Despite an alarming top-down national trend to the contrary, inclusion is a good thing. An inclusive mindset — where all really means all — does two things, simultaneously acknowledging our differences and our sameness. It also advances the idea that we are stronger when there is more, not less. More connectivity. More empathy. More awareness.
Awareness, empathy and connectivity go hand-in-hand at a new Chase Gallery exhibition, titled "Outsider Art: Bridging the Disability Divide Through Art."
The exhibition runs through the month of March, federally recognized as Developmental Disabilities Awareness Month since 1987. That's when then-President Ronald Reagan and the National Association of Councils on Developmental Disabilities collaborated to raise "public awareness of the needs and the potential of Americans with developmental disabilities," including autism spectrum disorders, hearing and vision impairment, and cerebral palsy.
"Outsider Art" features works by local and regional artists, including those affiliated with Side by Side, a faith-based organization supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, as well as students from University High School.
James Frye, a Central Valley High School alumnus whom the Inlander featured in 2012 and again in 2016, has eight pieces in the exhibition.
Now 31, Frye is a prolific artist who's recently exhibited at Chrysalis Gallery in Spokane and Emerge in Coeur d'Alene. His work is instantly recognizable, echoing the kinds of electric colors and graphic stylings that made 1960s-era Bay Area illustrator Peter Max a household name.
Like Max, Frye derives inspiration from music, he says. A piece titled "Strawberry Pyramids Whatsoever," for example, reflects his love of the Beatles, as well as his research into Egyptian culture.
Frye got into art as a 17-year-old in Sue Mihalic's pottery class at Central Valley, but his artistic sensibilities go back further, according to his mother, Wendy Frye.
"We asked him once how he puts his colors together, and he said he could hear them," relays Wendy, who's also her son's business manager. "We didn't know that's a thing until a year later."
Frye, who is on the autism spectrum, is one of the rarified 2 to 4% of all humans who experiences synesthesia, where senses — in his case hearing and vision — blend.
"[James] likes computer work because it's not tactically annoying," Wendy says. His dream, she adds, is "to be an experimental animator for adults."
The prospect of a career in the arts might seem like a long shot for someone with a developmental or intellectual disability, but it's not, says the Chase exhibition's co-organizer, Posie Kalin.
"Outsider Art" also features work by professional artists who happen to have disabilities hailing from Portland-based North Pole Studio and Seattle's Vibrant Palette.
"[Art] is a career path that is a really vital source of income for these artists," Kalin says.
Kalin sees her role in the show's development as more of a facilitator and credits Spokane artist Rolf Goetzinger with its impetus.
Goetzinger, whose daughter Ellie is also participating in "Outsider Art," is the founder of Art Beyond Limits, a nonprofit that supported people with intellectual and physical disabilities.
Although Beyond Limits became defunct in the chaos of 2020, "its vision never died," says Goetzinger, who patterned the nonprofit after the Creative Growth Art Center. Founded 50 years ago, the Creative Growth Art Center supports more than 140 artists with disabilities, providing materials and a dedicated space to paint, draw, do woodworking, make ceramics and more. Goetzinger visited the center in 2016 while working on a mural in Northern California and was inspired.
"I said, 'I just really felt like we need something like that here in Spokane,'" he says.
Kalin agrees. She envisions additional collaborations to support artists with disabilities, including one under the auspices of her new gig as executive director of Spark Central, the creative learning center based in Kendall Yards.
"We have a lot of changes that are happening, and we are working on our studio center to offer a place for artists with disabilities to connect," she says.
In the meantime, Kalin and Goetzinger hope the Chase Gallery exhibition does what its title suggests: bridges the divide.
"It's really inspiring in how, while there's so many, maybe, barriers" for people with disabilities, Kalin says, their work is at the same time "limitless in its ability to connect with the viewer in ways that you wouldn't normally consider."
For his part, Goetzinger hopes viewers come away from the showcase with a renewed understanding of the artwork and its makers.
"Just to kind of look at art for art's sake and not label 'disability art' or such-and-such art, but art in its very raw form," Goetzinger says.
As for the artists themselves, he has high hopes for them as well.
"There's a community out there that often gets unmotivated, and [yet] there's a place for them in the arts community," he says. "We just all need to do this together." ♦
Outsider Art: Bridging the Disability Divide Through Art • March 7-31; open Mon-Fri from 8 am-5 pm • Chase Gallery at Spokane City Hall • 808 W. Spokane Falls Blvd. • spokanearts.org • 509-321-9416
SPARKING CONNECTIONS
Posie Kalin, Spark Central's new executive director, is an ideal fit to lead the Spokane organization with a mission to ignite "the creativity, innovation, and imagination necessary for people to forge the path to their best future."
Known for her collaborative and community-based art practice, Kalin's background spans a wide range of visual and performing arts. Her artist-in-residencies, for example, include a youth mural project in Haiti; printmaking in Guanajuato, Mexico; three years with Los Angeles high school students exploring filmmaking; and most recently, a Spokane Arts grant-funded project with Pratt Academy High School students integrating art and science.
"For me, it's about the philosophical perspective of what I'm trying to explore and the physical means in which I do that," Kalin explains.
"I look at where I am today as sort of the aesthetics of creative interdependence," she says, adding that for her, it's also about figuring out what that looks like "as an artist, as a leader, as an advocate." ♦
