Spring 2002
What do we mean creativity? And how does Sense harness it in its work? Francesca Wolf explores…
"Creativity is the defeat of habit by originality," said Arthur Koestler. This seems a good starting point, for the attributes of creativity include, perhaps, looking at things in new ways, making fresh connections, taking risks and following the unexpected. Habit, routine, stock responses, are its opposite, for creativity tends to be unpredictable, not always rational, often spontaneous.
Above all, it is not something confined to a chosen few. In essence, we all have creative potential, though some access it more easily than others, and some need help in realising it. Neither is it limited to certain "creative" activities - all sorts of things such as gardening, cooking and teaching can be creative when approached in an open way.
A new song
In the past, deafblind people were often given run-of-the mill repetitive tasks labelled "creative", but there is a movement, both within and outside Sense, towards a different approach. One exponent of this is Debbie Wilford, Sense East's Leisure Officer, who has been doing interesting work in the field of dance, drama, movement and visual art.
Debbie has a hearing impairment which gives her additional insight into the people she works with, most of whom have dual sensory impairments and, often, additional disabilities as well. Her philosophy is always to begin with the individual - "Creativity is so individual," she says.
Debbie runs structured weekly sessions in creative dance and movement, art and drama. She feels that groups should be consistent and the environment familiar: "People need a safe environment in order to play and be spontaneous," she says. Yet her creative dance group is diverse: "I work with six people who wouldn't normally interact at all. Some speak, some sign, some do neither. But through dance they use a form of communication which is important to all of them. And music is a good way of bringing people together."
They begin by moving down a large hall holding hands to get a sense of the space they are working in. Choreography develops slowly: "Someone might break away and run round the room, so we keep that and repeat it," says Debbie. A dance being developed at the moment, "Time Travel", uses colours to suggest movements and white mats with numbers like a clock.
"Alan - who likes order - enjoys placing mats round the room. The people move round and stop on the mats where they meet each other. This encourages contact, trust, unthreatening communication and fun - something that often doesn't happen for this group," says Debbie. "It also enables participants to develop their own creative movements, to communicate through touch, to feel equal and accepted.
"Everyone is included," she adds. "One lady sits in the centre in her wheelchair. She has tunnel vision and can't move her legs but makes beautiful arm movements. Within her view is a red mat and when people land there they raise their arms in greeting. If they don't, she does it - like a director telling them what comes next."
Learning to take risks
Another group of service users participate in weekly visual art sessions. Here too, conditions need to be established to allow spontaneity for, as says Debbie, "a blank piece of paper can be terrifying for them. They have spent so much time doing things where there's a 'correct way'." Anne de Voil, a Sense consultant, agrees: "They need confidence to break out of the strait-jacket of having to get it right."
Materials are also important and Debbie provides professional and interesting options - oils, acrylics, chalks, pastels - which encourage visual and tactile exploration and allow participants to play with and enjoy them. But she also believes that "they need to be taught how to use these materials. You ask: 'Has this person learnt to apply acrylics? Mix colours? Use chalks?"'
Often they start from a structure. For example, Debbie supplies a dark grid which they move across a large piece of paper, drawing or painting in the spaces. She then nudges them forward by taking away the grid and suggesting they drop paint on the paper (in a Jackson Pollock way) as they move it around. The resulting paintings are totally different.
"Art allows people to tolerate difference, experience less order, see that things can be varied and it's not the end of their world," says Debbie. "It's a gradual process and sometimes you try everything until you hit the spot, but encouraging individuals to make choices - which can be hard for some - and to take risks, is very important." So is pleasure. "You have to find out whether it's something they want to do (rather than feel they ought to do) " says Debbie. "The process is as important as the product."
Overall, Debbie feels that creative work with service users has enormous benefits. Sense's Person Centred Planning Process identifies those likely to enjoy it and there is much discussion about what choice of activity they might make. The challenges include thinking things through from each person's perspective and finding a common denominator in diverse groups so all can be included.
"It's neither simply art for art's sake nor simply therapy - though it sometimes spans the two, " says Debbie. "The key thing is empowerment and allowing individuals to express themselves in any way that works and be responded to - so it's primarily about communication."
Pioneers in the arts
Sense Scotland has a thriving arts development programme which boasts an Arts Development Officer, Patricia McGowan, Visual Arts, Music and Drama Tutors, an Arts Administrator and two Project Workers.
