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The Special Children’s Art Foundation fosters hope, self-esteem
and community integration by providing children with special needs,
their families and mainstream community members in Los Angeles the
opportunity to engage in socially inclusive mural art projects.
The Special Children’s Art Foundation develops mural projects
at any Los Angeles County school with a special education component,
thereby bringing opportunities to access the arts directly to where
youth with special needs spend a large part of their day. The Special
Children’s Art Foundation will work with elementary through
high school campuses and strives to include in each project as many
youth with special-needs as possible from within the community chosen
as the mural site. We encourage all families, teachers and classroom
aids to have their children participate regardless of type or severity
of disability.
Mural projects are painted on campus both during and after school
hours and then installed in schools or other sites chosen by a community.
Adult volunteers and older non-special needs students partner with
and assist youth with disabilities and other special needs in painting
the murals. Our volunteers have worked successfully with youth affected
by Rett Syndrome, Cerebral Palsy, Williams Syndrome, Muscular Dystrophy
and Autism, to name a few. By painting together, students with disabilities
and their mainstream peers gain a better understanding of one another
while contributing to public art that leaves a lasting mark on their
school or community.
Our objective in 2008 is to further increase the number and reach
of our mural projects by expanding our direct collaboration with
local public schools and school districts in Los Angeles County.
In addition to single-site mural projects, we are developing mobile
mural components that can be painted at various schools within a
school district during in class and after-school painting parties,
and then assembled at a final location. By taking the art to multiple
schools within a community, we are able to involve a far greater
number of students with special needs and mainstream students.
The Special Children’s Art Foundation began in 1998 as one
man’s effort to contribute colorful and motivational art to
his daughter’s therapeutic and educational environment at
Valley View Elementary School in North Los Angeles County. This
first mural attracted incredible in-kind and volunteer support from
community members and more importantly, it allowed both the children
with special needs and mainstream children attending the school
direct participation in enlivening their daily landscape. Though
initially intended as a one-time volunteer project, the absence
of creative arts opportunities for children with physical, mental
or behavioral disabilities in Los Angeles prompted the incorporation
of the Special Children’s Art Foundation as a nonprofit organization
in 1999. The need for this program is more pronounced than ever
given today’s landscape of art programming cutbacks and the
continuing scarcity of cultural enrichment programs that benefit
youth with special needs or disabilities. According to 2005-2006
DataQuest statistics, there were nearly 185,000 youth (11% of the
total student body) attending public schools in Los Angeles County
who were classified as special education students due to a physical,
mental or behavioral disorder.
The Special Children’s Art Foundation develops murals designs
simple enough to be painted by children of various skill levels
and the supervision necessary to achieve the finished look of a
professional mural.
We utilize custom-built adaptive easels that bring the mural panels
to a level reachable for both children who can stand and those who
are wheelchair bound. While some of the children with special needs
can hold a brush and paint with minimal assistance, peer tutors
and volunteers shadow the more severely disabled with hand-over-hand
techniques. We have found this to be the most successful strategy
for inclusion as each child with special-needs socially interacts
with a peer while producing a piece of art that is bigger than anything
they could accomplish alone. With the more severely disabled children,
it takes two peer tutors/volunteers to assist - one holding the
paint while the other helps with hand-over-hand techniques. For
severely autistic youth or those with extreme behavioral issues,
we adjust all sensory inputs - keeping surrounding music, conversation
and activity to a minimum until a child is adjusted to the environment.
Once comfortable, a youth will slowly be introduced to the painting
materials – “painting” first with water and then
eventually with paints and a volunteer at his side.
The ease or difficulty of integrating students without disabilities
into our projects depends on how much experience they have had with
youth with special needs in the past. If the students are or have
been “peer tutors”, they already recognize and know
how to respond to a variety of different handicaps. Those without
such experience are prepared in advance – they are told what
to expect and how to interact with special needs students. After
initial introductions, student pairs are supervised closely until
they are settled into the work. Some of the more severely challenged
children are content to watch their peer tutors or volunteers paint
for them. Mural design also provides a great opportunity to involve
students at an early stage. Coordinating with art teachers at local
schools, we recruit “at-risk” students – those
close to being expelled for fighting or other behavioral issues.
Rather than the usual detention or school clean-up duties, we seek
the school administrators’ approval to have these students
help us design the murals. This collaboration provides them with
art education, teamwork skills, and community service while they
work off their academic violations.
Marc Kolodziejczk, Executive
Director
Marc earned his BFA in Film and Television from the Art Center College
of Design, in Pasadena, California. His intrinsic eye for color
and ingenuity has allowed him to engage in numerous facets of the
Art field. Prior to becoming a freelance designer and colorist in
2001, Marc worked in the Film and Theme Park Industry for over twelve
years. As an Art Director at Universal Studios Hollywood, he was
responsible for four of the most popular attractions at the Theme
Park as well as for the overall look of City Walk. As senior Show
Artisan for Walt Disney Imagineering, Marc directed the paint efforts
on four major Disneyland attractions. He has served as Executive
Director of the Special Children’s Art Foundation since 2004.
This position presents a great opportunity for him to further the
Foundation’s mission and positively impact the special needs
community. Marc is an avid participant in his children’s education
and extra curricular activities. He is artist manager for his 18-year-old
son’s jazz band and Pure Waterfall Publishing Company. Marc
is also an active parent advocate for his 16-year-old special needs
daughter, who was born with Rett Syndrome, and through whom came
the inspiration to start the Special Children’s Art Foundation.
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