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Artists with disabilities showcase their talents at Brooklyn Museum
For the next three weeks, the Brooklyn Museum is showcasing artwork by artists living with mental illness and/or developmental disabilities.
NEW YORK - Michal Behar didn't have it that easy growing up.
"I have spasms because I have connected tissue disease," she told FOX 5 NY.
But that is the only time in this story we'll mention her developmental disability. That's because this story is about what's on the wall she was standing in front of during the interview.
"When I do art, it's not really me doing it because it's an energy," Behar said of her work.
And these aren't just any walls. It's a gallery in the Brooklyn Museum.
"It really allows these artists to be seen heard and to really shine in their own light," said David Woodlock, the CEO of the Institute for Community Living, a nonprofit that helps people with mental illness and developmental disabilities find their way in life, away from the labels they're usually accustomed to.
This is the 14th year the Brooklyn Museum has featured work by clients of ICL.
"[It] helps with my personality," Jason Germaine, an artist and ICL client. "To develop a character, a real actual character that I never had."
And it turns out, some are quite exceptional with a paintbrush.
Dylan Stanfield is an artist brought in by ICL to work with its clients.
"[I'm] just sort of helping people to take wherever they're at and just explore their creativity," Stanfield said.
That creativity will be on display in the Seen and Heard exhibit at the museum until Dec. 15.
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