July 1998 to September first. The installation is designed to simply answer, in visual terms, the simple question Mr. Burris has asked of those who are in assisted living situations: "What is your home like?"
Although it is a simple question it takes a deep commitment to answer it. Kathleen Everhart, Director at Open Doors, Arts with Disabilities, Al Goreman, Curator at Louisville Visual Arts Association, Barbara Ellerbrook, Executive Director for Arc of the Bluegrass and Very Special Arts Kentucky along with Mr. Burris and the countless guest artists, writers, group home staffers and the group home artists themselves provide such a commitment. And although this process may not deepen our knowledge of the ins and outs of group home living, and the results may not tell us to either build more group homes or to tear them down, one thing is discovered - Actually, it is rediscovered because it is nothing new, nothing extraordinary. What we see in these pictures is this: The people whom we label as "developmentally disabled" are no different from ourselves.
-
The labels we give them, the ease with which we dismiss them because of their idiosyncrasies in behavior, do not provide a barrier so high that it cannot be scaled by simply looking at the work produced by these artists rendering their own images of "home". Their stories are the same as the stories we tell of ourselves and our families in our own houses. We can recognize the black mood "J" paints with or the graphically, dark windows etched by "E's" hand. Just as we know the windows opening out on "M's" summer lawn and the longing to be in the warmth of the summer sun. "D's" green van is as much a symbol of freedom to her as the automobiles parked in our own driveways. Go and see the installation. But don't expect to see the work of strangers there. The work will be intimately familiar, something we might wish we had done if someone went to the trouble of asking us what we thought of our own homes and families.
And if this familiarity sends a message, to those involved in the debate concerning the pros and cons of group home living, it is this: Design group homes and develop programs for those living in group homes as if they were members of your own family... Oh, and don't forget to ask those who live there to tell you what they think is important about their homes. If you don't understand they'll draw you a picture.
Dante Ventresca
For more information, please call either Louisville Visual Art Association
-
MOVIN AND GROOVIN
At first I didn't know which house it was, they all looked pretty much the same, a nestled group of suburban brick dwellings, small apartment buildings it seemed. Finally I found the driveway to the one actual house; the driveway took me into a side yard shaded by wonderful trees. I walked the sidewalk to the front door, rang the bell, and was greeted by one of the staff members. She welcomed me in and escorted me down the hall to the living room where five other people were gathered. The TV was on, but people were talking as they sat variously around two big couches. Kevin was in a wheelchair and I recognized him as the superb artist who had sketched likenesses of the other residents during an arts workshop I had attended at the ARC offices a couple of weeks before. I was introduced to the rest of the group, and I remembered most of them from a creative movement class I had taught two years ago for the College for Living.
I chatted a minute with "A", who informed me that her birthday was coming up in a few weeks--her words came out very rapidly and some were repeated--I had to listen very hard to keep up. "D's" voice was very deep, and loud, and she said only a couple of words at a time, emphasizing vowels. I listened hard to keep up with her too. "R" paced around the group but he was obviously listening and catching every word of the conversations, interjecting sometimes.
We gathered in a circle. "K" said he'd watch."R" told me that "A" might come down and join us but she was taking a shower. "T" left the circle a couple of times to check on his laundry. We did some stretching first. "D" didn't want to stand so she did hers from the edge of her chair. Then I asked them to go around the circle and one at a time make up a movement that we could all then repeat. A variety of things came out--hands on shoulders and hips, a swing of the leg, deep knee bend, then "R" surprised me by imitating an older man walking with a cane. As we all repeated it too, I realized as I so often do when I facilitate any kind of class that there's just no telling what we've got inside us, what invention, what interpretation of directions. And I wondered again what unexamined assumptions I might still be dragging around inside me that might limit my invention and creativity--that might limit what I bring to the group. At that point "A" came down and joined the circle, and we were seven.
-
The focus of the work was to find ways to have the group express their experience of living in this home--a group home. They all said that the staff was excellent. And so I asked them to show me their favorite things or activities--whether something special or the everyday stuff. "T" said he loves shooting threes. When I asked him to show us, he grinned this huge grin and flicked the wrists of both hands. I asked him if it went in and he said of course. "R" likes cooking--making hot dogs for everybody in the microwave. I finally realized he was showing us the opening of the buns and the spreading of mustard. Ronnie suggested to "R" that he should make the gestures bigger, and he told me in more detail what "R" was doing. "R" loves going to his Lion's Club meetings, and going to church. He bowed his head for a few seconds and we all did too. "D" loves cleaning her room and "A" likes to listen to music and sing along in her room.
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A said she loves talking on the phone, and "D" and "Ad" agreed. "Ad" held her hand up to the side of her face, making that internationally recognized sign of the phone, and showed us a conversation she might have with her Mom. I wanted to encourage "D" to follow up and demonstrate what her phone calls were like. I put my hand phone to my ear, and said to "D", can you hear the conversation? She said Yes, as she put a phone to her ear. I asked, who are you talking to? You, she said. She started laughing and everybody thought it was pretty funny. I thought this would be a great sequence for a standup comedy routine.
I wanted to see if we could discover movement and walking patterns that were part of their daily living.. No sooner had I said that, but "Ad" started walking down the hall, stopping at every room and naming whose or what room it was, placing her hand out as if to touch the person or identity of the room. I followed along with her, and observed this incredible sense of clarity, respect and ritual about her choice of showing me the space. It was a sequence of movement I could happily incorporate directly into some choreography.
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My time was up for that week. As I have returned for more sessions over the past several weeks, I have noticed that members of our group are beginning to make their movements larger, and further out from their bodies into space. R hasn't quite participated as much, but he likes to be in the room and talk with us. I have observed that "D" is very good at deciding for herself what movement exercises she will do from her chair, and then deciding when to stand up and join us or get down on the floor and move. I have also observed that when I leave them to their own invention of movement in and out of different positions, they will sometimes repeat themselves or each other, and sometimes come to something altogether new--there's no predicting and it makes for the most interesting choreography. It also feels like pure play to me and I think to all of us. It seems that "A" has slowed her rate of talking to me, or maybe I am just a better listener now. "D" gave me a big hug when I had to leave last time, and she told everybody they should do the same. I need to pick my nights of the week more carefully from now on when I schedule these sessions, because "R" has been at his Lion's Club meetings and I think he's disappointed at having to miss class. I finally got that message from the fact that different members of the group mentioned several times that that was where he was and that they weren't sure if he'd be back in time for class. Anyway, I miss seeing him.
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Rhea Lehman