Flying Colors

The founder of A.R.T. (Art Realization Techniques) tells the story of his efforts to give physically handicapped students an outlet for their artistic creativity. After a one-hour visit to the Matheny School in New Jersey, Tim Lefens is inspired to work with its students, developing new techniques in teaching and eventually organizing an art show at a New York gallery. As his project grows, he faces objections within the school that might bring it to an end. Grover Gardner reads with an announcer's tones but also infuses the story with Lefens's passsion and creates well-developed voices for the secondary characters. This upbeat, dramatic story of overcoming odds is a day-brightener listeners shouldn't overlook. J.A.S. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

June 24, 2002
In the early '90s, Lefens, a painter, goes to the Metheny School for students with cerebral palsy and other disabilities to show slides of his work. As this intensely moving memoir shows, he becomes obsessed with finding ways to help students, who are in wheelchairs and have no use of their arms or hands, learning to express themselves, devising methods that allow them the freedom to paint. Carefully maneuvering wheelchairs over tinted acrylic produces excellent results, they find, and a laser attached to a welder's helmet can direct a surrogate precisely where to apply the paint to a canvas. His students thrive: some begin speaking more frequently; others experience improvements in their physical well-being. Lefens founds Artistic Realizations Technologies (A.R.T.) to insure these techniques are used by others. Student work becomes so noted that they get gallery showings, sell their paintings and are the subject of a CBS Evening News special. There are obstacles along the way: it is a struggle to get A.R.T. funded; dismissive sentimentalism (and even resentment) is often shown by teachers, administrators, social workers and therapists confronting the work and students. Lefens writes simply and clearly throughout, remaining focused on the students and the task at hand. "The idea," he tells them, "is not to struggle to do things the way that able-bodied people do. The idea is to make art." (Sept.)Forecast:Carefully written, unsparing and inspiring in its account of getting things done, this book should be a hit in nonprofit sector and with artists, and pick up further readers by word of mouth. Look for national reviews and media coverage to use the book as a tag for everything from the ongoing arts funding crisis and culture wars to advocacy for persons with disabilities.