Crockett High School New Media Arts

Hi blog readers! This is April letting you know what I have been up to lately. For most of this semester I have been visiting Crockett High School on many Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday afternoons to be a part of our New Media Arts Program there. For five years now, the wonderful Mrs. Jane Comer has invited us into her Life Skills classroom to teach New Media Arts classes that combine traditional arts and technology. This year, we had a powerhouse team of teaching artists including Johnny Villarreal of The Edge of Animation Station who brought in his portable stop motion animation studio. We had Jo Ann Santangelo teaching photography skills with photo assignments in the classroom and outside around the school. And we had Stephen Sprague teach the process of filmmaking from storyboarding to filming to editing. I came in to tie it all together with art lessons and everyone’s favorite: quizzes!

Co-teachers Johnny, Jo Ann, and Stephen

The group of 15 students did a great job in all aspects of this class, which they were graded on. The showcase this week was a big success with parents, friends, and administrators in attendance. They were impressed with the photos, storyboards, and artwork on display in the classroom.

Student photos

And in the library, the students led the presentation of their movie premiere with each student standing up and talking about what they learned. Their film was called “The Big Show in the Big Storm” and included a tornado, a talent show, a theft, and a capture. Animation was included in parts of the movie, and a short reel of the student’s animations was also shown. I am very proud of all of the Crockett Life Skills students who participated in this program. We look forward to doing it again next year!

If you want to see the movie, subscribe to our VSA Texas YouTube Channel here, and you will be notified when it is ready to watch online.

A sign welcoming guests to the movie premiere

A Tale of Two Showcases, Part 2

After the whirlwind journey of our OMOD showcase in Austin, we hit the road to do the same thing in Houston. (Read all about Austin in Part 1 here!) Despite our hopes for an early departure last Friday (the 13th, as it turned out), we arrived at the Alley Theatre with only 15 minutes to spare before our rehearsal was set to begin. Houston welcomed us, as always, with traffic, a feud with our GPS, and massive, many-lane freeways we had to cross instantaneously to reach our exits.

Soon, the other van from Austin carrying Celia, Chris, Jennifer, and Adrianna arrived, the participants from our Houston program filtered in, and we began acquainting ourselves with the beautiful Alley Theatre Texas Room, running through the blocking of the showcase, and offering notes to each performer on how to best make their stories come alive. As in Austin, we were tremendously thankful to have Chris Strickling of Actual Lives fame on our team, and she, along with Alex, our Houston facilitator, Celia, and Nicole, worked wonders to bring out everyone's best performances yet. We wrapped up the rehearsal at 8pm and returned to our hotel for a desperately needed dinner and glass of wine (or two). By the time I collided with my bed, I was out like a light.

Chris coaches Adam on his speech during rehearsal.

The next day we all met at the Alley Theatre at noon, and soon after, the wave of stress that normally precedes a big showcase impacted us like a speeding train. I remember looking over the Texas Room at the fury of activity – participants practicing speeches before coaches, Alley Theatre employees arranging paperwork, ice water, and plastic cups on a table by the door, my attendant Nic gaffer-taping mic cables to the floor with the lightning speed and precision of someone with ample experience on film sets – and thinking, "there's no way we're going to be ready in time." Of course, I was wrong, and each heart-dropping problem was solved swiftly and intelligently.

A sign in the lobby of the Alley Theatre directs
audience members to our showcase in the Texas Room.

The showcase itself was certainly not free of bumps – the immediate failure of the lavalier mic mirrored a collision of wheelchairs at the start of the Austin showcase just a week before – but even so, the stories were simply too good to fail, and besides, what in life doesn't involve a bump or two? The unflinching demeanor of the participants in the face of each technical hurdle also reflected their impressive growth in the past six months as well as their confidence in their stories and their speaking ability. Every story resonated with humor, humanity, and the unique personality of the speaker telling it.

Special thanks to our friends at the Alley Theatre and Theatre Under the Stars, but more specifically Mary Sutton, Mara McGhee, Eileen Edmonds, and David Oliver, for their crucial support of our Houston program and making this all possible. Thanks also to our facilitators, staff, and other assistants including Alex Odom, Chris Strickling, Celia Hughes, Nicole Cortichiato, and Una Lau. Finally, a big congratulations is in order for all of our Houston and Austin speakers who gave excellent performances across the board. It was a wonderful honor to work with all of you, and I look forward to see what you all accomplish next!

The OMOD crew poses for a photo after the showcase.
From left to right: Adrianna, Alex, Jennifer, Veronica,
myself, Adam, Alisha, Russell, and John.

A Tale of Two Showcases, Part 1

(Photos by Camille Wheeler)

I have a bad habit of doing things backwards. In college, I completed my freshman composition requirements as a super senior. I moved to Austin before I had a job or even a place to live. Most recently, I completed an OMOD class as a student after having led several OMOD classes. Now I would not advise anyone else to do these things in the same order I did, but for me, the reverse order seemed fortuitous. After waiting ‘til my final semester to fulfill the composition requirement, UC Berkeley offered a "Disability in Film" class for the first time since I started school there, and that class gave me the opportunity to sink my teeth into material I truly cared about. Moving to Austin without a plan allowed me to find a unique organization that I literally rolled into one day not knowing it was the start of a powerful four-year journey into the world of self-advocacy and a kind of storytelling I never thought imaginable.

