A.R.T. - Artistic Realization Technologies

10/30/2024

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend
Tim’s Memorial Service.
(in person and virtually)

On October 12th we gathered to honor and celebrate the amazing life of Tim Lefens. Family and friends shared remembrances during a beautiful church service. While Tim’s loss weighed heavily on the room, his accomplishments as an artist, author, and humanitarian were joyously celebrated.

A luncheon followed where friends and family from all corners of Tim’s world came together, sharing stories and laughter. While tears were shed, the energy of the room was palpable, inspired and in awe of Tim’s life. Pictures from Tim’s life displayed a man who lived life to the fullest extent, from pioneering the “Snurfboard” (early proto type of the snowboard) in Utah to A.R.T. events with the Governor of NJ and President of Princeton University!

What a life lived by a truly amazing man!

10/02/2024

Please join us on October 12th at 11am at Harlingen Reformed Church in Belle Mead, NJ as we celebrate the life of our beloved founder, Tim Lefens. You may also join virtually as the service will be live streamed at: HarlingenChurch.org
We miss you dearly Tim ❤️🖌️

05/26/2022

New A.R.T. program at Access Gallery in Denver!

We’re pleased to announce that we’ve been awarded a $15,000 Arts in Society Grant from Redline Contemporary Arts Center!

Thank you, Redline, for supporting our work using painting instruction to combat social isolation and create economic opportunities for artists with disabilities. We could not be more thrilled about this project and to have you as a partner!

With Redline’s support, we are bringing the Artistic Realization Technologies (A.R.T.) program to Colorado. A.R.T. brings technologies, studio programming, and training that empowers those who lack the articulate use of their hands to gain perfect individual control of the art-making process.

To manage A.R.T., we’re adding a new member to the Access Gallery team. Meet Louis! Louis is an artist, curator, and drag enthusiast born and raised in Denver, Colorado. As a q***r contemporary artist, they are motivated to disrupt gender stereotypes and inspire social change.

He is excited to start this new journey as the Mobile Art Studio Coordinator with Access Gallery, where he will launch the Artistic Realization Technologies (A.R.T.) Program in Denver through the Arts in Society Grant.



ID: Louis, looking stylish in a blazer and fedora, poses in front of a pencil drawing of Louis. The Louis in the drawing is wearing the same blazer, sparkly heels, and has pink hair.

03/07/2022

Think we can all admit how buttoned up most of us are when it comes to expressing raw unbridled joy. It is so intense we can find it kind of embarrassing.

For us at A.R.T. seeing raw joy lights up our hearts. The liberation!

First let's imagine how it feels to live a life without any means of making anything happen in the physical world. To always be a passive observer. All that yearning to engage the world stymied.

Then A.R.T. comes to town and you see what you can do with the laser.
All those colors. All those different application tools. Any size canvas you want. Suddenly you are in charge and can make any color go anywhere you want it to go. It feels like a dam has broken and out floods the joy.

So. Clifford [quadriplegic, nonverbal] choosing to use our laser technique he directs the color to race, to swoop, to make slashing zigzags, looping circles, all at high speed. In this dam break Clifford begins to shout.

The more he feels his liberation the louder he shouts, color flying over his canvas, creating a super supercharged field of energy.

His professional caregivers, feeling he might be embarrassing us with all this wild shouting, they tell him, "Clifford, no shouting. Clifford? Please no shouting."

The artist, never taking his eyes from the energized field of freedom he is creating, he is living inside, Clifford manages to bring a forearm to his mouth and bites onto it to muffle the shouting he cannot stop.

Its like someone has duct taped his mouth, but you still hear him. And the color flies, Clifford's eyes blazing with his having burst into a realm of freedom.
Real action. Real energy. Real joy. That had remained so bottled up for so long.

04/05/2021

Middle aged, always gracious, and surprisingly blunt when it came to the truth, Renee was one of our famous artists at United Cerebral Palsy of Philadelphia. When she discovered she could connect curves, she created a painting that garnered much praise from the staff. Referring to this painting of tightly writhing skinny curved lines that had brought her so many compliments Rene told us, “That painting gives me a migraine.”

