Wheels of Friendship" was born in 2009 when Mikayla Resh was in middle school.
The Lower Nazareth Township girl, who has cerebral palsy and brain damage, uses a wheelchair. With the help of classmates, she created large colorful paintings by running her paint-covered wheelchair wheels over a canvas.
Those paintings, and ones done by other children including those in wheelchairs and with service dogs, are on display in "Mikayla's Voice." The exhibit runs at the Banana Factory through Feb. 7.
Mikayla's mother Kimberly Resh says children can learn about acceptance and inclusion by seeing the colorful images that incorporate wheelchair tracks.
"The bigger message is everyone can be included," she says. "We find artwork is a wonderful way for all kids to be included and do something fun."
The idea for what would become "Wheels of Friendship" started when Mikayla's art class at Lower Nazareth Middle School helped Mikayla create two large acrylic paintings, "One World. Many Friends" and "The Road to Helping Hands."
Resh approached an art teacher with the idea of having Mikayla be included by letting her paint with her wheels. The teacher embraced the idea.
"Kids put paint on her wheelchair tires and rolled her over the canvas," Resh says. "The kids then did decoupage with tissue paper between the tire tracks. We realized if we did something else, you would lose the wheel marks. We just made it up as we went along."
The paintings are on permanent display at the school "as a celebration of diversity," Resh says.
From that experience, Resh's nonprofit "Mikayla's Voice" developed "Wheels of Friendship" and started taking the painting program to other schools, including Steckel Elementary, The Swain School, Southern Lehigh Intermediate, Parkway Manor Elementary, William Penn Elementary, Bethlehem Area Vocational-Technical School, Nazareth Area High School.
Now students decoupage first and then put wheel marks on the large canvases. At one school, the painting included the paw print and tail mark of a service dog. And every painting incorporates the hand prints of all the artists. The paintings are large, some as big as 4 by 12 feet.
"We wanted a visual way to incorporate every artist," Resh says.
Last spring, "Mikayla's Voice" received a donation from Capital Blue Cross to reproduce the paintings half-size on canvases that were built and wrapped by students from Bethlehem Area Vocational Technical School.
Most of the originals are on display at the schools where they were created. This exhibit, Resh says, brings the works to a wider audience.
"This is something we have been working toward," Resh says. "We wanted to be able to share the kids' artwork with the community."
The exhibition features 15 works, including one original. "I wanted people to see how large [the originals] are," Resh says.
The original, called "Rainbow of Love," is a 4-by-8-foot canvas created by a class of hearing-impaired students who traced their hands, cut the traces out and folded the fingers for the sign language of "I love you."
The works are made by children both able and disabled. "We view ourselves as an organization for all kids, not an organization for kids with disabilities," Resh says.
Mikayla, who recently turned 21, audits art classes at Northampton Community College, where students help her by putting brushes in her hand.
Mikayla also regularly visits art classes at Nazareth Area Middle School and Steckel Elementary School in Whitehall.
"She is a teacher of sorts," Resh says. "Mikayla is profoundly disabled and she teaches young students lessons about acceptance. She had found a way to continue to make a difference."
The "Mikayla's Voice" exhibit also will be on display at Nazareth Area High School Feb. 8-28 and at Lehigh Valley Health Network March 1 to May 31.
Resource: http://www.mcall.com
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