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A COVID-19 Collaboration between DisArt and Oaklee Thiele

We invite you to submit written, audio, and video observations that detail your experiences with, reactions to, and ponderings on our current COVID-19 reality.

03/06/2023

DisArt and the My Dearest Friends Project mourn the passing of DisArt board member, Judy Heumann.

“I mean, I think as we move forward more looking at the inclusion of disability in media, if we can look at, and if we can be having more discussions across our communities and really begin, I think, to have some more definition of what is culture, what makes up culture, and what do we have, and how do we share it, I think there’s some very serious issues that need to be continually discussed. And I know there are people that are working on that.” -Judy Heumann, Episode 52 of DisArt’s DisTopia Podcast. Experience the full episode with transcripts here: https://disartnow.org/podcasts/episode-52-judy-heumann/ (https://disartnow.org/podcasts/episode-52-judy-heumann/)

Judith Ellen "Judy" Heumann (b. December 18, 1947- March 4, 2023) was a lifelong American disability rights activist. Known as the Mother of the Disability Rights Movement, Judy was one of the driving forces behind laws that protect disabled people today, including section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act. She helped to found the World Institute on Disability and was the first director for the Department on Disability Services. You can learn more about Judy’s activism through the beloved Netflix documentary Crip Camp

Image Description: (Image 1) an abstracted charcoal drawing of Judy Heumann sitting in her power chair. Above her portrait is white handwritten text that reads, “Judy Heumann” (Image 2) DisArt DisTopia podcast episode logo with the handwritten
text that reads, “Judy Heumann” in the upper right corner.

02/27/2023

My dearest friends,
Because of my mood/psychotic disorder, people are often surprised I earned a good scholarship to a strong college and kept it. When I have symptoms I can have to push through and hide them; masking and handling stigma can be painful. I want my peers to know we are smart and capable despite bad systems, and I love our community. There are others like you out there, and it's human to struggle with it, too.

-Navigating classes, meds, and ignorance

Image Description: An abstract charcoal drawing of a person with a hand in their pocket looking away from the camera. The image is done in black on a white background.

The Dearest Friends Project is collecting personal stories from disabled students and educators to show that inclusive education should be . Oftentimes, a disabled person’s needs and accommodations are viewed as “Special” when in reality, a disabled person’s needs are simply human. Submit your story today by emailing [email protected]. Please note, the published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizers.

02/23/2023

My dearest friends,
I’m not a monster. I’m not vicious, explosive, or mean spirited. I just want to be loved, nurtured, and cared for.
~ Effie

Image Description: An abstract charcoal drawing of two men holding each other, one kissing the other on the cheek. The drawing is done in white on a black background.

The Dearest Friends Project is collecting personal stories from disabled students and educators to show that inclusive education should be . Oftentimes, a disabled person’s needs and accommodations are viewed as “Special” when in reality, a disabled person’s needs are simply human. Submit your story today by emailing [email protected]. Please note, the published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizers.

The Dearest Friends Project is collecting personal stories from disabled students and educators to show that inclusive education should be . Oftentimes, a disabled person’s needs and accommodations are viewed as “Special” when in reality, a disabled person’s needs are simply human. Submit your story today by emailing [email protected]. Please note, the published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizers.

02/20/2023

Do you identify as disabled? Send us your story! Since 2020, The My Dearest Friends Project has collected over 500 stories of disability globally. Here’s how you can send your My Dearest Friends Submission in four easy steps:

    1. Reflect: Think about your experiences as a disabled person. What has your disability taught you? Have you experienced ableism or discrimination in your school or workplace? How do you navigate new symptoms, diagnoses, or mobility aids? Your submission can include anything that you want to say about your disability.

    2. Create: Start your submission with “My Dearest Friends,” write about your experiences as a disabled person, and end with your first name or an alias.

    3. Send: Email your submission to [email protected]

    4. Follow: Follow (https://www.instagram.com/MyDearestFriendsProject/) to see some submissions illustrated and published by protest artist Oakleethiele (https://www.instagram.com/oakleethiele/)

Image Description: Slide 1, On a solid white background black handwritten text reads, “Do you identify as disabled? Send us your story!” In between the text is a collection of 26 abstracted disabled figures that depict invisible and physical disabilities, a variety of mobility aids, different body types and ages. Slide 2, On a solid white background black handwritten text reads, “The My Dearest Friends Project” followed by the numbered steps featured at the start of the IG caption. To the left of the instructions is an abstracted charcoal dra
wing of two people embracing. At the bottom of the image is the DisArt + Oaklee signature logo.

