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Registered charity no. 1013941

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dec. 07

 
Welcome to new members:-
 
Christine Finn
On top of a successful career as a journalist Christine is now developing her visual-spatial strengths. recently she presented her parents’ house in Deal as a project for the RIBA Architecture Week, celebrating their lives and the architectural style of the period.
 

Very dyslexic, she is a fluent and prolific writer which still surprises many people who do not realise that it is usually only the sequential aspect of language: the grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc., that dyslexics find difficult.

Three-dimensionally her mind is full of ideas and she has written on a wide range of subjects from Jacketta Hawkes (Christine has a degree in archeology herself) to Andy Warhol and the furniture designers who created the Eames style in the 50’s -60’s.

Her enthusiasm for the arts and insight into the creative minds involved, has taken her to see exhibitions in America and Holland in the last couple of months. And she was much impressed by the recent exhibition at the ICA in London of art work made by prisoners.

A passion for colour and texture leads her to collect many fascinating bits of rope and flotsam from the beaches near her home.

 
 

Deidre Pawsey
We quote from her letter, which decribes her experience of dyslexia, in a way which will ring bells for many of you;-
 
......It is so good to talk to people who have dyslexia; there are a lot of academics and educationists who think they can define it but it is only the unfortunate or maybe privileged few of us who live with it, who can truly know how it feels. I find that many people with dyslexia are particularly adept at using language; far from being word blind, they communicate in an expressive and articulate way and have a ‘social intelligence’ that enables them to contact deeply and emotionally with others. This ability to understand and convey abtract feelings and emotions is seen in actors, artists, musicians, singers, architects and all the other disciplines where it is common to find people with dyslexic tendencies. I beieve we both ‘see’ and ‘don’t see’. I am able to plan and pre-empt siuations and solve complex problems visually and without effort, but I also have dyscalculia. I have never learned to tell the time accurately and fail to recognise written calculations; I also find verbal instructions and multiples of information impossible to process, it mkes me feel physically ill and panicked.
 
From early childhood I have known that there are many things I can ‘see’ and do that others can’t, but I was also aware that I lagged far behind in routine schoolwork. My handwriting was years behind the expectations for my age and maths was non existent. I could draw, not particularly well, but I loved to do it and adored colour and shape, because it seemed to speak to me. It relaxed me and I would draw my fantasies at home. I suppose by the time I was at secondary school, I was quite well practiced at it; I was very good at designing and making clothes and could see what shapes and sizes I needed to create a garment, I would be as young as seven or eight. My imagination is abundant but my short term memory is dreadfull and becomes worse under stress; I could never remember the content of lessons or what homework I had to do, but somehow I managed to develop an excellent genral knowledge and a broad interest in most thing’s. This led my teachers to believe that I was pathologically lazy, my lack of success was considered deliberate and I was punished accordingly. I hated school and would run away from it whenever I had the chance.
 
In 2004 I arranged a screening for myself by an occupational psychologist as it was in the workplace where I experienced the most difficulty. I was given a range of tests over two days and the conclusion was that my difficulties were quite marked. It was also noted that my co-ordination was very poor and there were clear signs of dyspraxia. So much for me being wicked and clumsy! There was a real downside to this information; I realised that I would never be any different and this depressed me; I have always told myself that if I tried harder I could be normal. I also know, that I have had to work very hard indeed to acheive the things I have, but I have still never felt quite good enough.

Glenn James
 
describes himself as a Gothic Fantasy Artist and Writer. He is a member of the Society for Art of Imagination and the British Fantasy Society. See his web site:-
for more about his “Pre-Raphaelite Goth” style of drawing and “Skaler” vampires.
 

Being assessed as dyslexic in 2002 came as something of a surprise as he was at the time eight years into the process of writing and researching for a novel and he had graduated from University, been a successful studio manager for BBC Radio WM and was working at the time as a Crown Court Verbatim Reporter. The news needed considerable emotional readjustmen!

Despite having gone through ”a terrible period with a deeply predjudiced employer in 2005” he has finished writing and illustrating his novel and has been exhibiting work in various galleries including the H R Giger Museum in Switzerland and Mall Galleries in London, so he has obviously now come to terms with dyslexia and made the emotional adjustments needed. Though, as we all know, the feeling that one has to work harder than others in order to keep up will probably remain with him for life.

He has just been asked to illustrate for the up and coming dark-fantasy comic title “Murky Depths” and is currently hard at work on his firt contribution.

News of Members
Dani Knight
has produced a book of photograohs of Tachbrook Street SW1, which is on show at this exhibition celebrating the spirit of Pimlico:-
 

The book will be on sale for £30. Individual photographs mounted and bagged £20.

 

THE BEING DYSLEXIC PREOJECT -REVIEW

This project was run by Lynn Weddle and worked in educational environments to empower dyslexic's and to generate a change in public awareness. Lynn Weddle worked with dyslexic art students from the University College of the Creative Arts, Farnham and pupils from Moore House School, Frensham.

Art Students from UCCA became mentors and reflected upon their own experience of school.

Jonathan Adams
(he calls himself “Jon”, these days) is doing great things at Portsmouth University. His “Train Project” has gained a grant from the Arts Council and won an Arts Plus 1st prize, Milton Keynes, and has been on show at the ICA.

His delightful “Fault” features on our front cover. Here are more versions:-

Dyslexic DADA Dyslexic Artists Dyslexia Action
 
“Voices from the Margin”
 

Accessible Information Motivates Success… Dyslexic Dada AIMS to positively change perceptions about dyslexia by involving dyslexics themselves in the debate.

