In-person discussion in a NEW location, same building but new room: 208 Terrell Hall, Portland Community College Cascade Campus, 6:00-8:00pm.

If you would like to participate in real time from your home, by phone or computer, go to http://DisRepresentation.com/ for information on how to access the conversation online!

Also join us at DisRepresentation.com for online discussion of the readings anytime!

EVERYONE IS WELCOME TO PARTICIPATE.

Whether you read everything, one of these pieces, or none of these reading selections, WE WANT YOU HERE!

READINGS FOR JUNE 27 GROUP:

FICTION/POETRY:

Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden

The Secret Garden is widely available in libraries and bookstores. The text is also available for free on Project Gutenberg. You can also read a copy for free in several accessible formats at the Internet Archive.And there is a free audiobook available on Librivox, read by a human.

Chris Hewitt, Four Poems in Bent:

http://www.bentvoices.org/bentvoices/hewitt_fourpoems.htm

NONFICTION:

Cal Montgomery, “Harry Potter and Separatism” from A Ragged Edge Online: http://www.raggededgemagazine.com/focus/potter0604.html

Renee Martin at Womanist Musings, “You’re cured now right” http://www.womanist-musings.com/2012/02/youre-cured-now-right.html

Garland-Thomson, “Staring at the other,” Disability Studies Quarterly 2005 v. 25 no. 4, http://dsq-sds.org/article/view/610/787

Hel, Black Broken & Bent, “What’s apparent?” http://blackbrokenandbent.wordpress.com/2012/11/01/whats-apparent/

Building Radical Accessible Communities Everywhere, “Inspiration Porn” http://buildingradicalaccessiblecommunities.blogspot.com/2012/02/inspiration-porn.html?zx=39542697836e416b

In the next week we’ll put up concept maps/summaries in accessible language.

To participate in real time online, see http://www.disrepresentation.com/reading-group/

And watch this space for the link to the Blackboard Collaborate session.

Dis/Representation is a program of Disability Art & Culture Project (https://dacphome.org/), Portland Community College Disability Services, Gimp Girl (http://www.gimpgirl.com/) and other community partners!

Portland Community College is an Affirmative Action Equal Opportunity Institution.

This program was made possible in part by grant from Oregon Humanities (OH), a statewide nonprofit organization and independent affiliate of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which funds OH’s grant programs.

ACCESS:

Contact disabilityartculture@gmail.com with access questions or requests.

Wheelchair accessible

Natural light and (optional) low-flicker fluorescent lighting.

There will be a live captioning stream available through the website to online participants and projected on a screen during the program.

ASL interpreting available by request (please let us know at disabilityartculture@gmail.com).

Accessible by transit (72 bus, within a mile of yellow line Max Killingsworth stop).

Please refrain from wearing scented products.

Gender neutral restrooms available in two accessible adjacent campus buildings.

Armless chairs available.

There is an elevator to the second floor of Terrell Hall and power buttons on the building’s outer doors and restrooms.

Go check it out! http://www.DisRepresentation.com

Find reading lists, access information, and both ongoing online discussion and information on how to join a real-time reading group conversation! Our first in-person reading group is Thursday, May 30, from 6:30-8:30pm in PCC Cascade Campus’s 112 Terrell Hall. Join us in person or online, or start talking over at the DisRepresentation website discussion forum!

Or find our facebook group and join the facebook event for in-person or real-time online reading group discussions!

And tell your friends!

This program was made possible with generous support from Oregon Humanities, and contributions from community partners Portland Community College Disability Services and Gimp Girl, as well as consultation and ongoing support from community experts on everything from reading groups to disability literature.

We made most of what we needed to cover videography for the IAVDC performance, Home/Unrestrained, which means that we’ll have a nice professional video of the whole performance and will also be able to make a promotional video for IAVDC!

And now let us show you some of the excellent things that happened at the fundraiser!

Fun at the craft table. (Thanks to Lavaun and Alyson and their helpers for running the show there!)

Native American singer and drummer John Edmo open the event with an honor song and a round dance. We were too busy participating in the dance to take any pictures! But you can hear John performing a few songs on a local radio station a few years ago, on the Tillicum Wawa: Voices of the People show, here.

Longtime friend of DACP, singer/songwriter Jana Losey, performed a few songs!

In addition to donating a painting for the auction, Joy Corcoran told the story of Iris (the girl in the tactile sculpture) and Aurora the seeing eye dragon (also part of the sculpture). Joy wrote a blog post about her performance, and reprinted the text of her story, here!