Here, too, the arts are seen as having both therapeutic and creative benefits - as a means of self expression, communicating and exploring thoughts and feelings, and also as a way of developing confidence, skills, pleasure and the joy of achievement.
Patricia McGowan says that drama can help resolve emotional issues: "Something that may have been a problem can be explored within a dramatic aesthetic environment and be resolved, or put into perspective." And drama and music can encourage interaction from one disabled person to another - which may normally only happen through a care worker.
"This could mean, for example, " she says, "using music as 'call and response' - one person makes two beats on a drum and the other responds with two beats. That's interaction and communication.
"Some people vocalise even if they can't verbalise and we can encourage creativity by giving value to their vocalisations. So they might make a sound into a microphone, have effects added, and then it comes out through an amplifier. We use what individuals are capable of, recognise it as communication and give it value - using encouragement, and technology. Service users see that people are interested in the sound they make rather than being scared of it and - and it's fun too!"
Remarkable talent
Visual art in a variety of mediums - paintings, prints, sculpture, 3d, tapestry, textiles - is another strand of Sense Scotland's work and some remarkable and distinctive pieces have been produced. "The artwork created by deafblind people comes from a unique perspective and this honest and uninhibited approach can result in a purity of creative expression," says Patricia.
Artwork produced by Sense service users has reached an extremely high standard and there have been many public exhibitions including one called "Glasgow and its People" at the St Mungo Museum, Glasgow. This was put on by the smart project ("Sense Motivating Art") which was formed to develop the abilities of a group of more established visual artists and to enable Sense clients to develop as artists within their own right.
Sense Scotland's Helen Keller Award is given for the most inspiring submission in any art medium on the theme of deafblindness. Non-professional artists, including those with a dual sensory impairment, are judged alongside professional artists and many of the former have received commendations and awards from the independent judges.
Other Sense Scotland initiatives include an arts development training programme, and a three-year arts project called "SAM" ("Sensing Art and Music"), for deafblind people. Professional and disabled artists will collaborate in visual arts and music workshops as well as public exhibitions and performances and the programme will encourage an inclusive approach by further breaking down barriers between the arts and disability communities.
It's an exciting area. As Oliver Sachs says, "Creativity … involves the power to originate, to break away from existing ways of looking at things, to move freely in the realm of the imagination…" Certainly recent approaches within Sense have been about opening doors rather than following rules, and the process of exploration can be illuminating for all.
A passion for percussion
Thomas Knight, age 9, is passionate about music. His mother, Jane explains…
"Music, for Thomas, is a means of communication. If he's happy, he sings, if he's angry he'll bash the drums or other percussion instruments. It's how he expresses himself.
Thomas is blind, has severe listening difficulties and autistic tendencies - and although he has some speech, it is stilted. So he tells us what's really going on through music. From a young age he bashed saucepans, tins, and at Sense's Woodside Centre had his first experience of percussion instruments. He was one. We still visit in school holidays and he heads straight for the music corner. We also have lots of instruments at home including keyboards, drums, bells, tambourines and triangles. Thomas loves his music tapes and is always singing along to them.
From the age of six to eight he had music therapy with Michelle Scott, a fantastic therapist with loads of energy. She concentrated on what he wanted and let him lead - they were on the same wavelength. According to Michelle, Thomas has perfect pitch. He can sing a note, go to the piano and play the same note. Sometimes Thomas made up a tune in his head and sang it, then he'd pick out the notes on the piano (without being taught), and compose a basic left hand too. Next he'd transpose it into different keys. Meanwhile, he'd expect Michelle to keep up and make an accompaniment. By the end of the session she was exhausted!
Today he has 17 keyboards, each with its own name such as Big Keyboard, Bang Bang Keyboard, Busy Bee Keyboard, 1,2,3, Keyboard. He loves these. He has an amazing sense of rhythm so we've decided to buy him a proper drum kit for his birthday. My husband, Ian, and Thomas have drumming conversations: he'll tap a rhythm on the table and Thomas will copy him .
Maybe it's in the genes. I play piano and violin and my husband is a drummer, so it's a musical household. But whatever the cause, music makes Thomas happy. That and trampolining - which he's also passionate about - are his life."
Vibrant colour
Lewis Scott is a talented young artist living in Glasgow. He has exhibited work throughout Scotland and in Portugal and won first prize in the 1995 Helen Keller Award arts competition, followed by a commendation in 1998. He is currently a member of smart - Sense motivating art.
