Talent, not disability, comes first at 'real inclusion' Art Access

SALT LAKE CITY — John Hess is a premier fiber artist. Peter Scott Stone never erases anything. He is the perfect draftsman, and Jose Hernandez Lopez is an artist of spectacular talent, says Ruth Lubbers, executive director of Art Access since 1993.

Lopez uses elastic from underwear and socks to create his macrame projects — about all he had during his time in prison.

When it comes to Very Special Arts of Utah, or Art Access, as the nonprofit organization is more commonly known in Utah, "real inclusion" is paramount to the success of Art Access no matter who you are.

It doesn't matter if you're young, middle-aged, elderly. Or blind, sighted, autistic, mentally ill.

It doesn't matter if you're a poor college student trying to "beef up" a portfolio or a refugee.

What matters most is that you love art. In fact, the more you enjoy art, the better.

At Art Access, "there's no such thing as routine; every day and everyone is outstanding," says Lubbers, who suggests that those she has met with schizophrenia would stay in bed all day if not for the arts. She is happy to provide them with an opportunity.

Soon after the first Art Access Gallery started on Pierpont Avenue in 1991, both the PARTNER'S Mentoring Program and the Teen Workshop Program were developed, two of 11 successful art programs still in motion today.

As the programs grew, so did the community interest and need for a bigger place. Today, the gallery is located at 230 S. 500 West, and the building's size has almost doubled from 1,500 to 2,800 square feet.

Various awards were received by the gallery before the move including the first Image Award from the Disability Law Center, a prestigious award that honored the company's philosophy of inclusion: "Artists with disabilities are talented artists first."

What's most important to Lubbers is that artists be taken at their artistic value and that no one is labeled incapable because of their disability.

Stereotyping is simply not on her to-do list.

"I want the art to stand out on its own," she says.

And it has.

Since 1991, when the first gallery was offered as one of the many programs at Art Access, many teachers as well as students have come to the gallery to learn and to grow wiser by the learning.

Travis Hulbert, who suffered a brain injury when he was small and then again in 1999 from whooping cough, had difficulties returning to art, though he had been a participant in the Teen Workshop Program for the previous two years.

"After his last brain injury, he was practically nonfunctioning," says his mother, Carolyn. Working with others within Art Access has really helped him, she says.