Senses: Art Beyond the Body

Description

Join the Beck Center for the Arts, Linking Employment, Abilities and Potential (LEAP) & Plexus LGBTQ & Allied Chamber of Commerce for an engaging panel that investigates how artists with diverse and differing abilities transform traditional narratives about the body and creativity. The speakers will explore the ways ability shapes voice, process, and artistic innovation, with emphasis on artists who challenge normative expectations of expression and visibility. This session highlights how lived experience becomes a powerful creative engine, expanding our collective understanding of artistry, embodiment, and perception.

Our Panelists include:

Regina E. Dorfmeyer is a 68 year old self taught, visually impaired finger-painter and digital artist from Cleveland, Ohio. She attended Villa Angela Academy, and has a degree in Social Work from Cleveland State University. 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. At the age of 39, Regina met her second husband. They have been married twenty-six years. Regina's impressionistic finger-paintings have been selected by the Arts Possible Ohio nonprofit organization for artists with disabilities three times. She was awarded Emerging Artist and People's Choice in 2018. She was recently awarded 1st place Professional artist for 2021! Regina is also a digital painter. Her digital works were selected four years by the Cleveland Sight Center. In fact, Regina's art continues to be reproduced as the center's holiday greeting cards each year. https://regina-dorfmeyer.pixels.com/

Shalida A. Askanazi is an author and poet from Cleveland, Ohio, who has a rare disability called sacral agenesis. Her work is heavily inspired by being a disabled Black woman in America and by mental health concerns in the Black community. @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/.