Panel members:
Ellen Anderson is a Japanese Canadian, born in 1943, in an internment camp in the interior of B.C. Even as a child she was acutely aware of the boundaries of both race and gender. Her journey into Universal Access started when she found herself the mother of a disabled son, Gabe. He was born in 1970 with Cerebral Palsy and developmental disabilities.
Ellen’s entry into community issues began when the principal of the local school asked her to help create a non-profit day care. Ellen became aware of the needs of working mothers to have safe, affordable daycare. Then one summer a serial rapist started to attack women in her neighbourhood. She helped create a women’s safety organization to educate and address women’s safety issues. Then, she began her work on people with disabilities in order to help her son, Gabe and others like him who cannot speak or advocate for themselves.
Ellen and Gabe’s journey of art and “Universal Accessibility” began 22 years ago when she searched for models of universal access to the arts for people with disabilities. Creative Spirit Art Centre was established in Toronto; to fill a gap in services to people like Gabe. Creative Spirit is dedicated to the integration of adult artists with disabilities into the mainstream arts community. For the last 19 years Ellen and the volunteers of Creative Spirit Art Centre have continued to facilitate the making, exhibition and sales of art by people with both visible and invisible health labels. Creative Spirit is wonderful example of the use of Universal Access as a way of creating a vital creative community.
Jacquie Boughner is a professional artist who has been involved with L’Arche almost 20 years as a friend and board member of L’Arche Daybreak, and L’Arche Ontario. As a Daybreak Pastoral Team member, her homilies are often inspired by core member art and vocation and in 2011 curated the 2011 L’Arche Ontario Art Show at the Lt. Governor’s suite Queens Park featuring 57 artists from nine communities.
She studied at Mount Allison University (BFA) and the British Academy in Rome and her professional background includes curating art shows for public and private galleries, Education director for McLaughlin Art Gallery Oshawa, Curator of Open Studio Print Studio, art consultant for the Ontario Arts Council and on the executive of the Print and Drawing Council of Canada. Awards include Ontario Arts Council photography and arts grants, and Artist in the School grants.
Jennifer is a visual artist and psychotherapist who uses art making and creativity as a means to explore and understand issues of identity and the personal symbolic world within. Since 2003 she has been creating and delivering arts programs in the community with the Learning and Living Through the Arts programs. Some of the organizations she has worked with include the Fred Victor Centre, Sheena’s Place, the Baycrest Centre, New Outlook and L’Arche. She is passionate about helping people to connect with their creativity and believes that the process of art making is inherently healing.
Jennifer received a diploma from the Ontario College of Art where she developed expertise in printmaking, painting and multimedia sculpture. She received a Bachelor of Science from the University of Toronto and went on to complete a Masters Degree in Counselling Psychology from Norwich University in Vermont. In conjunction with her arts facilitation work she runs a private psychotherapy practice in Toronto.
Syrus Marcus Ware is a visual artist, community activist, youth-advocate and educator. He is the Program Coordinator of the Teens Behind the Scenes program in the Education Division of the Art Gallery of Ontario.
As a visual artist, Syrus has been producing visual art in Toronto and Vancouver for the past 12 years. He works within the mediums of painting, installation and performance art to respond to social and civic engagement and to suggest new possibilities for the world in which he lives.
Syrus has a specialist degree in Art History, with a focus in Medieval Art from the University of Toronto and an Honours B.A. in Visual Studies. He is a currently an MA candidate in Sociology and Equity Studies at University of Toronto.
Amanda (Mandy) Wilson is a young artist who lives in Hamilton with her family. She has been a member of the L’Arche Hamilton Day program for just over 7 years.
One of Mandy’s many artistic contributions to the community is her one- of-a –kind birthday cards. Her style is very colourful as she moves between abstract and more representational approaches.
Her work is represented in the 2011 L’Arche Ontario Queens Park art show.
