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The Arts
Sunflower by Michael Monaco. More works by United Spinal members can be viewed in this gallery.
Misc.
MESSAGE FROM THE CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD: Follow Your Bliss
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT: Hidden Talents
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: June 2007
Hybrid Taxis at the Expense of Accessibility
No Handcyclists Need Apply
LETTER FROM THE EDITOR: Flying Colors
SOCIAL NET: May 2007
Who Can Help You Go Back to Work?
RESEARCH FRONT: June 2007
Five Times More Seniors with Spinal Cord Injuries Now than 30 Years Ago
Genetic Link to Spina Bifida Discovered
Features
For the Love of It
Seattle-based artist Harriet Sanderson expresses herself on [...]
The ability to enjoy the arts is within everyone. One of the nice things about creating art is that the person who views your work cannot tell if you have a disability. Artwork is subjective and is judged on its merit; not on whether the artist can hold a pencil or brush. An artist strives to express emotion, and that may be influenced but not encumbered by a disability.
Another intrinsic quality of art is that it is inclusive; so, even if you don’t draw, paint, dance, or act, you can participate as audience-at a museum, a theater or gallery, or simply by [...]
As persons who have had to adapt to a disability, we may have had to reinvent ourselves. Many of us may, in the process, have found hidden talents we didn’t know we possessed. Luckily, the creative process knows no barriers and is only enriched by our individual experiences.
In my own life, I am grateful for the opportunity to use my prior training and experience, both personal and professional, to lead this organization through its biggest growth process in its 60-year history. The challenges this poses are major, but not insurmountable. I’m fortunate to have at my disposal a dedicated staff and board [...]
Hybrid Taxis at the Expense of Accessibility
Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s announcement that the city’s yellow taxi fleet will become completely hybrid within five years (news article, May 23) callously ignores the immediate transportation needs of people with severe physical disabilities who cannot enter or exit currently approved hybrid taxi vehicles, as well as New York City’s growing aging population, who are much more likely to acquire a physical impairment.
Despite the availability today of half a dozen minivans that can be modified for easy access for all people, and the continuing development of a factory-built wheelchair accessible sedan that can carry four additional [...]
When, in our March issue, we asked readers of Action to send us their art, I had no idea what sort of response we would get. I certainly did not expect our invitation to elicit the amazing variety and quality of artwork we did receive. I am very grateful that the six individuals you will find represented in our gallery acted on our request. They have each, in their own unique way, elevated the visual and spiritual quality of this issue.
Who Can Help You Go Back to Work?
Last month in this space, we looked at programs the Social Security Administration (SSA) offers to make it easier for people who receive benefits to return to the labor force without imperiling their benefits. If you missed that article, you can find it here.
This month, we’ll take a look at some of the organizations SSA partners with to help people with disabilities reach their career goals. Some of these organizations include Work Incentives Planning and Assistance (WIPA), Vocational Rehabilitation (VR), Employment Networks (ENs), and Protection and Advocacy Programs.
Five Times More Seniors with Spinal Cord Injuries Now than 30 Years Ago
The number of spinal cord injuries among senior citizens (age 70 and above) has grown fivefold in the past 30 years, as compared with younger spinal cord injury patients, researchers at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Jefferson’s Regional Spinal Cord Injury Center of the Delaware Valley recently reported.
As the population within the United States ages, it is estimated that 20% of its population will be older than 65 by 2040, and this aging of the population will likely have an impact on medicine and spinal cord rehabilitation centers as these [...]
Seattle-based artist Harriet Sanderson expresses herself on her disability by creating powerful images out of wooden canes, wheelchairs, and other unusual media.
By Lori A. Wood
“When I was three, I was on the couch taking a nap, and when I woke up, I was feverish and couldn’t move my right arm,” says Harriet Sanderson, an artist who lives in Seattle now, but who grew up in her native Indiana. “My parents took me to the hospital. That’s really all I remember.”
The little girl was diagnosed with polio. “It was 1950,” Sanderson says. “Most of the people I know who had polio were [...]
Bill Lasher’s wheelchairs are stunning works of art.