Renee's second, more graceful, much larger, painting beautifully stretched and framed on the auction block at the fancy catered gallery reception the auctioneer asked, “Can I get an opening bid?” From the crowd we heard Renee’s voice call out: “One million dollars!” The final sale price not a million dollars, but Renee did quite well. After the show had come down, and the artists were settling back into their studio life with us, Renee said, “I really like painting, but what I like more is the money.”

Image credit: Leola Renee McMillan

10/29/2020

We were pleased to be linked by Gov. Christie Todd Whitman to a new fellow of the Eisenhower Foundation. Milene Guermont will be reaching out to the most interesting art programs worldwide.

You can see Milene's work at https://www.mileneguermont.com/en/

Milene will be connecting us to a new group in Paris that could be the key to bringing A.R.T. to France .

08/27/2020

Overleaping the Lockdown: A.R.T. artists across the country are living without being able to get to their day programs and schools. Being quadriplegic this must be pretty hard on them. And their families.

Until they are able to return to the centers where the A.R.T. studio offers them the greatest degree of creative autonomy ever, which means exploration, self expression, deep satisfaction, pride and joy, we are offering a means for families to do A.R.T. at home.

Using a combination of on-line tutorials and phone conversations directly with A.R.T.’s founder we can bring the liberating power of A.R.T. to those stuck with nowhere to go during the day.

Please share this with anyone you know who has a family member with physical challenges. Share it with any centers or schools that serve the folks A.R.T. works with.
Thanks.

Contact Tim Lefens at [email protected] or 908-359-3098
www.artrealization.org

03/19/2020

Painting by A.R.T. artist Brandi

12/03/2019

Nicole, nine years old, was fixated watching her schoolmates use A.R.T. for the first time.

She saw what her pals who lacked the articulate use of their hands were doing. How they were choosing the colors, the brush, the size of the canvas. They were in charge and they were guiding rich bright colors with a flourish onto their paintings.

Nicole was so excited she rose straight up off the seat of her wheelchair, straining at the apex of her rise then gently crashing back onto the seat.

And now it was Nicole’s turn to paint. Our Tracker, always speaking with kids as if they were highly aware adults, asked, “Would you like to use the laser or the point system?” Before the Tracker could separate and repeat the terms so a nonverbal person could signal yes or no, in a voice both soft and clear Nicole announced, “La. La. La. Laser.”

At this Nicole’s aide dashed from the room hands over her heart.

When the aide returned it was clear she had been crying.

When we asked if she needed help, still quaking with emotion, wringing her hands, she said, “No. It’s just. It’s just that. It’s just that Nicole doesn’t talk!”

I said, “Well she does now.” This got a round of cheers from the kids and the Tracker.

The big reality we need you to wrap your head around is that for nine years no one knew Nicole could talk. Not her family, and not the staff of the school. When Nicole finally saw something she could do where she would be in charge, where she would make the decisions, and the results would be an excitingly intense firing within her, the power of true self-expression, she wanted this so much out came: la, la, laser.

Here's a question for you. How many times has a kid’s first word been: laser? A.R.T. Rocks.

Would you like to bring power, freedom, dignity and satisfaction to an A.R.T. artist?
Help support our mission to grow the reach of this liberating breakthrough by donating: http://www.artrealization.org/donate.html

09/10/2019

The wonderful A.R.T. program at Easterseals Arkansas shared this moving video about their client Mark and his journey.

"As he started following the tracker, we got to watch him process, plan, think, make decisions, be very specific about what we was doing. That painting was the first time in the fifteen months since his accident that we knew Mark could think. That was the beginning of many things, it changed how we did therapy, how we responded at home..it was absolutely life giving."

2018 Art & Soul Feature Video

09/10/2019

Ruthie wheels up to the canvas with a big smile. She just celebrated her 102nd birthday, and she’s about to start a new painting. Thanks to workshops provided by Berkshire-based and MNN member Community Access to the Arts (CATA), Ruthie began making art two years ago using an adaptive technique designed for people with significant physical disabilities.

Read CATA's Member Spotlight to hear Ruthie's inspirational story--and to learn how a nonprofit made it all possible: massnonprofitnet.org/memberspotlights

08/27/2019

The happiness of being fully in charge of how much of what went where in her art for the first time with A.R.T.