About the Author:
Tim Lefens is the founder of A.R.T. (Artistic Realization Techniques); he lives in Belle Mead, New Jersey.
From Publishers Weekly:
In the early '90s, Lefens, a painter, goes to the Metheny School for students with cerebral palsy and other disabilities to show slides of his work. As this intensely moving memoir shows, he becomes obsessed with finding ways to help students, who are in wheelchairs and have no use of their arms or hands, learning to express themselves, devising methods that allow them the freedom to paint. Carefully maneuvering wheelchairs over tinted acrylic produces excellent results, they find, and a laser attached to a welder's helmet can direct a surrogate precisely where to apply the paint to a canvas. His students thrive: some begin speaking more frequently; others experience improvements in their physical well-being. Lefens founds Artistic Realizations Technologies (A.R.T.) to insure these techniques are used by others. Student work becomes so noted that they get gallery showings, sell their paintings and are the subject of a CBS Evening News special. There are obstacles along the way: it is a struggle to get A.R.T. funded; dismissive sentimentalism (and even resentment) is often shown by teachers, administrators, social workers and therapists confronting the work and students. Lefens writes simply and clearly throughout, remaining focused on the students and the task at hand. "The idea," he tells them, "is not to struggle to do things the way that able-bodied people do. The idea is to make art."
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