With the right support, choice and opportunity, people with profound disabilities can achieve amazing things. When Achieve together and Campaign 4 Change announced plans to hold an inclusive art exhibition, Home Managers in Brighton & Hove knew it would be a great opportunity to take part.
Art is a regular activity for many of the people we support locally. Deputy Manager Maricel Lopez explains: “Art is often a favoured activity option, but not on any fixed day. We’ll ask people ‘What would you like to do?’. We can tell by a person’s body language, facial expressions or vocalisations whether they would like to do the things we are offering.
“For example, we might make cards for Mother’s Day. Messy stuff where people can feel the fabric or materials or paint, allows for great individual creativity and fun. We support people to do the crafts hand over hand or using switch technology and adapted art equipment. It’s about knowing each person individually, what they like, and what art medium they prefer to express themselves.”
Opportunity to choose
Maricel sums up how she and her fellow support team members ensure that everyone they support is enabled to live a full and meaningful life. “While the support for people with profound and multiple learning disabilities is different and complex, it is also very much the same as supporting anyone else.
“You get to know the person, and how they communicate. You offer them the opportunity to make choices every day. They can say yes or no – they have the right to choose. It’s about providing the right support for them and giving them the quality of life that they should have.”
Social and fun
Rather than create art for art’s sake, the group of houses arranged a social occasion with art as an added extra. People supported and their support teams from four homes gathered in a large garden building to have some fun!
They used a range of personally adapted painting equipment and their own switch technology, focusing on the exhibition’s theme of ‘What makes me smile’.
“Everyone has the choice of engaging or not,” explains Maricel. “Focused on the theme, each person interpreted this in their own way, and expressed this through free-flowing artwork, led directly by each person and what they were feeling in that moment.
“We had canvases of various sizes and someone had the idea of holding onto one end of a boom to make paint trails. It doesn’t matter if it goes over the edges – it’s more about the action of people doing it and seeing them with friends. You could see everyone was excited and enjoying the experience.
“Then, when we held up the finished results their faces were so happy. It’s so important to support people to accomplish things and this was quite a bit thing.”
Connecting with others
As well as the large canvases, people painted smaller canvases. They used a paint spinner and assistive switch, and hands dipped in paint then moved across the canvas surface. In the final exhibition, two hand prints are also included. One is a flat palm print, the other a fisted hand print.
The title card of the group’s combined artwork read:
Connect
Painting on canvas
Have you ever felt disconnected from life and the people around you? As humans, we all need to feel connected, and yet we all connect differently – each with our own sense of belonging and purpose.
But, for many of us, being understood and making connections doesn’t come easily. These glorious pieces have been created by a group of people from Brighton & Hove. Some old and new friends came together to create art and connect – because life’s better when we’re connected!
All artists have profound and multiple learning disabilities and need to be extra creative to bring their art into the world, using techniques such as pendulum painting, hand on hand painting and assistive technology.
Creating art and being together, makes us smile!
The wonderful art will be hung in the newly decorated garden room, known as Deer Lodge, as a permanent reminder of a great day and great accomplishments.
