Making art can be a highly rewarding creative outlet, and two Uptown business owners are working to make that creative outlet available to individuals who might not otherwise have access to it.
Kriss Rogers, owner of Outside Envy, displays and sells art items – some quite splashy – created in three different, unrelated programs for the mentally or developmentally disabled in her store at 15 N. State St.
Just around the corner at 7 W. Main St., artist David Myers recently hosted a summer exhibit in his Myers Art Studio of paintings created by his first class of Parkside Village residents. Parkside has more than 100 independent, assisted living and “memory care” seniors under its roof.
Kriss Rogers
Rogers held executive positions at several large retail companies over the course of 30 years prior to opening Outside Envy six years ago.
The shop, which does most of its business in artistic exterior home decorations, has items from more than 20 artists on display, mostly from Westerville and most on consignment.
Rogers is always on the lookout for new sources of art, but not paintings or drawings; she leans more toward crafted work. She looks for items that inspire a “wow” reaction from store visitors.
“Everything has a little story,” she says. “If you want something a little different, that’s what we try to provide.”
In the course of seeking artistic items for the store, she found out about local programs for the disabled that helped participants create their own artwork. Now, Outside Envy’s offerings include colorful ceramic fan pulls, herb tags, garden totems and bead hangings made by developmentally disabled clients at Sunapple Studio, formerly Studio West, a program in north Columbus supported by the Franklin County Board of Developmental Disabilities.
Contributing to the artistic endeavors of the mentally and physically disadvantaged is a high priority for Rogers. Proceeds from the items they create go directly back to the artists, she says.
The artists, all adults, appreciate the income from sales at Rogers’ store and various festivals where their art is sold, says Marge Crabtree, business manager at Sunapple.
“They’re excited to see something they made on sale,” Crabtree says.
She recalls a moment when one artist, visiting Outside Envy, spotted a customer examining her work and excitedly told Crabtree, “Someone is looking at it!”
Each artist is given a mass of clay to shape and paint however he or she wants. It’s fired in a kiln and then mounted, attached to a chain or string, making it ready for sale. Artists are paid from net proceeds to Sunapple after material costs are deducted.
Rogers’ flashy store ambience includes decorative metal wall hangings and other metal objects created in part by developmentally disabled artists at Passion Works Studio, a nonprofit arts program based in Athens. Rogers shows a “passion flower” made of aluminum petals colorfully painted by participants and assembled by artists who work in the studio. Passion Works’ artists also assemble and finish various pieces of metal, often steel.
Outside Envy has carried items from Passion Works for about five years.
Oakstone Academy, a north Columbus charter school for children with autism spectrum disorders, provides greeting cards decorated with student art on the front. They’re usually blank on the inside, making them suitable for any occasion.
Rogers even had a student intern from Oakstone for several months whose unique memory was useful in organizing and inventorying cards from the school and Sunapple. Eventually, the intern, Erika, was able to prepare invoices, help with displays and occasionally wait on customers.
“She became the whole package,” says Rogers. “I got as much out of it for the store as she did in training.”
Rogers has since had another student intern who helped with displays for a month last summer, and will host more as the school has the need.
David Myers
Myers, who has an undergraduate degree in art from Miami University and a master’s in art therapy from California State University, and his wife, Silvia, chose to raise their now-teenage son, Massillon, and daughter, Cherish, in central Ohio rather than the San Fernando Valley. He had spent 15 years taking art to at-risk teenagers and young people in mental institutions.
After settling in Westerville in 1998, Myers continued doing artwork for clients and began giving private lessons, moving his studio from home to Main Street in 2002. Among his early pupils eight years ago was Joye Tilton, now 90 and still a private student. A wheelchair user, she’s also in the class Myers teaches three Fridays a month at Parkside Village, where she now lives.
It was Tilton who suggested to Katherine Benalcazar, Parkside Village activities director, that the center offer art classes. Benalcazar talked with Myers and decided to offer classes last spring.
Initially, Benalcazar was worried, thinking, “We’ll be lucky to get eight people.” But 15 showed up. The number varies each week.
Myers proudly discusses his students’ work on display. Some students have no art background, and some have eyesight issues, but they still manage to put together some impressive creations.
“What we encourage is just get at it,” Myers says. “Do it. Don’t think about it too much.”
His avenues include playing classical music and asking students to draw something that reflects musical chords. He points to a picture with a few simple lines in two colors, done by a former piano teacher with limited eyesight. Myers gave her one oil pastel “crayon” and urged her to draw what the music inspired. She made a few lines and did more in another color.
Displayed by itself on a table at the store is the simple drawing of a flower, stem and leaves. A visually impaired woman drew it by feeling an artificial flower – “That could be a Picasso,” Myers exudes. Neither had previous visual art training.
On two walls are four large abstract paintings done in a plethora of bright colors, each a group project worked on by eight artists. Myers explains that a canvas is placed on a table and four artists are to paint whatever they want in one corner. Soon enough, the painting is rotated and the artists continue on another corner, usually altering other artists’ work. Finally, the painting is exchanged with one being done on another table in the same fashion. The artists named the largest one Master Doodle.
Often, instructors “want to raise (students) to a certain standard that does not exist,” Myers says. “They want to tell them what is right.”
Myers dismisses that approach: “No great artist appears like any other,” he says.
For seniors, he says, caregivers often focus on what they can’t do.
“Art is a vehicle to bring out what they can do,” Myers says.
Benalcazar says it works. For some, art is a way to pick up where they left off; for others, it’s an encouragement to try something new. Even residents with early Alzheimer’s disease respond.
And their first collection bore fruit. It was moved from Myers’ studio to Parkside for display at a reception and pieces were sold at a silent auction. Proceeds went to the Alzheimer’s Association.
Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@cityscenemediagroup.com.
