Students with disabilities curate new Huntington Beach Art Center exhibit
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Autumn Garcia never thought the students with developmental disabilities she teaches art to would have an opportunity to curate an actual exhibit.
But the Huntington Beach Art Center has provided that chance.
The exhibit “OC Arts and Disability: Arts on the Move Stamped!” opened on Saturday, and runs through Dec. 19.
Dan Faltz, the art center’s senior cultural arts supervisor, said the exhibit is an expansion of the “Creative Visions” student curator program.
“It’s a whole new experience,” said Garcia, who founded the “Arts for All HB” group with her mother, Gailann Harmeier, a couple of years ago. “I’ve never done this before, and I think sharing that experience is even more fulfilling for me. I’m already excited about it, but to see them get in here and [curate the exhibit], it’s cool. I think we’re breaking those barriers. Who would have ever thought that our students were curating for a museum? Like, what?”
Garcia is an activities director and instructional aide at Edison High, where her mother is a retired teacher in the Special Abilities Cluster. They started offering private art lessons to some of the students, but it kept growing and growing. Now, Arts for All HB meets each Wednesday at Edison.
“We’ve done classes with both parents and the kids, and it’s been a really collaborative process,” Garcia said. “But it’s very rare to have a class that accepts all abilities regardless, whether they’re non-verbal or not … It’s pretty fun. We have a good time together.”
This semester, the student curators have been crafting their own exhibition, from selecting a concept to picking the art pieces to installation.
The exhibit is in partnership with Orange County Arts and Disability, based in Costa Mesa. The organization’s executive director, Marleena Barber, said that the children made their selections from pieces that were displayed at the 50th annual Orange County Arts and Disabilities Festival, held at MainPlace Mall in Santa Ana in April.
The pieces, which were selected based on four themes, were pared down from 60 to the 25 that are in the exhibit at the art center. Student pieces are also displayed outside in the lobby.
The “Stamped!” exhibition theme of postage stamps, was approved by the students as well.
Garcia said that two of the Arts for All HB students had pieces that were chosen for the larger “Arts on the Move” exhibit, including Kyle Hoang. Hoang, 19, is a Fountain Valley resident who has been diagnosed with Down syndrome and autism. He is a member of Edison’s SAC program.
His mother, Crystal Huang, said that Arts for All HB has provided her son a way to express himself. She said her son enjoyed curating the exhibit, as well.
“The kids were so excited, thinking, ‘OK, I have the power to pick something I like,’” Huang said. “Also, the thing that surprised me is that they asked the kids why, the reason they picked this art. Everyone got to explain to the teacher why the items got picked.”
Heidi Menze said her daughter Alexis, 15, has also benefited from the program. Alexis, who lives in Fountain Valley and is home-schooled, has been diagnosed with microcephaly — a neurological condition which indicates impaired brain growth — and a developmental delay.
“She loves arts and crafts,” Heidi Menze said. “Obviously, she needs help for some of the things that are out there, but she loves making bracelets, she loves painting. She loves it all. This class is amazing, what they do with the arts and the different kinds of projects that they do. I’m not an artist … but everything they do is 3D or abstract or whatever. It’s really neat that it’s not just painting, you know?”
Garcia said her art students also got to expand their thinking through the curation process.
“It was really nice to see the shift of, my work, my this, my that, into, we are going to display someone else’s work,” she said. “We are going to shine the light on someone else, and what do we like about this? That became another teaching moment.”