After we closed round one of the auction, John’s father, the inimitable Ed Edmo (Shoshone-Bannock)–poet, storyteller, playwright, historian, longtime activist, and Native American consultant, not to mention the Vice President of the board of the National Indian Parent Information Center–gave an impromptu performance of the legend of Snake.

Roll, Snake!

Then Sarah Doherty, DACP  Development Director, dusted off her a cappella folk singing skills for a rendition of James Taylor’s “Millworker” and her own version of “Low Bridge, Everybody Down.” More than a few audience members sang along!

Mules named Sal=awesome (best on the Erie Canal). Photo by Kathy Coleman.

And Inclusive Arts Vibe Dance Company performed two pieces before the close of the auction, at the end of the afternoon! They previewed a new piece that will be debuted at Home/Unrestrained, an homage to Artistic Director Kathy Coleman’s father:

Monique, Daric, and Ali dancing with a basketball. Photo by Kathy Coleman.

Chloe and Addie dance with basketball midair! Photo by Kathy Coleman.

Group shot of IAVDC dancers performing with basketballs: Rachel W & PA, Rachel E, Monique, Daric, & Addie’s arm and toes. Photo by Kathy Coleman

Monique and Chloe dancing

Rachel W dancing with PA; they made intricate circles on the dance floor. Photo by Cheryl Green

IAVDC dancers also reprised their popular Lady Gaga piece.

Addie prepares to pirouette during her dance solo. Photo by Cheryl Green.

Monique, Rachel E, Daric, and Chloe spin and hold monster claw poses. Photo by Cheryl Green.

Rachel E’s dance solo. Photo by Cheryl Green.

IAVDC Gaga group shot. Photo by Cheryl Green.

Stefanie Snider (our visual arts coordinator who runs the open art sessions) ran the food table with Cheryl Green, who, in addition to taking pictures, acted as the Master of Ceremonies. with help from new volunteer Marcella. Our longtime volunteer Barbara H worked with accessibility and auction coordinator Kelley Schaperjahn to run the auction, dance company members contributed artwork and sold flowers, donated truffles from Missionary Chocolates, and kid-friendly necklaces donated by Sarah, and a dozen other volunteers helped us to set up, transfer unsold round one auction items to the round two auction tables, and clean up. We had refreshments donated by fundraiser coordinating committee members, as well as Dovetail Bakery, Fred Meyer (Hawthorne), Grand Central Baking Company (Beaumont), New Seasons (Division), and Whole Foods (Hollywood). In addition, volunteers donated their artwork, and helped us find other donations to auction off (see the full, amazing list of donors here!). We could not have had this event, and our youth dancers can’t succeed, without support from our whole community–and you all came through. Thank you!

And don’t forget–the youth performance we all worked so hard to support, Home/Unrestrained, is this weekend! May 3, 4, and 5–see you there!

Disability Art and Culture Project wishes to join all of the incredible writers and activists who have already worked on this issue to state that blackface is unacceptable. It is racism in action. We are artists and activists, writers and performers, and we know about how devastating censorship is to those speaking from the margins; however, “censorship” is not the right frame to explain the work of keeping Charles Knipp’s racist minstrelsy out of our community. We are invested in a definition of disability justice that is inextricably linked with racial justice. We echo Karol Collymore’s recent piece in Bitch Media to say that one of the most basic, and most important, aspects of anti-oppression work is to listen to the people who experience oppression, believe what they say, and look to them for leadership in ending that oppression. By making this statement, we wish to offer our support to people of color who are feeling the effects of racism particularly strongly. We are also in solidarity with the white people and people of color who have been organizing and agitating to keep the leadership and voices of queer women of color at the center of the community response to this incident of racism—who have said: It’s time to LISTEN to people of color in Portland, and act accordingly.

Members of the disability community often speak up against nondisabled actors playing disabled characters in the media.  Not only does the practice keep Disabled performers from working in the entertainment industry, but it keeps us from setting the terms of our own representation. When we are prevented from determining the ways that we are portrayed, the old, pervasive, ableist stereotypes about us continue to inform the ways that dominant culture understands disability and Disabled people. “Crip drag” tells us more about the dominant culture’s failure of imagination than it tells us about actual Disabled people’s lives—but it still affects Disabled people every time Disabled dancers are erased from popular culture, every time Disabled performers can’t find an inclusive dance class or an accessible stage, every time disabled writers’ and artists’ work are reduced to “inspiration” rather than powerful works of art unto themselves, every time Disabled people’s voices are ignored.

