Eric with his new coordinated DADA tie
We can’t show the faces of all our playmates but with the photos we include, we hope to show you the joy and beauty we find at each facility.
Taking advantage of Father’s Day we were able to present a fun lesson in art. Now that the communities are using remembered skills of cutting and sewing, we brought in some art history and reminders about color, form, and design.
DADA in its purest form is making ridicule of “fine art” but we’ve adapted that to modifying everyday objects in creative ways. Thus the tie as a symbol of white-collar authority becomes a piece of art or at least a fun object.
When we entered the first building , one of our playmates was bouncing around and said, “Oh, I am so excited, I almost wet my pants! I’ve been waiting for you…I was afraid you wouldn’t come!” We are touched by the joy we bring to these communities and thrilled by the increasing numbers of playmates who join in the workshops. But best of all is seeing their abilities to work with scissors, paints, markers and other items reawaken. Now, when we put out tools for working, they no longer sit and wait for directions, they dig right in and even run back and forth between tables to fetch other items. Sometimes I have to knock on a table or talk loudly to get their attention because they just jump into the projects with delight not even waiting for “the lesson” or caring what they are supposed to be making. They just want to play with the art and each other!
This is so different from the first sessions at some communities where we entered rooms of people sitting quietly at tables staring at nothing. They were in total isolation sitting next to each other without communication. They’d look at us as if we were aliens with strange instruments coming to invade their quiet. And indeed we were! Several of us EPDs are within the same age range as our playmates and the idea that we are running around out in the world struck them oddly. On top of that, we brought items they hadn’t seen in years and may never have used themselves: crayons, glue, scissors. We tore up magazines and books to make collages for their calendars! Now they are not only willing to rip up pictures, they want to glue jewels and flowers to them and maybe a dinosaur!
We used fusing on the fabrics and so we were able to iron the designs onto the ties before any embellishing took place. It was wonderful to see the sense of color and design show it self in quite a few of the ties and to watch the care the members took to get it “just right.” A lot of hard work and skill went into these DADA ties.
Extended Play Dates 