Creative Voices: Artists, Disability, and Identity

Date and Time

Thursday Jan 28, 2027
6:00 PM - 8:30 PM EST

6:00pm Doors Open & Networking (Cash bar available)
6:45pm Program Begins
8:30pm Program Ends

Location

Beck Center for the Arts
Recital Hall
17801 Detroit Avenue
Lakewood, OH 44107

Fees/Admission

Free and Open to the Public.

Contact Information

Dr. Jennifer Bosco
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Description

Join Beck Center for the Arts, Linking Employment, Abilities and Potential (LEAP), and Plexus LGBTQ & Allied Chamber of Commerce for a conversation with local artists with disabilities about their art, their creative process, and the experiences that shape their work.

During this panel, artists will share their work and talk about the mediums they use, what inspires them, and how they have developed their artistic voices. They will also discuss how disability can influence their creative process and perspective, as well as some of the barriers and opportunities they have encountered as artists.

Audience members will hear directly from artists about the connection between disability, identity, creativity, and self-expression. The conversation will also explore how art can create greater visibility, challenge assumptions about disability, and give artists more control over how their stories and experiences are represented.

Attendees will leave with a broader understanding of the work of local artists with disabilities and the many ways disability and lived experience can contribute to creativity, innovation, and artistic expression.

Objectives
By the end of the panel, audience members will:

Meet local artists with disabilities and learn about their work, artistic mediums, inspirations, and development as artists.
Hear directly from panelists about their experiences working as artists with disabilities, including both opportunities and barriers they have encountered.
Explore how disability and other lived experiences can influence an artist’s perspective, creative process, and work.
Learn how art can provide artists with greater voice, visibility, self-expression, and agency.
Consider how the arts community and partners can better recognize, support, and create opportunities for artists with disabilities.

Our Panelists include:

Regina E. Dorfmeyer is a visually impaired self-taught finger painter, wife and mother from Cleveland, Ohio. Regina discovered art later in life, ironically after her sight began to deteriorate. She was born highly myopic, and by the age of thirty-three she was completely blind in her right eye and developed degenerative myopia in her left.

Regina is a prolific painter, creating vibrant, textural, impressionistic finger paintings. She is represented by Arts Possible Ohio, a nonprofit organization supporting artists with disabilities. Currently, Regina’s oil painting “Lost Sight, Gained Vision” is currently on tour with their traveling exhibition: Art Expressions Ohio. She has been an exhibiting artist at Audubon Society in Columbus, Ohio, and Lakewood’s Beck Center for The Arts. She is one of Beck’s featured artist at the annual Lakewood Arts Festival, and she works as a Freelance Live Fingerpainter and demonstrator for Beck. Through her work and brand, A Touch Of RED By Regina E. Dorfmeyer, Regina explores how Disability influences perspective and creative process, and how art can create greater visibility, voice, and empowerment.

Shalida A. Askanazi is an Afro-Latina author, advocate, and writing instructor based in Cleveland, Ohio. Born with sacral agenesis, a rare disability, her work is deeply inspired by her experiences as a disabled Black woman in America. She explores disability, identity, race, sexuality, and mental health, particularly within the Black community. Shalida is the author of the memoir That Girl’s in a Wheelchair and teaches writing with a passion for helping others find the power and beauty in their own stories. @ShalidaAsk, @Shalida_Ask, ShalidaAskanazi.com

TJ Sikora's bio is on its way...

Tracy Marie is a warrior who has not let her mobility issues keep her down or stop her from forging ahead in an unforgiving industry. In addition to her artistic endeavors, she has become a community leader for those with disabilities and rare diseases. She has volunteered to serve her local government as co-chair of the Lakewood ADA Transition Plan Task Force and at her local hospital as co-chair of the MetroHealth Patient Family Advisory Committee. In 2021 Tracy Marie was invited to bring her advocacy work to the organization, RAMPD (Recording Artists and Music Professionals with Disabilities) to further her advocacy efforts on the national level. For more information please check out rampd.org. Learn more about Tracy at https://tracymarie.com/.