Though racism and ableism are not the same, the fact is that blackface tells us more about white supremacy culture than anything about actual Black people, and still affects the everyday lives of people of color. Likewise, depictions of welfare recipients as lazy, ignorant, unworthy of societal support, and subhuman hit disability communities hard, and people of color disability communities even harder. In our current society, which does not value the interdependence that disability communities cultivate and celebrate, many Disabled people cannot survive without some kind of government support. One of the reasons that attacks on poor people, fat people, and disabled people who receive government benefits are so effective in politics is that such attacks invoke the specter of the “Welfare Queen,” a racist trope about Black women that can be traced back to older stereotypes about Black people. People perceived as undeserving of support are devalued by racist and ableist systems of culture and policy—so the social safety net keeps disappearing, ADA is eroded, affordable housing disappears and gives rise to more homelessness, everyone suffers, and we have to fight for our own and each other’s liberation.

Well, we have always had to fight for our own and each other’s liberation. We celebrate disability and racial justice movements that work to de-institutionalize us, to do away with subminimum wages and barriers to work. We celebrate the people who work to challenge the school-to-prison pipeline that targets young disabled men of color, remove barriers to full participation in society, and end environmental racism that creates disproportional chronic illness in communities of color and poor communities. We celebrate the people who have worked to keep Knipp’s racism out of their communities in years past (e.g. Imani Henry, a trans Caribbean activist, artist, and performer, wrote a mass e-mail that galvanized thousands of people in Boston and New York as early as 2002—and Jasmyne Cannick ran a website calling for communities to ban Knipp and collecting news about successful organizing in cities all over the U.S. that was active until 2008). We celebrate the African American women, the LGBTQ and same gender loving and Two Spirit people, drag performers, the communities of color and the white folks in solidarity, the leather folks (especially leather people of color), and the Disabled and nondisabled people who have spoken, written, and organized around this issue in our city and in other communities. We are with you.*

Further reading:

Emi Koyama’s archive of news articles about and screen captures of the original Eagle event page and subsequent Q Center event page:
http://emigrl.tumblr.com/tagged/Shirley-Q-Liquor

Karol Collymore’s article on Bitch Media:
http://bitchmagazine.org/post/im-tired-of-explaining-why-im-offended-by-a-racist-drag-queen

Mollena Williams’s first piece:
http://www.mollena.com/2013/02/blackface-still-racist-yall/

Second piece for allies with a lot of links to others’ statements against racism:
http://www.mollena.com/2013/02/racism-in-leather/

Elaine Miller’s piece (with extensive links to anti-racism resources):
http://elainemiller.com/blog/2013/racism-and-up-your-ally/

Blythe Baldwin’s note:
https://www.facebook.com/notes/blythe-baldwin/sounding-off-about-shirley-q-liquors-act-being-cancelled-at-the-eagle-portland/10151512864452265

Ongoing conversation and organizing on Q Center blog:
http://www.pdxqcenter.org/2013/02/11/race-racism-and-the-lgbtq-community-event-page-dialogue-screen-capture/

Jasmyne Cannick’s website, banshirleyqliquor, last active in 2008:
http://banshirleyqliquor.typepad.com/

Building Radical Accessible Communities blog post:
http://radicalaccessiblecommunities.wordpress.com/2013/02/05/blackface-racist-as-fuck-end-of-story/

PQ Monthly Article “The state of race: LGBTQ community leaders weigh in”:
http://www.pqmonthly.com/the-state-of-race-lgbtq-community-leaders-weigh-in

*This statement was written by Sarah Doherty on behalf of Disability Art and Culture Project. Thanks to our community members and partners for their help in crafting this statement, especially Angeline Ferdinand, Rupert Kinnard, and Galadriel Mozee.

We need the following art and craft supplies for our upcoming art classes:

• Colored construction paper
• Colored cardstock
• Colored felt or felted wool
• Acrylic sealing spray
• Jump rings
• Earring wires
• Headpins
• Embroidery thread and craft needles
• Jewelry stringing wire or cord
• Fasteners/clasps for necklaces/bracelets
• Beads (all sizes)
• Donated or borrowed jewelers’ pliers (at least 2 more)
• Donated or borrowed small wire cutters (at least 2 more)
• Frames, 8 1/2 x 11″ or larger (at least 10 more)

We could also use gift cards to art and craft supply stores!

E-mail us at disabilityartculture@gmail.com if you can help with art and craft supplies!

