Rating: 
Summary: Watching Art Release a Prisoner
Review: The author, Tim Lefens, is an abstract artist who is troubled by a growing physical impairment. He writes how he accepts an invitation to show slides of his work to severely disabled people in a hospital/school in New Jersey. The power of the individuals' spirit, communicated mostly through their eyes, bowls him over, and he can't stop thinking about their excitement and interest. The well-meaning but insensitive employees of the school treat the patients like children of zero intelligence and do everything for them, to the point of choosing saccharine TV shows about purple dinosaurs for these thinking adults. Lefens tells how he feels propelled to liberate the residents from the prison of their bodies and others' misguided babying through the medium of art. He begins by working with patients who can operate wheelchairs and sets up a way to paint by driving over the painting with wheels. From there the thrilled artists move on to ever more expressive techniques. The story of how Lefens fights a stultified and hostile bureaucracy, finds legitimate art galleries for the artists to show their work and liberates them in unexpected ways is riveting. It should help readers put their own prisons in perspective and think about ways to accomplish the impossible in their lives, too.
Rating:
Summary: Flying Colors
Review: This book is like entering the silent world of the nonverbal and severely disabled and seeing through the words of the author's excellent descriptions what a few hours a week were like in the art room at Matheny.
We have always wondered, and now finally are able to "see" and "hear" the process, from novice to pro, that these young adults enjoyed so much, but were never able to explain because of their physical limitations.
One of these artists is our daughter, Cindy.
Rating:
Summary: Flying Colors
Review: This is one fabulous book. I loved it, absolutely could not put it down and am enjoying reading it again. I find it exceptionally interesting and inspiring and wildly funny. It gave me so many insights about the tremendous power of art and what modern painting, and painting in general, really is about. It is a wonderful, finely written love story and I could not recommend more highly.
Rating:
Summary: Flying Colors
Review: This is one fabulous book. I loved it, absolutely could not put it down and am enjoying reading it again. I find it exceptionally interesting and inspiring and wildly funny. It gave me so many insights about the tremendous power of art and what modern painting, and painting in general, really is about. It is a wonderful, finely written love story and I could not recommend more highly.
Rating:
Summary: A Genius in Our Midst
Review: Tim Lefens is a modern-day Leonardo da Vinci: painter, poet, teacher, inventor. Genius of this brilliance is rare in our world and will necessarily receive some opposition: opposition from those unable to concede the space that such talent requires, and opposition from those who need to feel a sense of superiority but suddenly are confronted with people of decidedly inferior bodies but through the genius of Lefens are now demonstrating a creative power definitely superior to that which most of us possess.
"Flying Colors" is a once-in-a-lifetime literary gem. I am not suggesting but demanding that all of my friends read it.
Rating:
Summary: A Journey of the Mind! Two-Thumbs Up!!
Review: Tim Lefens may suffer from failing vision but his artistic sense is visionary. His techniques deserve to be broadcast across the nation and around the world - they give the power of expression in its purest form to those who have been profoundly denied that opportunity through no fault of their own.The interplay between Lefens and The Matheny School & Hospital provides an entertaining counterpoint to the personal growth of the disabled artists: two forces who are very good at what they do, both jealously committed to the welfare of their charges and uncompromising in their belief of rectitude. It is a shame they cannot rejoin forces - they are opposite sides of the same coin. If you have the chance to view the exhibitions of these artists, do not pass the opportunity by. You will have glimpsed the unquenchable fires that spark our humanity.
Rating:
Summary: A Journey of the Mind! Two-Thumbs Up!!
Review: Tim Lefens may suffer from failing vision but his artistic sense is visionary. His techniques deserve to be broadcast across the nation and around the world - they give the power of expression in its purest form to those who have been profoundly denied that opportunity through no fault of their own. The interplay between Lefens and The Matheny School & Hospital provides an entertaining counterpoint to the personal growth of the disabled artists: two forces who are very good at what they do, both jealously committed to the welfare of their charges and uncompromising in their belief of rectitude. It is a shame they cannot rejoin forces - they are opposite sides of the same coin. If you have the chance to view the exhibitions of these artists, do not pass the opportunity by. You will have glimpsed the unquenchable fires that spark our humanity.
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