Other ADT members also involved in this project are: Emma Elliott and Lynn Weddle.

 
Oliver West
organised this conference, which was, we hear, a great success.

Representatives from many colleges and schools in Austria, Portugal and Switzerland, as well as the UK attended. “John Stein and Thomas West” were brilliant. Tony Steffert recorded the proceedings, so a video may well be available in due course.

Mike Juggins

Is doing a lot of good work for DADA up north , see the exhibition at Manchester Met.:- Dyslexia… focus on ability! Dyslexic Dada is bringing together creative dyslexics from all across the UK to have their say about their own disABILTY. We are launching an interactive and dyslexic friendly web site and running an exhibition during this year's Dyslexia Awareness Week, this will mean Voices from the Margins will be heard.

• The Web site went live on the 8th of October

The exhibition was and web portal is supported by the Arts Council and MMU and ran alongside a University of Salford Dyslexia Symposium.

Geoff Ball
Is working on a grand project which combines the fields of art and science
 
1) On the purely functional aspect: he will be demonstrating a concept that will produce clean energy from the phenomena of piezo-electric discharge, produced by mechanical stress on a crystal. We have to produce a medium which will explain how this energy source can be harnessed. While experiments based on this effect, have been trialled in the past without much success, the approach adopted here will be new. The function is an enormously important one, as it holds out the promise of a much needed alternative source of power to oil or nuclear fission.
 
2) Working with a young sculptor, Geoff intends to build a model made of PTFC (Polytetralfluo- racarbonate) in a tetrahedral shape, held together in an aluminium framework. A laser combined sound system will be incorporated, which produces the synaesthesic perception of colour in the observers brain.
 

Geoff Ball
Example from his Field Ion Microscope: magnification approx. 100 million x atoms/molecules of tungsten point tip.

P L E A S E !!!
Dont forget to renew your membership subscription !
We rely entirely on members’ subscriptions to cover ADT office running costs. Your help is very much appreciated. If you pay income tax in the UK the Trust can claim back from the government R & C more than a quarter of your subscription (currently 28p for each £1 you give) so please if you can, sign below:-

GIFT AID
If you pay income tax in the UK the Arts Dyslexia Trust as a registered charity, under the UK Government’s Gift Aid Scheme can claim from HM Revenue and Customs a sum equal to the amount of tax you have paid on your subsription or other payments or donations to the Arts Dyslexia Trust. This involves no more than filling in the form below, signing it and returning it to the ADT’s address. Keep a copy for your own tax records.
 

OPPORTUNITIES
 
Brindley Arts programme a literature festival, Talkwrite
at the Brindley arts centre in Runcorn. Next years festival will run from 10 - 23 May 20.
 
The overall theme of the festival is Mind and Body, with a focus on dyslexia and dyslexic artists/writers. Our aims are:
 
a) To demonstrate that dyslexia should not prevent people from engaging with literature.
 
b) Showcase work of dyslexic artists
 
c) Give non-dyslexics an opportunity to see both the challenges and benefits dyslexia may bring the individual.
 
We would like to exhibit writings/artwork (shopping lists, very short stories, poems, doodles, drawings, anything) by people recognised in the public eye who are dyslexic. These will be displayed randomly around the building during the festival.
 
Below is a request for submissions for dysliterature from dyslexic people known in the public eye.
 
We would be most grateful if you would consider submitting something to the address below. Again, it could be anything at all, even an email. If it is something you would like returned, please include details of where we should send it. If it is something you would like to be treated in a particular way please let us know by way of a covering letter. Anything we receive will be treated with the utmost care and respect.
 
Martin Cox
Music Development Officer
Brindley Arts,
High Street
Runcorn
Cheshire
WA71BG
Tel. 01519078360
email:- martin.cox@halton.gov.uk
ADT has some exciting projects afoot for the coming year. We have been busy writing out applications for sponsorship and hope that shortly we may be able to look for some paid part-time work in the office and, most urgently needed, a part-time manager to direct and cope with the organisation of these projects. In the mean time, any volunteers who would like to help us would be most welcome. If you have computer skills and bright ideas for web site and Newsletter in particular, please let us know. All contributions are greatly appreciated. Our new Chairman (Dr Beverley Steffert) is full of enthusiasm and ideas for the future. She is planning to increase our contacts with other organisations, and is instigating a research programme which will focus on "creativity". How this unique feature of the human brain is related to the spatial aspect of vision and the dyslexic antipathy of dyslexics to sequential thinking will come under scrutiny.
We are pleased to announce that the 2008 Brian Ayers Memorial Art Exhibition will display artwork in not one, but three venues: Boone Mall, The Turchin Center for Visual Arts, and the Mazie Jones Gallery of the Jones House Community Center, all in Boone, North Carolina. Another important change this year is that the age limit has been expanded to include artists ages 10-25. Artists who have entered before are welcome to enter again. We offer twenty-five $50 awards, a $400 purchase award, and as always, there is no entry fee. There will be a silent auction for artists choosing to offer their work for sale. We hope you will encourage talented artists with learning disabilities and dyslexia you know to enter a piece of artwork. The entry deadline is May 1, 2008. Visit our newly-designed website
to download an Entry Form and to see beautiful artwork from past exhibitions.
adt@artsdyslexiatrust.org
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