We are looking for donations of items for our art and culture auction this April:

• Artwork, including but not limited to sculpture, jewelry, painting, illustration, papercrafts, prints, photographs, and digital media
• Gift certificates
• Meals at restaurants
• Hotel stays
• Art supplies
• Vouchers for classes
• Tickets to local performances
• Museum tickets and/or memberships

We are also looking for donations of

• Gift certificates to local grocery stores
• In-kind donations from local restaurants and/or bakeries, for light refreshments the day of the fundraiser
• In-kind donations of poster printing
• Paper products: cups, plates, napkins, tablecloths, disposable flatware
• Artisan chocolates and fresh-cut flowers to sell at the fundraiser
• Crayons, paper, pipe cleaners, coloring books, and other art supplies appropriate for young children for an activity table

Do you have anything to donate, or any other ideas about fundraising for our youth dancers? Let us know by e-mailing diabilityartculture@gmail.com!

For the Inclusive Arts Vibe Dance Company performance in May, we are looking for donations of the following:

• Videography
• Video editing
• Professional photography
• In-kind donations of poster printing

Contact the artistic director, Kathy Coleman, at kafia2008@yahoo.com  if you can help us with our IAVDC performance needs!

We’ve received a donation of frames for our Waltz of the Flowers class, but we can still use your help!

Join us for an all-ages paper cutout art workshop with emerging local artist, longtime diversity facilitator, and friend to DACP, Lavaun Heaster! Join us to make bright, tactile, inclusive, and accessible paper cutout folk art. All materials and tools will be provided. Don’t worry if you’ve never made visual art before, or if you don’t think you have the skills! Lavaun’s workshops are inclusive, for all ages and abilities, we’ll have some shapes already cut out for you to design and arrange, and DACP will also have some volunteers to assist with art-making.

All participants will receive an electronic image of the art piece(s) they create, and the original artwork will be donated to DACP for fundraising purposes. Inclusive Arts Vibe Dance Company’s spring performance is coming up, and DACP is working on a family friendly fundraiser to cover the expenses. This workshop is for people who would like to create art to donate for auction at DACP’s fundraiser!

WHEN AND WHERE:

SCRAP Education Annex, Standard Dairy Building, Suite J, 2808 NE MLK, Jr. Blvd, 97212
Saturday, March 2, 3:30-5:30pm

ACCESSIBILITY:

• The SCRAP Education Annex is on the #6 bus line, and there is some on-street parking on the surrounding side streets.
• The building is ADA accessible.
• There are two large, accessible single-stall gender-neutral restrooms.
• Although DACP gladly accepts donations to cover our costs, there is no charge for this workshop.
• Please refrain from wearing scented products. This event takes place in a rented community space that is not consistently fragrance free.
• This workshop is all ages. Children 6 and under with adult supervision only.
• Volunteer art assistants will be available.
• Contact disabilityartculture@gmail.com with further accessibility questions.

TO REGISTER:

Space is limited! Please register directly with DACP by e-mailing disabilityartculture@gmail.com or calling 503-238-0723 (voice) by 5pm on Friday, March 1.

Visit our facebook event page here, but please do register by e-mailing or calling.

ABOUT THE ARTIST:

Lavaun Heaster is an emerging local low vision artist who creates inclusive tactile art. Lavaun’s work depicts diverse people connecting. She is curious about varying cultural practices and beliefs, having grown up in a multiethnic family and currently living with a multiethnic partner. Inspired by the vibrant art, ethnic communities and disability scene in Portland, OR, Lavaun has combined her passions in creating original art which you can see at http://accesibleart.webs.com/.

We are seeking models of any/all body sizes and shapes, genders, disabilities, races, ethnicities, and art or modeling backgrounds. Mobility devices of all kinds are welcome, as are assistive technology, service animals, and personal assistants. If you are interested in becoming a DACP model, please email Stefanie at DACPVisualArt@gmail.com or call Kathy at (503) 238-0723 (voice). You can also contact Stefanie at the open art sessions for more information.

This is a volunteer position. We would eventually like to be able to pay our models a little bit of money for each hour they pose for us. This will be possible if we receive donations from open art session participants. For the time being, however, we cannot guarantee any payment for models. Please let us know if you are interested. We could use someone for Friday, March 8, if you’re ready now!

Thank you for being part of our most successful year yet! You can help us jump-start our work for 2013 by making a tax-deductible gift to DACP before 11:59pm on December 31!

2012 was fantastic for DACP!

