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VSA South Carolina takes the arts to every corner of the state

by Jeffrey Day

 

This spring, special needs students in South Carolina worked with a well-known artist to create scarves, handbags and other crafted fabrics. The students then showed and sold their creations at a Charleston-areas arts festival.

 

“It was electrifying,” said Arianne King-Comer, the artist who led the project for VSA South Carolina.

 

At the VSA International Festival at the Kennedy Center in June, VSA South Carolina was honored for this and other educational programs. VSA South Carolina won the Award in Excellence in Educational Programming for its outreach to citizens with disabilities.

 

LaMondre Pough, chairman of VSA South Carolina, said the award was only a surprise because the South Carolina organization is so small.

 

“We have a one-person staff and many groups around the country have a big staff and a $2 or $3 million budget,” said Pough of Columbia. “We succeeded because of good collaborations and a lot of sweat equity. It’s about heart, soul and dedication.”

 

The 20th anniversary of the Americans With Disability Act, which prohibits discrimination against people with disabilities in employment, transportation, public accommodation, communications, and governmental activities, is being celebrated around the country July 26. VSA South Carolina will have a big role in that.

 

So just what is VSA? Julia Brown, executive director of VSA South Carolina gets this question often.

 

“You’ve heard of the Special Olympics haven’t you?” she asked. “VSA is the Special Olympics for the arts.”

 

VSA (formerly Very Special Arts) is an international organization serving people with disabilities through the arts. VSA-South Carolina was honored for its many arts education projects around the state that promote an inclusive classroom environment for students with disabilities and the general student population.

 

One such project took place at several Charleston County middle and high schools, involved six artists, 600 students and indirectly reached 3,000 students. The component at West Ashley High School had students working with visual artist Arianne King-Comer of Charleston to create scarves, handbags and other fabric items using batik, a fabric dying technique. The students then exhibited and sold the artworks at the North Charleston Mayfest: Art Crawl.

 

This wasn’t just a one-time opportunity for the students: the school will offer two classes as part of a course of study. VSA South Carolina proposes to empower the students by setting up a business – Memento Viviere (Forever Living) – through which the students will learn more about the craft and sell batik items to raise money for their schools and VSA South Carolina.

 

King-Comer, who studied batik-making in Nigeria, said the project brought out the best in all the students involved.

 

“It was a magical moment when you saw the special needs and the gifted students all rally together,” she said. “It was electrifying every day.”

 

The West Ashley High School project involved students with special needs and those without.

 

“The experience was amazing for the non-disabled students as well,” Brown said. “Many of them talked about how they wanted to go on to college and teach special needs students in the future.”

 

VSA South Carolina has also partnered for many years with the S.C. School for the Deaf and Blind to create art for a calendar featuring special needs student nationwide. VSA South Carolina also collaborates with EdVenture Children’s Museum in Columbia each September, bringing in drummers, dancers, actors and visual artists to offer programs for young people with disabilities.

 

Kimberly Ward, director of the Healing Arts Program for the Spartanburg Regional Foundation, began working with VSA South Carolina last year. The partnership allowed the Healing Arts Program to serve some of the most severely-disabled clients who didn’t regularly have an opportunity to participate in arts programs.

 

“There’s a real need for them to experience the arts,” said Ward, whose organization works with many others in the Upstate. “It helps the participants on so many levels from the physical to the emotional. You see the self esteem and empowerment it brings to them.”

 

VSA South Carolina reaches every part of the state.

 

The S.C. Center for Dance, Columbia College and Ridgeview High School present programs each August with VSA South Carolina.

 

For “Accessapalooza,” Anderson County Arts Council members, Anderson County Department of Disabilities and Special Needs board members, and employees of a national corporate sponsor who have cognitive disabilities received arts instruction and the opportunity to exhibit their work at Anderson County Arts Council.

 

“Rhythm of the Beat: Diverse-ability,” a drumming and dancing residency with African-American, Native American, and other dance forms throughout the state is being developed.

 

Last year, VSA South Carolina worked with Eau Claire High School in Columbia to help students create a play titled “Mr. Ephriam” about people with disabilities.

 

“The students interviewed disabled people from the community and the play was submitted for competition to VSA International,” Brown said. “I thought that would be the end of the project, but the class decided to turn it into their spring musical.”

 

A young South Carolina artist was the biggest winner in an annual award given by VSA-International. In 2007 Jacolby Satterwhite, a graduate of Eau Claire High School and the S.C. Governor’s School for the Arts and Humanities in Greenville, won the $20,000 prize, and his art was shown at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Satterwhite has earned a bachelor of fine arts degree from Maryland Institute of Art, a master of fine arts from the University of Pennsylvania and just won a summer residency at the prestigious Skowhegan School of the Arts in Maine.