VISUAL ARTS
Painting the World of COVID-19 Artists at Project Onward are destigmatizing developmental disabilities— and during a global pandemic, they are also building an online community
BY JOCELYN VEGA
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ack in February, everyone at Project Onward’s studio shifted from their workstations and huddled for a group meeting to discuss the novel coronavirus possibly appearing in the United States. Then, the details of COVID-19 were highly unknown, but the disability arts organization’s artists and staff tried to address the uncertainty of what might come. Some artists, wishing for the best, hoped that the Bridgeport studio, open for sixteen years, wouldn’t shut down, even if the artists had access to materials at home. Half a year later, the studio’s workstations have long been still, but its artistic capacity is far from that. As a studio and gallery space, Project Onward’s mission is to support the emotional wellbeing and growth of professional artists with developmental disabilities and mental health needs, through free artist-in-residence and art entrepreneurship programs. Project Onward not only addresses professional barriers its
often marginalized members face to work in artistic fields, but it also removes cost barriers for artists who are low income. Each member artist is given studio access with gallery space, art supplies to maintain their unique portfolios, and individualized mentorship. With what Project Onward describes as their “visual voice[s],” member artists are destigmatizing mental illness and developmental disabilities—and during a global pandemic, they are also building an online community by developing programming to approach and reflect with artists. With a staff of five, this nonprofit has kept going to support its fifty artists. The studio has curated several online exhibitions, events, and weekly artist highlights while navigating the stress of keeping their virtual doors open. Project Onward transitioned from global uncertainty to microconsistency by centering artists’ presence and the connections between art and life in virtual spaces.
"COVID-19", BY ALLEN MCNAIR, COURTESY OF PROJECT ONWARD
22 SOUTH SIDE WEEKLY
¬ SEPTEMBER 16, 2020
In the introduction to its current “Cause and Affect” exhibition, the studio stated, “Project Onward has a distinct relationship to the events of 2020. The neurodiverse nature of our artist community greatly impacts their perceptions of and responses to national and global crises....Our artists have chosen to document and comment on both the extremity of what has passed this year and what they hope the rest of the year can bring.” “[There is a] love to make artwork and the need to make artwork and to show people how talented these artists are.... Their work is just as great as anything on the commercial level of art today or fine arts in Chicago,” said Robyn Jablonski, Project Onward’s studio manager for the past nine years.
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hen visiting the studio before COVID-19, you could see workstations or “cubbies” that mirrored each artist’s unique and contrasting styles, like Elizabeth Barren’s glamorous mixed media and Blake Lenoir’s zigzagged color pencils on their desks. There was Sereno Wilson pouring cascading amounts of green glitter, and Fernando Ramirez holding sharp eye contact with his ongoing piece, and Julius Bautista painting in an electric realist style. You might also have met Ryan Tepich in the kitchen; Safiya Hameed, known as the “Princess of Project Onward”; or Franklin Armstrong, described as “our news man” for his penchant for sharing the daily news, walking along the busy studio space. Together, the artists were tracing knowledge through artistic windows connecting their world to others. From the compassionate exchange of ideas between artists asking for advice from their studio neighbors to laughter from conversations, Project Onward’s not just facilitating the production of art—it’s also building a community. Many of the artists are self-taught, and they have come to Project Onward from a multitude of lived experiences. Before
joining Project Onward in 2008, Tony Davis sold drawings outside Union Station that interpreted “his own life” in the Chicago Housing Authority’s ABLA Homes development on the West Side. Some artists have known each other their entire lives, like the Juguilon brothers, or grammar school best friends David Holt and Jackie Cousins Oliva. Many artists have also maintained a partnership/life journey with art that started in their youth, as a way of processing their experiences. “I started drawing because I didn’t know how to say what I thought. I was only three years old, and the blue ink pen was the only thing I could find after a traumatic event,” said Keturah Lynn in her artist bio. David Hence said, “I don't mind sharing my sketchbook because I think it’s my way to express myself....It helps me be in the moment.” Other artists, like Paul Kowalewski and Allen McNair, describe art as more like its own being, composed from their thoughts or dreams. “I’ll start something, and it won’t necessarily end up the way I was thinking. It takes on a life of its own,” said Kowalewski. As a community, Project Onward reinforces an artist’s individual affinities and helps them have collective impact. The artists’ backgrounds and studio relationships work together to encourage passionate direction in affirming bold paths. Art made by artists with minimal or no training is often labeled as “outsider art” due to its distance from the mainstream art world and its institutions. As a term, “outsider artist” is understood as positively reflecting an individual with multifaceted potential but without formal artistic training. But this term also risks marginalizing artists who lack institutional privilege. Project Onward artists navigate this tension as both an opportunity to address exclusion and to expand distinction. “Project Onward looks to question, if not always answer, and challenge what