Similarly, if I had taken the OMOD class when I first began this job, I would have been so caught up in my post-college ego that I would have hardly learned a thing. Taking the class also came at a time when changes in my disability forced me to accept dictation as my new permanent way of writing. While I resisted this change as long as I possibly could because of how restrictive I imagined it, I realize now that dictation – and this whole class, for that matter – allowed me to break free of what always scared me most about writing: revision. Since writing without a mistake is virtually impossible through dictation, I learned to let the mistakes go, to accept the crappy first draft, to see a story as more than the nuts and bolts that hold it together.

Of course, the OMOD class experience was far from being one man's stubborn battle with Dragon Dictate, and I must mention Chris Strickling, our rock star facilitator, and the OMOD process itself, which is almost magical in its transformative power. Chris has the uncanny ability to cut to the heart of a story, and she always seems to say exactly what a writer needs to hear. One five-minute conversation with Chris caused me to rethink my use of verbs entirely, and I have had verbs on my mind ever since. I realized that my verb vocabulary has not grown an iota in the last four years, so I most certainly have my work cut out for me in the coming months!

Chris laughs while I present my story in class.

Beyond Chris, working in a class with seven peers with a range of disabilities and all in the same nerve-racking boat of writing and presenting personal stories instilled camaraderie, confidence, and a true revelation of what is good in a story. Unlike any creative writing class in college where feedback is either presented in cold online forums or shared around a circular table where you are asked to sit quietly while your peers report back on what they thought about your story for a grade, OMOD allows you to see the effect of your story on the actual faces of your peers as they hear it for the first time, to experience the thrill of their genuine laughter at humorous moments in your story or their heartfelt response when you reveal a part of yourself just like them.

The OMOD class culminated in a showcase for an audience of 40 people that resulted in a (well deserved, in my opinion) standing ovation. We began with an ensemble piece entitled, "Listen to My World,” in which we all described the sounds we hear or the images we see, if hearing is not possible, and what those sounds or images mean to us; Carlos Orellana closed the showcase with a beautiful piece showing that these sounds can actually present a complete picture of who we are and left us with the line, “It's not the footrests, the brakes, or the wheels that make the wheelchair, it’s the person inside,” to which we answered, “It’s always the person inside!”

The OMOD crew! From left to right: Sheri, Jennifer, Nissi,
Chris, Carlos, me, Michael, and Peter

Creativity Saves Lives – Art Heals

It is April here… I mean May. What I mean is, this is April writing the blog this week. And my favorite month of April is over. So that means it is May, which is Mental Health Awareness Month. Did you know that mental health has been observed in this month since 1949? Here at VSA Texas we want to stress the importance of art and creativity to mental health. We work with many artists in the community who use their artistic expression to relieve the pain of mental illness and to release thoughts and feelings that could be detrimental to their health if kept inside. We encourage everyone, whether you are diagnosed with a mental health disorder or not, to express yourself through art. Because as artist SylviAnn Murray says, “Creativity Saves Lives – Art Heals.” Here is one of her poems:

the M A N I C rainbow

First time I flew

The M A N I C rainbow

I told the world every thing

I knew I could BE

and thought I already WAS

though no one could see

Declared me “CRAZY”

for believing in my self

t o o    m u c h

Tied me down

left me ALONE

to  d e s p a I r

Convicted me of a  “crime”

Called  IN SANITY

They said

“There is NO  RETURN”

Here is SylviAnn with her book of poetry
currently for sale online and at local bookstores.

Poet Bryan Rowland says, “I write poetry to express myself when I am depressed or emotionally drained. This poem was written at a very dark time in my life, when I was going through a med change. It tells of being rejected because of my illness. But it also provides hope and acceptance.”

LIGHT

IN TO THIS WORLD WE ARE BORN

THRU BLOOD PAIN AND SIN

THIS IS HOW LIFE BEGINS           

LIFE IS SHORT AND DEATH IS SWEET

BUT IT’S FOR THE LIGHT WE REACH

IT IS WHEN WE ARE A CHILD

THAT WE LEARN TO

LIE STEAL AND CHEAT

LIFE IS SHORT AND DEATH IS SWEET

BUT IT’S FOR THE LIGHT WE REACH

FROM THE HEART THESE THINGS SEEP

HATE WAR AND MURDER

USING DRUGS AND BOOZE

CHASEING A HIGH TO GET BY

LIFE IS SHORT AND DEATH IS SWEET

BUT IT’S FOR THE LIGHT WE REACH

ON THIS PAINFUL RIDE WE CALL LIFE

LOVE FAITH AND HOPE

WE MUST KEEP THESE IN SIGHT

AS WE REACH OUT FOR THE LIGHT

LIFE IS SHORT AND DEATH IS SWEET

BUT IT’S FOR THE LIGHT WE REACH

You can hear from Bryan and SylviAnn at our monthly The Lion and the Pirate Unplugged Open Mic held at Malvern Books. Maybe you will be inspired to bring your own poem to share with us! Or just post it here in the comments section of our blog.