02/17/2023

Your story matters! Since 2020, The My Dearest Friends Project has collected over 500 stories of disability globally. Here’s how you can send your My Dearest Friends Submission in four easy steps:

    1. Reflect: Think about your experiences as a disabled person.

    2. Create: Start your submission with “My Dearest Friends,” write about your experiences as a disabled person, and end with your first name or an alias.

    3. Send: Email your submission to [email protected]

    4. Follow: Follow to see some submissions illustrated and published by protest artist

Image Description: Slide 1, in a starry sky handwritten white text reads, “The My Dearest Friends Project” “Your Story Matters” Beneath the text is an abstracted charcoal drawing of a q***r and interabled couple sitting on a blanket in a field of grass. With their backs towards the viewer, a surgical scar is visible on one of the women’s backs. Her manual wheelchair is near her as she sits on the ground next to her partner. Slide 2, On a solid white background black handwritten text reads, “The My Dearest Friends Project” followed by the numbered steps featured at the start of the IG caption. To the left of the instructions is an abstracted charcoal drawing of two people embracing. At the bottom of the image is the DisArt + Oaklee signature logo.

01/30/2023

My dearest friends,

Because of my mood/psychotic disorder, people are often surprised I earned a good scholarship to a strong college and kept it. When I have symptoms I can have to push through and hide them; masking and handling stigma can be painful. I want my peers to know we are smart and capable despite bad systems, and I love our community. There’s others like you out there, and it's human to struggle with it, too.

-Navigating classes, meds, and ignorance

Image Description: An abstract charcoal drawing of a man and a woman kissing. The woman is wearing leg braces and is holding a cane. Above their head is a small heart. The drawing is done in black on a white background.

The Dearest Friends Project is collecting personal stories from disabled students and educators to show that inclusive education should be . Oftentimes, a disabled person’s needs and accommodations are viewed as “Special” when in reality, a disabled person’s needs are simply human. Submit your story today by emailing [email protected]. Please note, the published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizers.

01/26/2023

My dearest friends,
Sometimes I wonder if I should be allowed to use the word “disabled” at all. I question whether I belong in community; no one sees me. Maybe it’s because I don’t fit into the typical idea of what “disabled” is in a cishet normative, white dominated society. I often have to be loud to even be heard.

Regards,
Anonymous

Image Description: A charcoal drawing of a fat person in a dress and flip-flops standing and staring at the camera. The drawing is done in white on a black background.

The Dearest Friends Project is collecting personal stories from disabled students and educators to show that inclusive education should be . Oftentimes, a disabled person’s needs and accommodations are viewed as “Special” when in reality, a disabled person’s needs are simply human. Submit your story today by emailing [email protected]. Please note, the published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizers.

01/23/2023

My Dearest Friends,
Most days when you look at me you would think that I’m fine, but what you really don’t know is I’m fighting with all my might to keep from screaming in pain. My disability is invisible most days but with that comes a whole new set of challenges. Your ignored, people don’t believe you, your told your just making it up. Attention seeker, liar, lazy, freak, weirdo…the whispers hurt almost as much as the condition itself. They make you feel unloved, unwanted and alone. But I’m here to tell you you are never alone. There are people that love you, that care for you and just want to see you happy. I am one of those people. You are stronger than the people that are trying to put you down, you are braver than the bullies and you are a better person than they will ever be. Fighting a battle most people will never understand does not make you an outcast, it makes you a hero. So if you having a bad day remember behind the clouds the sky is always blue. Gentile hugs :)
Payton

Image Description: An abstract charcoal drawing of a person sitting in a chair reading a book, the person is looking at the audience. The drawing is done in black on a white background.

The Dearest Friends Project is collecting personal stories from disabled students and educators to show that inclusive education should be . Oftentimes, a disabled person’s needs and accommodations are viewed as “Special” when in reality, a disabled person’s needs are simply human. Submit your story today by emailing [email protected]. Please note, the published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizers.

01/19/2023

My Dearest Friends,
My last in-person school experience was ruined by an AIDS rumor. When I was 11, I was dying of EBV. Drs didn't know what was wrong. They kept testing me for HIV. I told a friend, and he made a rumor. I was shunned by 400+ people, harassed. The year? 2016. -P

Image Description: An abstract charcoal drawing of an IV and other medical equipment done in white on a black background.

The Dearest Friends Project is collecting personal stories from disabled students and educators to show that inclusive education should be . Oftentimes, a disabled person’s needs and accommodations are viewed as “Special” when in reality, a disabled person’s needs are simply human. Submit your story today by emailing [email protected]. Please note, the published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizers.

