Deshik drew cause I asked him to.

Because I introduced him to some new materials.

He entertained my suggestions and churned out a few new drawings.

He ended up resorting back to his favorite….felt pens.

As he drew this very detailed Boa Constrictor.

Then the questions started rolling in.

Questions like, “Is the rattler hollow like a music rattler?”

Like, “What is the oldest animal alive?”  & “What is the youngest?”

We did some research online.

He was fascinated with the still living, primitive fish the STURGEON.

It was only logical, to Deshik, that he BECOMES the STURGEON.

Read more here

 Amelie continues on the wall work started on Day 1.

Back up on the tall ladder she works with tape and geometric shapes.

We add long dangley clumps of plasticy jewels.

I do…this was too high for her to reach.

She joyfully splatters paint all over the wall work, tentacles out the purple strands and adds finishing touches.

This is a beautifully delicate work that measures 22 feet high!

On Day 3 Amelie is stuck.

She just messes around with some material in the studio area.

She pours pools of black & red ink on paper.

We sit back and watch it mix and move itself across the surface.

Soon she feels lost. “I dont know what to do now?”

She seems uninspired or bored.  We had talked about various options earlier.

I said, “I am not going to tell you what to do. It has to come from you. “

She fell silent and looked discouraged.

I said we can just sit here and if she is done with the project then we can just quit and the wall work is enough.

Before I could finish my sentence she said, “I want to paint one of those cubes.  Can I paint all over it?”

This cube was a giant plinth.

Removing tape is oh so satisfying.

Read more here

Isabelle is the dedicated sculpture / assembler of the Grunt group.

She loves colour, shape, pattern and texture.

She has a hard time with figuring out what to do.

I asked her to choose a few items…spontaneously.

Then we hung out on the floor and simply played with the materials.

Eventually a tower rose out of the chaos.

This was a brave balancing act that Isabelle carefully pursued .

She never gave up or got frustrated.

This is an amazing  8 foot tower that when looked at in person is totally a psychedelic optical mind game.

Read more here

Deshik does not have any pets.

Yet all he talks about and draws are animals and birds.

I promised I would bring my dog (Negrita) to the gallery so Deshik could meet her.

Upon meeting the dog Deshik spent the first 20 minutes running in a circle around her.

Then he spent a full hour examining Negritas fur, teeth, nose, inside of ears, etc.

Negrita is infinitely patient and gentle.

She is so mellow that she would often lay her head down amidst poking and prodding.

When this happened Deshik would ask “Is she dead now?”

Deshik started to get objects from the materials room and test them out on Negrita.

Basically this was the art process / project of the day.

I just let it unfold.

My favorite…..a bone balanced on dogs head.

Then he wanted to feed her.

I brought him half a carton of milk.

Deshik grabbed it and poured it directly on the gallery floor.

Fascinated, Deshik watched Negrita gently lap up the spilt milk.

He observed that as she licked away the white liquid  “…….It makes a moving drawing!”

For the last hour Deshik gets to drawing directly on the wall.

He draws animals. He draws quickly and with full assurance in his sweeping lines.

The whole while he talks about Negrita and his observations.

Mostly he repeated that Negrita was “…..so unusual cause she’s got a mane like a lion and fluffer ears.”

It started with zip ties.

Henry silently created knotty concoctions on his hands.

I thought they were meant to be playful faux weapons.

But Henry had other plans.

He pointed to the painting he made the week before and the new cans of paint I scrounged up.

The plastic hand weapons were actually self made paint applicators.

Henry started adding to the painting he made last week…the one I thought was so beautifully complete.

For the next hour Henry re-imagined his entire painting.

Using mostly his DIY applicators and other strange objects to scrape and scour the paint.

Then he completed the work with a roller.

I was speechless at his frenetic painting style and the re-visioned work.

And then Henry started to talk to me for the first time.

He took my hand, turned around to the opposite wall and walked us over to Amelies wallwork.

“Thats good.” Henry said.

Following that sweet moment Henry bustled around the materials room with a hammer in hand.

He was visibly hyper.

He eventually grabbed some chalk and a piece of 2×4.

For the next 30 minutes he smashed away, watching how chalk dust rise and fall on the board.

I’ve got some healthy destructive art making plans for Henry next week!

Stay tuned…..

Solange participated in the PLAY FALL REST DANCE project last summer at Open Space Gallery.

Open Space IMAGES

The untraditional territory of delight and frustration

All the children during that residency were ‘able’.

Solange was in Vancouver with her mom and I invited her to be a guest artist in the GRUNT project.

She works swiftly, with confidence and great focus.

Working with her here magnified the stark differences between doing this project with ‘able’ children and ‘disabled’ children.

With the GRUNT group I do not notice the diagnosed disabilities of the participants.

But what is overwhelmingly noticeable are their insecurities and low confidence.

It is debilitating and the biggest challenge for them and me.

Not speaking a word, no eye contact, low inaudible talking, standing frozen in one spot, not trusting themselves to make a decision.

My message and instruction to this group of children is that there are no mistakes.

That there are no expectations to create masterpieces.