Lewis has worked in many mediums but has particular enthusiasm for drawing and painting, particularly in oils and acrylics. His subject matter ranges from still life and portraiture to emotions and experiences in his life. Lewis's paintings have a vibrancy of colour and due to his visual impairment he often works on a large scale: the effect is striking.
"From the Senses"
Sense recently collaborated with Artlink East and the Firebird Trust who brought in Isabel Jones (artistic director of the Salamanda Tandem company) and Duncan Chapman in a project combining movement, music, sound, visual art and film.
It all started when Debbie Wilford, Sense East's Leisure Officer, noticed how Andrew, a service user in her dance class, was fascinated by white room dividers and changing light patterns. She shared this with Lee Sass, artistic director of Artlink, who devised, funded and co ordinated the project and built an installation based on this. Isabel Jones was bought in on the movement side and Duncan Chapman worked on sound.
Lee built portable 12-foot-high structures from soft white plastic. The people in Debbie's dance class moved around these structures which provided focus, privacy, and an element of surprise. Stage lights were bounced off the shapes and Debbie and Isabel observed closely each individual's movements and reactions to the shapes and light.
Isabel, a choreographer and improviser, says, " Rather than suggesting movements, we worked with those the deafblind people brought, using them as choreographic language. For example, if someone was lying on the floor, I would too, and we might both begin to rock …
"Sound was important. Each participant had a microphone and a speaker on their lap or stomach. They made sounds into the mike and could feel the vibrations through the speaker. Having felt their own voice they started improvising. Duncan, a composer who works electro-acoustically, fed their sounds into a larger environment and we got the floor to vibrate as well - there was a massive bass speaker you could feel through the floorboards."
Another element was colour. Theatre gels were used and each service user selected a colour as their main colour theme. Yet another was film. Lee filmed the workshops and this was subsequently edited to find moments when each individual came through strongly.
The installation, " From the Senses", was presented at Stamford Arts Centre. Its long window was gelled in dark blue and red so light came through in coloured shafts. The white structures had been transformed by Lee into four-foot -high pods, like huge eyes, and when the viewer looked down into each eye there was a television in the centre, featuring a video of one person from the group. Each was on loop of about five minutes: you would see the individual dancing, moving, then pure colour - their favourite colour - would come onto the screen.
Isabel's father was deaf and blind and he inspires her work. " People don't sufficiently appreciate the creativity of those who are deafblind. They just see the deficit," she says. "But we all need alternative modes of communication that cross boundaries of culture, race and things that get in the way of something more universal. As human beings we all need a multisensory way of working. "
:
Artlink, The Firebird Trust and Salamanda Tandem all seek to integrate disabled or disadvantaged people into their work which nurtures creativity not limited by social preconceptions.
Artlink Tel: 01476 592284 www.artlink.org.uk
The Firebird Trust Tel: Salamanda Tandem Tel: 0115 942 0706. www.salamanda-tandem.org
Sally's Story
Sally, who is 39, has been with Sense East since 1986. She has cognitive disabilities and is dual sensory impaired although she has sight in one eye and can hear percussion, rhythm and loud noises.
Sally used to be extremely anxious, and found communicating her needs very difficult. Today, however, she is different. She uses many avenues of communication - sign, mime, gesture, written word, drawing - and is often described as "exuberant" or "spontaneous." Many people have participated in Sally's development, and creative activities have played a significant part.
In early art sessions,Sally used to repeatedly draw the dog she had as a child, or a house, indicating she wanted to go home. But latterly her scope has increased enormously as well as confidence in using many different materials: one recent work included sequin thread, glass beads, glass paints and a mirror; another used a CD on a painted background which was then scattered with sand in vibrant yellow and fluorescent pink. Sally has exhibited artwork in the Peterborough Museum and other exhibitions and recently had a picture commissioned.
Sally's increasing ability to communicate and realise ideas has been harnessed in drama and creative dance sessions where she also helps other participants become involved. Drama is an excellent avenue for expressing feelings with the added benefit of an enthusiastic participating audience.
She enjoys both country and creative dance. In the former she has learnt to move in time with a partner through a series of consistent steps; in the latter she has explored and developed her own unique style of movement.
All this, together with work in other fields, has transformed Sally. Tension and anxiety have been replaced by poise and energy and Sally today is happier, more relaxed and, says her tutor, "supremely confident."