01/10/2023

DisArt and the My Dearest Friends Project mourns the loss and celebrates the legacy of our cofounder, Christopher Smit, (48), who passed away on January 4, 2022. Our friend and colleague spent his life, and his career, crossing the intersections of art, culture, and disability. Previously an associate professor of communication arts and science at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, Smit co-founded DisArt with co-director Jill Vyn in 2014. 
Born with spinal muscular atrophy, a form of muscular dystrophy, Smit’s experience as a disabled person informed his world view and his chosen career. “As a person living with a body that didn’t quite fit into the cultural categories of normality, I have always had a keen interest in the way that difference is experienced and communicated,” Smit once said. He felt art was a natural vehicle for discussions about being different, and that embracing what others have been conditioned to reject offered him and others “a rich terrain to investigate, critique, and celebrate the experience of … disability.”  With DisArt, Chris and Jill sought to share and expand this celebration. To provide others with a safe, shared space to challenge their own ideas and experiences. And to connect with others who are excited and inclined to do the same.  Chris’ life was all about investigating, critiquing and celebrating connections that foster positive changes in people, and by extension, in society. In death, as in life, he led by example. Since entering hospice last Fall, Chris approached his passing in similar ways. Rather than retreat, or isolate, he made reconnecting with friends and family a priority. In his final weeks of life, Chris was surrounded by those he loved, and those who loved him.

Image Descriptions are included in the comments.

12/29/2022

My Dearest Friends,
I’d like to tell you a little bit about my college experience. I went to Temple University, which was a school downtown Philidelphia. But, sometimes it wasn’t always so easy, and I had to get from A to B, 5 blocks distance in a short period of time. I had a unique way of sometimes getting to those places. I had another associate, friend, college pal on campus. I believe his name was Paul, he was a poetry major. And Paul was in a motorized wheelchair because he had CP if I recall correctly. And, um, periodically I’d say, “Hey Paul, you going down to the other side of campus?” And he’d say “yeah.” And I’d just get on the back of his wheelchair and hang on. There was somehow a way for me to hang on on the back, I don’t recall what the whole rig was. But, I was able to hold on to the back and he would just shoot me all the way down to the other side of campus. This happened several times during the course of my college life. But, thank you, Paul, for making my access a little bit easier. And that was members of the disability community coming together to work together.

- Danny

Image Description: an abstracted charcoal drawing of Danny riding on the back of his friend's motorized wheelchair as he wears a backpack with the handwritten text, "I’d say, 'Hey Paul, you going down to the other side of campus?' And I’d just get on the back of his wheelchair and hang on."

The Dearest Friends Project is collecting personal stories from disabled students and educators to show that inclusive education should be . Oftentimes, a disabled person’s needs and accommodations are viewed as “Special” when in reality, a disabled person’s needs are simply human. Submit your story today by emailing [email protected]. Please note, the published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the organizers.

11/15/2022

Pictured is protest artist Oaklee Thiele as she sketches in her hospital room five days post-spinal surgery.

“This is my second Tethered Cord Release surgery after being diagnosed with Tethered Cord Syndrome in November 2021. This condition has a huge impact on my body causing chronic nerve pain, loss of sensation and function to my legs, and an overactive bladder. I developed so much medical trauma from this hospital stay and found myself having trouble trusting and reconnecting to my recovering disabled body.

During my stay I was still receiving Dearest Friends submissions and could open my email to read stories of disability pride, resistance, pain. Even though the submission were anonymous it was like reading letters from an old friend who understood what I was experiencing. Coincidentally, my fiancé found a lone charcoal stick in a random pocket of my hospital bag. And after explaining the purpose of the My Dearest Friends Project, my nurse gave me a small stack of computer paper and some medical tape so that we could hang the pieces around the hospital room. In a couple of hours, I was surrounded again by community stories and disabled figures and in a way it brought comfort.

This is perhaps one of my favorite parts of the Dearest Friends Project: the fact that this project has disability coursing through its veins and into its core. Disabled people are creative, we’re scrappy, we’re constantly finding innovative ways to adapt to our surroundings which are oftentimes inaccessible. Because Dearest Friends exists is the digital space and relies on common materials like computer paper to create imagery, Dearest Friends is not restricted by the studio space and can always be incorporated into the disabled lifestyle, no matter how unpredictable.” -Oaklee Thiele, protest artist and co-founder of the May Dearest Friends Project

Oaklee is recovering well from the surgery and Dearest Friends is still collecting real stories from disabled individuals! You can submit yours today by emailing [email protected]

Image Description in comments.

Address

Grand Rapids, MI
49501, 49502, 49503, 49504, 49505, 49506, 49507, 49508, 49510, 49514, 49515, 495

Website

https://www.disartnow.org/dearest-friends-project/

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