Making Our Way

Garde Rail Gallery presents Making Our Way, a show of art by adults with disabilites from NIAD (National Institute of Art and Disabilities) in Richmond California, and Barrington Farm, Norfolk, England. Artists will include Samuel Gant, Doreen Poole, Audrey Pickering, James Chilton, Sylvia Fragoso, Leofric Baron, Rosita Pardo, and Roy Colinson.

The show opens, First Thursday, March 4, 1999, from 6 until 9pm. There will be a second Open House on Third Thursday, March 18, 6 until 9pm.

Making Our Way marks a small milestone in Garde Rail Gallery's brief history. Directors Karen Light and Marcus Pina, with the invaluable aid of National Institute of Art and Disabilities (NIAD) curator Rose Kelly, and Barrington Farm curator Jonathan Plumb, have made one of their dream shows come true.

The programs at NIAD in Richmond, California, and at the Barrington Farm Arts Centre in Norfolk, England, are model programs that many centers across the United States and Europe have adopted with tremendous success. These centers allow a creativity and freedom of expression for adults with physical and developmental disabilities that they could not find anywhere else.

The artists are self-taught, having received no formal art training, and their art is, in many ways, true "outsider" art, created outside mainstream culture and society. These centers are staffed by working artists who protect and nurture the creativity of the individuals involved. Their assistance is implied, not enforced, as they offer guidance and support.

NIAD and Barrington Farm each have galleries where work is shown and is available for purchase. Proceeds go to the artists and materials. NIAD has a travelling exhibition called The Creative Spirit that has been on the road since the early 1990's and they have a gallery space in Richmond where they host four shows a year. The Stonington Gallery in Mundesley, England, is just up the road from Barrington Farm and is the showroom as well as the home to a number of artists.