Spotlight / April 2011 / Answering the Call

Answering the Call

Each year, VSA Wisconsin puts out a call to artists with disabilities to submit work for its annual exhibition. And the response is staggering—not only in the number of pieces featured in the show but also in the breadth of styles and amount of talent presented in a single location.

Visual Expressions: A Call for Art Exhibition is held through April 14 at VSA Wisconsin’s new gallery at 1709 Aberg Ave., with a public reception taking place April 16.

A collection of 455 pieces is spread throughout several rooms of the state organization that focuses on arts and disability. The work represents 289 artists from throughout Wisconsin, broken into youth (ages five to fifteen), young adult (ages sixteen to twenty-one) and adult (ages twenty-two and up) sections. Ten works from this juried show go on in Creative Power, VSA’s traveling exhibition.

Much of the work is for sale—with proceeds benefiting the artists and VSA—but all is free to view. And one could spend hours poring over the diverse array of paintings, drawings, photography, collage, stained glass, jewelry, pottery and more.

Here’s a glimpse of a few two-dimensional works on display:

Joyce J. Gust • Temple of Souls #7 • color etching

Jon Pfeiffer • State Street That Great Street • color photograph

Joe Arts • A Building Giving Birth to Another Building • paper collage with acrylic

Phil Schultz • The Clothes Don’t Fit • pencil on paper

Phil Porter • Science Building and Red Gym Right Around the Campus • acrylic on canvas

Lucy Catherine Taylor • Low Tide • pastel

Jeffrey La Dow • Hot Air Balloon • oil on canvas

Nadine Wright • Spirit of the Community Garden • colored pencil on paper

LuAnn Mueller • Mini Me, My Son • vitreous glass on copper, Grisaille enamel

Jerome L. Glenn • He’s a Real Nowhere Man Sitting in his Nowhere Land • mixed media

Visual Expressions runs through April 14. Hours are 12–5 p.m. Mondays, Wednesday and Thursdays and 1–3 p.m. Saturdays. A public reception takes place April 16, 3–5 p.m. For more information, visit vsawis.org.

Photos courtesy of VSA Wisconsin.