1/7/2022
Topic:
Students With Disabilities
Kevin Ball
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One of my students has muscular dystrophy and is confined to a motorized wheel chair. He has limited range of mobility in his ams and in a 2D painting and drawing class where students are asked to draw and paint on large scale surfaces, he is unable. This young man is a passionate artist, though. To accommodate these larger scale assignments, he would create smaller vignettes that, when assembled, would equal the larger scale pieces.
There are no learning, emotional or behavioral disabilities so the creation process is always discussed and adjusted based on the many physical factors. For example, he gets sore as the day goes on and when studio classes are late in the day, he is more immobile. His arms are often aching and dexterity is even more limited in his hands. The supplies we have are thin so we often wrap pencils and brushes in towels to make them thicker and easier to grip. He has also created large scale, abstract works using a shop stick attached to his chair. His class was learning about Matisse's La Danse series where Matisse would use long poles to reach high onto canvases. There was an oil stick affixed to the end of the pole allowing him to reach and make some interesting marks that were completely unique to him. |