“The spirit I feel when I paint, that’s the bottom half. It’s how I feel, just letting the colors bleed.”
Juan Colon
As his collection of paintings was spread across two tables, I asked artist Juan Colon about the large watercolor that’s become the postcard image for "Cityscapes: Uncommon and Familiar Beauty," an exhibition opening this Friday at the Art Connection Studio in Hartford.
While Colon considered his response, I studied the large rainbow-like skyline that resembles a tie-dyed version of the city of Oz. Reaching upward are tall buildings that are neat, angular, and nearly perfect. By contrast, their foundations -- the lower half of this colorful urban landscape -- were captured with smudges and swirls into soft abstraction. There were streams of pinks, blues, and bronze dripping down the crisp white paper.
The young artist’s eyes lit up. With a grin, he told me politely, “The spirit I feel when I paint, that’s the bottom half. It’s how I feel, just letting the colors bleed.”
Reading Colon’s smile, I began to sense that these abstract elements represent more than just playful brushstrokes. His vision of a city reveals motion, warmth, and a world that is both perfect and flawed. Most of all, he’s made it clear that something is pouring out of his vibrant community.
Call it home, family, or a just a real working studio, the Art Connection Studio is Colon’s creative space. It’s shared equally with some 30 artists who make up a special collective in the comfortable digs at 56 Arbor Street.
"We want to provide a real-world experience of deadlines, and completing something."
Marita McDermott
Individuals with developmental and psychiatric disabilities are welcomed into a world where art matters, and so do their feelings. Both are poured into a process built around discovery, exploration, and learning how to tell stories through visual mediums.
The brainchild of Marita McDermott, an art therapist working for Vinfen -- the large non-profit health and human service organization that agreed to launch McDermott’s vision for an art studio program in 2011 -- the Art Connection is very different than other therapeutic arts environments. Conceived as a vocational arts program, its developing artists explore art-making as a viable and doable profession, and they are eager to become independent, working artists.
“We want to provide not only a really nurturing and therapeutic environment,” McDermott explained. “We want to provide, in some ways, a real-world experience of deadlines, and completing something, and negotiating quality of work, and what that’s going to take.”
As part of the creative and learning process, the artists’ work is showcased at exhibitions, selected for galleries, and even made available for purchase. In the process, there are life skills that emerge from the act of making art.
“So I think that’s what makes us really different, adds McDermott. It’s that we have a really solid understanding and care for the vocational aspect of things, and knowing that a lot of our artists have an internal desire to have a job. They want to work. They want to be independent.”
To support this kind of in-depth, interactive vocational training, McDermott has brought together the single largest team of art therapists in the state. With the additional help of an arts savvy support staff, and college interns in-training as art therapists, McDermott’s professional collective has grown into a tight knit community.
Six hours a day and five days a week, they work alongside these enthusiastic learners, not only bonding with them but offering high level instruction in painting, mixed media, photography, jewelry design, encaustic painting and textile design. Soon, woodworking will be added to the list.
According to Elisa Velardo, Vinfen’s Vice President, supporting the work of the Art Connection Studio has been a joy and privilege. With its team approach, a critical component to Vinfen programs, the interactive work on Arbor Street sets itself apart from other creative therapeutic centers in the state.
“When I look at the team of artists that is assembled here, there is so much talent in one space,” Velardo said. “The team of art therapists has attracted other art therapists…. When I talk to art therapists who work in isolation, they don’t have the experience that our team has here.”
It's a concept that began with a belief that art therapy, often private, might have a better chance for success when ideas are shared openly.
“At the end of the day,” Velardo said, “there’s a real simplicity of mission, and that’s high-quality art. [It's] very high-quality training for the artists to build a portfolio and to build a reputation, and to earn a living.”
The driving force behind McDermott’s successful model is an effort to grow a genuine, interactive community. It's a concept that began with a belief that art therapy, so often implemented individually or privately, might have a better chance for success when ideas and creativity are shared openly.
At the Art Connection Studio, in its open studio setting, everyone intermixes in order to learn from each other. When it's time to make art, both individual and cooperative methods are utilized.
According to staff art therapist Mike Galaburri, the flow of ideas generated by each artist often leads to a ripple effect within the larger group. “They play around in the studio and make things,” he said. “What makes it fascinating is that they are in proximity to each other, so naturally they affect each other when they are working and playing.... Then someone says, ‘I’d like to try that.’ There’s a lot of good cross-fertilization between works, and between artists.”
In addition to being inspired by one another to try new techniques or tackle new subjects, the entire community regularly takes on a communal artistic endeavor. One example is the signature piece of the upcoming exhibition, “The Hartbeat.” It’s a large-scale mural that represents the Hartford skyline.
So just what happens when an anonymous canvas appears in the middle of a lively sunlit studio? “Someone will initiate some paint on there, or magic marker,” Galaburri said. “Something wild and spontaneous; a scribble…or someone will throw a little paint on it, or spill something on it, which is good too! And then someone else will come along and add to that, almost like an answer; a response to what’s been done. And then you can respond to that. It kind of builds up like a dialogue.”
"I have learned about selling artwork and getting a paycheck. I feel confident."
Daniel Fiorentino
In therapeutic terms, Galaburri recognizes how this process—a “conversation” that soon fills a blank canvas into a fully realized work-- “is very similar to all kinds of processes you would have in life in general. Like not knowing where you’re going; suddenly you get this direction, and you try this out or you try that out.”
For these artists who live with a range of life challenges and disabilities, learning to make connections between art and life is often the result of tackling a new skill set and taking chances during the creative process.
Artist Daniel Fiorentino, a three-year studio regular, is a champion of that progression. His drawings and paintings represent things he enjoys, especially his interpretations of the beaches on Cape Cod and Florida.
At first, Fiorentino's work began in pencil on a sketchpad only. Now he brings it almost everywhere. Over time, with new techniques and growing confidence, his small drawings have evolved into colorful, acrylic paintings on canvas. This creative growth has allowed him to capture a richer, broader view of the world he so loves; a world he shares through art.
When I asked Fiorentino about his goals as an artist and his outlook on life, it was clear that he is proud of his training, and that the studio’s community really matters. Chatting along side his mentor and teacher, Tara Rogers, Manager of Studio Operations and Education, he described how the Art Connection has taken him beyond technique. “It has helped me in my social life,” he said. “I have met new friends and professionals. I have learned about selling artwork and getting a paycheck. I feel confident.”
Whether it’s with brushes or pencils, or who knows what, for artists like Fiorentino and Colon, the mission of the Art Connection Studio is working. When I asked if art helps people to understand him better, Fiorentino replied: “It does. It helps people to see the way I see the world.”
In this Hartford studio, everyone gets to show the community their world.
If you plan to go:
"Cityscapes: Uncommon and Familiar Beauty Exhibition," Friday, September 26, 4:00 to 8:00 pm, Art Connection Studio, artconnection@vinfen.org.