[Noise and talking heard in the background.]
The camera pans over a scene of people in smocks engaged in painting.
A man sits in a wheelchair to the left of center, watching a woman also
in a wheelchair. The woman is sketching in bold strokes, perhaps filling
in a sky on her work of art.
Narrator: "Once a week, Sharon and Alan attend classes at Artists
Unlimited."
Julianne Jaz, Executive Director, Artists Unlimited: "One of the
basic premises of the program is that resident within every person is
the need and the desire and the ability in some way to create. And,
our position is that we are not an art therapy program but that the
creation of art is a very therapeutic process."
While Julianne speaks, the camera cuts in close to a work of art.
The piece has a green background. The camera pans up from the bottom;
you see the bottom of what looks to be a carrot. As the camera moves
up the carrot, you see the leafy top bound together with rope or string.
As the camera moves up further, you see that there is a photograph of
a man who is wrapped tightly in this leaves, only his head and neck
showing at the top. He appears trapped or constrained by the ropes.
This is the same man we saw earlier watching the woman.
Narrator: "All the instructors in the program are professional
artists."
The image cuts to the woman artist; someone assists her by rolling
up her sleeves. The image cuts that same woman dipping a paintbrush
into paint and then putting it to a picture of some flowers, adding
red to yellow petals.
Julianne Jaz: "For a long time I think that people thought about
accessibility in terms of whether or not a person could attend a performance
and in essence be an audience or an observer. And, we have more recently
begun to define accessibility as to whether or not a person with a disability
could participate in the arts."
