Conference keynote speaker emphasizes
Alli Voorhees
Issue date: 4/13/09 Section: News
Friday, April 10 marked the last day of the much-anticipated fifth annual Celebration of Scholarship. Students who had prepared for months finished presentations, raffle tickets had been handed out, and the final key-note speaker, Lynn M. Harter, Ph D prepared to speak.
br>Students and staff alike entered the Flohr Lecture Hall at 11 a.m. to hear the professor from Ohio University speak on 'Aesthetic Sensibilities: Storytelling Resources for Renewing and Reconstructing Community Life.'
Dr. Harter opened her talk with a small bit of biographical background, claiming that she is from a farming community in Nebraska.
"Who I am as a person in intricately woven with who I am as a scholar," Harter said.
With a primary focus in health communication, Harter became interested in Passion Works when she moved to the Athens, OH area approximately eight years ago. Passion Works is an organization supporting teamwork among artists with and without developmental disabilities that exists to "inspire and liberate human spirit through the arts."
Passion Works was founded in 1996 and is located in a government-sponsored sheltered workshop.
The organization has been featured on PBS and in USA Today.
Passion Works first caught Harter's eye when she was dining in a local Athens restaurant and noticed some of the artwork.
Harter began volunteering with the artists as a means to figure out "what…we can do to allow people to live well in the midst of disability," she said.
The studio was created to be conducive to the production of artwork designed by the artists. Though the artists are considered disabled, they are all capable of producing artwork for the community. For example, a specifically designed armband holds a paintbrush to help one artist paint, since he lacks feeling in his arm.
Because of gadgets like these, the artists are encouraged to be creative and free with their art. The Passion Works studio will be moving to a new location in Athens on East State Street Thursday April 23. There the artists will have a newer studio, and people will be able to purchase Passion Works artwork.
br>Students and staff alike entered the Flohr Lecture Hall at 11 a.m. to hear the professor from Ohio University speak on 'Aesthetic Sensibilities: Storytelling Resources for Renewing and Reconstructing Community Life.'
Dr. Harter opened her talk with a small bit of biographical background, claiming that she is from a farming community in Nebraska.
"Who I am as a person in intricately woven with who I am as a scholar," Harter said.
With a primary focus in health communication, Harter became interested in Passion Works when she moved to the Athens, OH area approximately eight years ago. Passion Works is an organization supporting teamwork among artists with and without developmental disabilities that exists to "inspire and liberate human spirit through the arts."
Passion Works was founded in 1996 and is located in a government-sponsored sheltered workshop.
The organization has been featured on PBS and in USA Today.
Passion Works first caught Harter's eye when she was dining in a local Athens restaurant and noticed some of the artwork.
Harter began volunteering with the artists as a means to figure out "what…we can do to allow people to live well in the midst of disability," she said.
The studio was created to be conducive to the production of artwork designed by the artists. Though the artists are considered disabled, they are all capable of producing artwork for the community. For example, a specifically designed armband holds a paintbrush to help one artist paint, since he lacks feeling in his arm.
Because of gadgets like these, the artists are encouraged to be creative and free with their art. The Passion Works studio will be moving to a new location in Athens on East State Street Thursday April 23. There the artists will have a newer studio, and people will be able to purchase Passion Works artwork.
Be the first to comment on this story