We had our second annual Sex, Love, and Disability fundraiser and the fifth Disability Pride Art and Culture Festival since our founding in 2005. The Festival’s theme was the power of art to cultivate social change. We had live performance, panel discussion and a Theatre of the Oppressed Workshop with The-TREE Institute. We are proud to have worked with incredible writers and performers in our community, and with Antoine Hunter, the Oakland-based African American Deaf and Hard of Hearing Choreographer, Dancer, and founder of the Urban Jazz Dance Company. Hunter performed solo dances and worked with local dancers to choreograph and premiere a collaborative piece at the Festival.

In 2012, Aireen Joven was hired as our first ever organizer. She built relationships with individuals and organizations, developed and recruited volunteers, and helped DACP set the stage to run more smoothly. She brought an invaluable artistic and racial justice perspective to her work. Your donation will help us develop new leaders and continue our racial justice work!

Since 2008, Inclusive Arts Vibe has had dance classes at Lynch View Elementary School. This year, Rachel Esteve, IAV Dance Company member, is interning there as an Assistant Dance Teacher. IAV also added dance classes at Alder Creek Middle School, perfomed in the Festival, and were featured performers at the disability-themed Colored Pencils in August. IAVDC welcomed three new dancers this fall, and the company is in rehearsal for their upcoming May performance.

This summer, we organized an online community survey and Community Listening Session at Portland Community College’s Cascade campus. DACP wanted—wants!—to hear from our community. We used what we learned to determine the direction of DACP—regular arts programming, opportunities for cross-cultural listening, continued work on anti-racism, more space for disability art and culture, education within our various diverse communities on racial justice and disability justice and their intersections. We have had rich discussions about art and social justice. The Community Listening Session also featured a presentation by artist Rupert Kinnard on race, disability, sexuality, gender, and art.

In the fall, DACP analyzed survey data, applied for and received partial funding to continue the IAV dance classes, and in November partnered with Story Minders to host Disability Comedy Movie Night. Cheryl Green premiered her film “Friending with Brain Injury!” We had an incredible conversation about disability culture, dark humor, insider/outsider dynamics, and the role of comedy in social justice work. Over fifty people got together for food, conversation, and fun!

We have a lot to look forward to in 2013:

Starting on January 11, 2013, DACP will host an accessible, low-cost life drawing group  every second Friday of the month, at Project Grow. We will break down barriers to disability art and culture making one art session at a time!

In the spring, DACP will partner with GimpGirl, In Other Words, and local and national humanities experts and Disability Studies scholars to launch a Disability Studies reading group! Expect to read academic and non-academic, fiction and nonfiction, works on intersectional disability justice and diverse disability cultures. We’ll have lectures by local and national Disability Studies scholars, and both in-person and online discussions.

We’ve started to plan a springtime art-auction fundraiser for the Inclusive Arts Vibe Dance Company performance with youth art classes facilitated by local artist Lavaun Heaster. And, of course, IAVDC’s recital will be in May!

We’re also tentatively planning a symposium on the intersections of race and disability in visual culture, and a book launch/poetry reading with local poet William Alton. With every event, we further the artistic expression of people with both non-apparent and apparent disabilities, support our communities in understanding disability culture and pride, and help the wider culture reimagine the definition of disability, art, and culture.

We would like to ask you to consider making a personally significant year-end gift to Disability Art and Culture Project to kick off a spectacular new year. To those of you who have given your time and resources, thank you. We accomplished so much this year with volunteer time, donations, and the determination and creative flair that our disability arts community is famous for. We couldn’t have done it without you. All of us at the Disability Art and Culture Project want to thank you for a fantastic 2012, and we look forward to building vibrant disability art and culture with you in 2013 and beyond!

Sincerely,

Kathy Coleman, Artistic Director
Sarah Doherty and Cheryl Green, DACP planning committee

Please come join us to make your own art! We will provide the models, you provide your own art supplies. You can bring anything you’d like. We will have tables and chairs – feel free to bring easels or other supports if you’d like.

This is an opportunity for anyone in the wider Portland community to make art in a social justice-oriented communal space. No teachers or critique provided; open to artists of all levels: beginners, intermediate, advanced; please no photography. The space is physically accessible with two single stall gender neutral bathrooms and sinks available for use. Please refrain from wearing scented products to the open art sessions.

Sliding scale $1-$10, pay what you can, NO ONE TURNED AWAY FOR LACK OF FUNDS. Money goes to support DACP and its events. Interested in being a model for an hour? Have any questions? Contact our volunteer organizer, Stefanie Snider, at DACPVisualArt@gmail.com or at the art session. Or call Kathy at (503) 238-0723. We hope to see you there!

Download and distribute our flier (which has text-based information and an image of art supplies) here: DACP art sessions flier