That randomness, chaos and freedom reign in this space.

Every time I work with them their voices are getting louder, smiles bigger, and they are better able to ask, with confidence, what they need assistance with.

Henry even talked to me in the last hour of our second time together.

See video of Solanges kinetic sculpture HERE

The big empty gallery space was disturbing for Deshik.

He said he liked the Vancouver Art Gallery better because it was filled with peoples’ art.

I explained he was to be the artist who filled the gallery.

“Can I fill it with birds?” he asked.  We can try, I responded.

He felt most comfortable in the more busy and confined materials room.

With a long white piece of paper and a blue marker he asked me to name birds…any kind.

Deshik knows every kind of bird. He would draw them quickly with appropriate distinguishing features while citing facts about that specific bird.

After drawing Kiwis, Ospreys, Loons, and a random Chameleon he wanted to paint them directly on the wall.

This proved to be a difficult translation for him.  He felt frustrated.  So he attempted the familiar: ABC and 1234

Although, he distracted himself by asking me what a Phoenix was.

I said it was a a mythological bird.

He asked, “Then what is a fact?” I explained.

Then he said, “What is an opinion?” I explained.

Deshik concluded, ” Then it is just your opinion that a Phoenix is a myth. In my opinion it is a real bird.”

Deshik is 7 years old and diagnosed Autistic.

Play, Fall, Rest, Dance is an exhibition project by Valerie Salez. The artist works with children with disabilities to help them explore the creative process of installation making. The exhibition runs from June 3 to July 5, 2014. The public is welcome to visit grunt gallery to see the installations that will continuously change and evolve over the course of the project.

Read more here.

Amelie was the first and only participant to use the tall ladder.

Being an accomplished gymnast might be why she has no fear of heights.

Amelie has an extremely shy disposition yet there is a fierce strength to her.

Her style was fragile yet focused and determined.

Besides using paint she made a few deep red chalk lines with a plumb line.

At one point she looked at her hands intensely and seemed concerned.

Amelie thought they were bleeding.

I check it out and we concluded it was red chalk dust.

She looked up at the wall, smiled and whispered “The wall is bleeding.”

Amelie is termed  ‘medically complex’.

‘Medically Complex’  is a term used for babies born with a rare and undefinable disorder.

Multiple life threatening illnesses will seriously affect the person in undetermined ways.

8 to 10 years ago medicine and medical procedures were not able to keep medically complex babies alive.

Amelie’s heart is severely affected as well as her white blood cell count.

She has had numerous open heart surgeries since birth and catches phenomena regularly.

Yet she has defeated doctors prognosis’s of having completely flaccid muscular structure by 8 years old.

She is 9 and ripped!

Play, Fall, Rest, Dance is an exhibition project by Valerie Salez. The artist works with children with disabilities to help them explore the creative process of installation making. The exhibition runs from June 3 to July 5, 2014. The public is welcome to visit grunt gallery to see the installations that will continuously change and evolve over the course of the project.

Read more here.

Isabelle was very overwhelmed with all the supplies and materials.

I asked her to quickly choose four things that she finds interesting.

She chose all things black, white, red and clear glass.

Then she got to building….

What it is, what it was to become, was irrelevant.

It was solely about colour, pattern, and construction.

And how to install in the gallery.

I introduced her to plinths.

Isabelle is a meticulous worker with a graphic aesthetic sense.

She wanted alternating black and white surfaces on the plinths.

From the industrial jobs of painting plinths and using the staple gun,

to the time consuming precision jobs of arranging small bits and pieces,

Isabelle approached everything with great consideration.

She worked so hard that she consumed an entire dry pint of blueberries.

Isabelle used to go to public school but recently began home schooling.

She has Mitochondrial disease that mainly affects cells in her brain as well as other cellular structures in her body.

Play, Fall, Rest, Dance is an exhibition project by Valerie Salez. The artist works with children with disabilities to help them explore the creative process of installation making. The exhibition runs from June 3 to July 5, 2014. The public is welcome to visit grunt gallery to see the installations that will continuously change and evolve over the course of the project.

Read more here.

Henry did not talk the whole time.

Not a word.

We played Glenn Gould and he set to work immediately.

He gathered every paint and drawing material available.

Then, with no hesitation, Henry started applying medium to the wall.

It was a beautiful and rare thing to witness someone unabashedly experimenting.

The way Henry applied and moved paint around was something extraordinary to behold.

He would run back to the material room and come back holding something to my face with a questioning glance.

He had found the liquid ink stash.

Using brushes, rollers, metal chunks, fingers, crayons, felt pens and chalk he worked at a relentless pace.

Often his whole body moved with repetitive gestures, mimicking the pace of Goulds music.

Henry is also an accomplished pianist.

He is diagnosed autistic.

I re-diagnose him as total genius!

Play, Fall, Rest, Dance is an exhibition project by Valerie Salez. The artist works with children with disabilities to help them explore the creative process of installation making. The exhibition runs from June 3 to July 5, 2014. The public is welcome to visit grunt gallery to see the installations that will continuously change and evolve over the course of the project.

Read more here.