Miss-Delectable

Disabled artists showcase their work | courierpostonline.com | Courier-Post

Visitors who go to offices at the Burlington County Human Services Building often are experiencing hardships and go there seeking job, senior citizen or homeless assistance.

The walls in the spacious lobby used to be bare but now are decorated with artwork by artists who have experienced physical hardships.

In honor of National Disabilities Awareness Month, the Burlington County Board of Freeholders for the first time has sponsored an art show by two deaf artists and one blind artist.

"Sometimes the simplest things, such as art hanging on the wall or background music can make a person with troubles feel better, so perhaps this exhibit will be inspiring to all who enter," said Joyce Goldsmith, coordinator of the county division of cultural affairs and tourism.

More than three dozen works are on display.

Featured deaf artist Tachief "Chief" Pollard of Willingboro, 18, paints a wide range of subjects from basketball to self-portraits in bright, vivid colors. He also has some black-and-white works.

The Burlington County Institute of Technology honor roll student said one of his paintings was inspired by Pablo Picasso.

"I feel like a celebrity," Pollard said of the county exhibit of his work. "I just love art.

His mother, Tracey, said he has had profound to severe hearing loss since he was a toddler but was always drawing, possibly because both of his parents are artistic as well.

"I told him as a boy to concentrate hard on his subjects and visualize every line," she said.

Pollard said he plans to attend Rochester Institute of Technology in New York and major in graphic design.

Blind artist Delores B. Smith of Palmyra said she has never had her work displayed before and was excited not only about that but about meeting the two deaf artists.

Always blind in one eye, she said she has lost nearly all vision in the other, causing her to switch from drawing to sculpture in recent years, using mediums like clay, plaster of Paris and paper mache. A sculpted Indian head and an Oscar the Grouch sculpture are the result of special classes she is taking at the Philadelphia Museum of Art for artists with disabilities, she said.

"It hasn't affected my thinking about about my art, but there is only so much you can do with little vision as far as perfection in expressing yourself," said Smith.

She said she thought the exhibit was an opportunity to let people know what one can do with the desire to create, despite having a vision problem.

"What's really nice today is that there is help for kids with disabilities," she said. "When I was in school there was not much help for those with disabilities."

Other whimsical as well as realistic colored pencil art on display is by the youngest featured artist, Christian Placencia, a sixth-grade student at the Moorestown Program for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Children.

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