MAKING ART ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

Dwayne Szot makes tools that enable people of all kinds of abilities to create art.

With Szot's adaptations, a quadriplegic can paint a mural or make a chalk drawing, experiencing the delight of creativity in ways previously unavailable. But the tools also are fun for a non-disabled person to use.

Saturday, Szot brought some of the tools he has created to the A.C. Brase Arena Building for a program called "Arts for All." About 50 people of all ages attended, and at times it was difficult to tell who was disabled and who was not.

Szot's mural making program, called "Painting Without Limits," begins with the participants tearing special print foam into the shapes they desire. The foam is delicate so that little upper body strength is required to tear it.

Those who can only move their head can point to the tears with a light mounted on a cap. "A lot of us communicate in a lot of different ways," Szot said.

Jenny Lund, a Webster College art major and the daughter of Southeast art professor Grant Lund, then spray mounted the shapes to make a template.

The tool used for mural making is a swarm of plastic tubes and containers and rollers that can be attached to a wheelchair. Once attached to the roller, the artist rides over an expanse of floor covered with posterboard, dispensing paint along the way. A similar tool is available for those who can walk.

A few actual canvases were put down and will be mounted for display later.

Szot also has created a wheelchair device for chalk drawing. These drawings were made on the roadway beside the Arena Building.

Another tool, a stick with a highly flexible tip for mounting a template, produces "pogo paintings." The adaptation allows anyone to make their mark on a piece of paper.

While working in a commercial art program years ago, Szot says he felt like a gear within the art-making machinery. He decided to build a machine that would portray himself as an art-making puppet.

He fitted a golf pull cart with a rotisserie motor, and added a brush made of hair from a pony's tail. After dripping the brush in paint, the contraption made lines that looked like Japanese calligraphy.

"I discovered I could create art tools that went beyond my own reach as an artist," Szot said.

Szot's ideas amaze many of the participants.

"Barriers are opportunities for him to invent something," said Greg Jones, executive director of the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri.

In 1989, Szot used a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to create his first wheelchair painting machine.

This is his art now, Szot says, to spend his days creating these adaptive tools and teaching others to use them.

"It becomes another brush stroke in my painting, another weave in the tapestry," the St. Paul, Minn., resident says.

Miki Gudermuth of the SEMO Alliance for Disability Independence said the program helps to eliminate the differences that separate people.

"You don't have to segregate. You can bring everybody together and have a project," she said.

The program was sponsored by the Arts Council, the SEMO Alliance for Disability Independence and the Cape Girardeau Department of Parks and Recreation.

Szot so far has helped 40 communities throughout the U.S. set up their own "Arts for All" programs. This is the first time he has brought the program to Missouri.

Jones said Saturday's program was just an introduction. Szot will return next year for another program.

"This is open ended," Jones said. "He's showing us the tools for the community to do anything we want with this thing."

He said the arts council is considering acquiring the equipment, which costs $2,200. It would be made available to schools or nursing homes at no charge, he said.

Ruth Holman, who is hearing and speech impaired, said through interpreter Maxine Brewer that she will be back for the next program.

"It made me feel equal to other people," she said, "because I could create the same as everyone else."