Bill Lasher’s “Chopper Chair” (courtesy of Lasher Sport)
Bill Lasher Jr. makes beautiful custom wheelchairs for his company Lasher Sport (www.lashersport.com) out of a warehouse in Anchorage, Alaska. A United Spinal member, and longtime Alaska resident, Lasher became paralyzed during a skiing accident when he was in high school. Here he talks about how he came to make these unusual creations, and what his vision is as he makes them.
The first time I pondered creating a chair, I was in my first year as an engineering student at Arizona State University [...]
It took an injury for Kitty Lunn to return to her beloved dance
and make it her life.
By Linda A. Cronin
“The dancer inside me doesn’t care about the wheelchair,” says Kitty Lunn, artistic director of Infinity Dance Theater. “She just wanted to keep dancing.” (Photo by Dan Demetriad)
Kitty Lunn always wanted to be a ballet dancer. For years, she lived her dream, successfully pursuing a career in dance. At 15 she danced the role of Swanilda in Coppélia with the New Orleans Civic Ballet and later was a soloist with the Washington Ballet. Lunn danced in such ballets [...]
In March, we asked artists among United Spinal Association’s membership to send us samples of their work along with statements about what effect, if any, their spinal cord injury or disorder has had on their art. We think you will be as impressed as we were by the diversity of real talent among your fellow members on exhibit after the jump.
Two friends from the Bronx rap about living with spinal cord injury.
By Michael Lee
The friendship of Ricardo Velasquez (left) and Norris Namel, formed out of their shared experience as disabled men from the same project in the Bronx, preceded their partnership in music.
Norris Namel, 25, was celebrating his sister’s sweet 16. Namel, then 17, and his cousin were horsing around with guns when his cousin accidentally shot him in the neck. Ricardo Velasquez, now 30, was walking towards his building from a party on the night of June 8, 1996, when he heard gun shots. The [...]
By Jenny M. Lieberman, MSOTR/L, ATP
As a clinician responsible for evaluating clients for wheelchairs for more than 10 years, I have developed an appreciation for and an understanding of the importance of a thorough assessment for those clients who are wheelchair mobile.
For each of my clients, multiple factors must be considered. The results of a physical assessment and an understanding of the client’s needs are important; however, equally, if not more important, is a clear understanding of the client’s expectations.
With this initial column in a series on the subject of wheelchair positioning and seating, I want to introduce you to this process [...]
By Tamar Asedo Sherman
Waiting in line to make a purchase at a department store this morning, a woman asked if I was shopping alone. “No, I’m with my daughter,” I responded before realizing why she asked the question.
I use a manual wheelchair and had several items piled in my lap. She was surprised there was no attendant with me. That’s happened many times before. Other shoppers have stepped in front of me, assuming I’m not in line, that I must be waiting for my caregiver. I always take such an occurrence as an opportunity to educate people.
“I happen to be with my [...]
By Ed Lash
As I mentioned in part one of this article in the previous issue, I was amazed at the answers I received when I asked at my multiple sclerosis (MS) support groups, “Do you perspire?” A number of people told me they did not perspire at all, or perspired hardly at all. Many had problems with normal sweating, but most had never thought of it as a symptom of MS. Except for occasional cool baths or swimming, however, hardly anyone took any other corrective action, or even thought there was much they could do. Almost no one mentioned it to [...]
By Rosemarie Rossetti, PhD
Of course, most of us want to live in pleasant, not to say “beautiful,” surroundings. We often think in terms of colors, patterns, schemes, shades, and so on. Many people are so concentrated on form when they think of home design that they all but forget function. I can’t afford that luxury.
The look of a product is certainly one factor influencing my purchasing decisions; however, I also factor in simplicity of use, ease of use, the cost versus benefit of the product, ease of maintenance, and durability. Since I use a wheelchair for mobility, I am most interested in [...]
by Kathleen M. Muldoon
Yvette Silver www.yvettesilver.com
Dear Gran,
I hate summer camp.
I hate fresh air.
I hate sleeping under the stars and getting bit up by mosquitoes.
The other campers hate everything too.
Please send me a train ticket to come home.
Love, Kathleen
That is the letter I sent my grandmother after my first night at summer camp. It was during the summer that I turned 13 and my grandmother and I had been living with an aunt in New York City. I’d never been to camp before, but toward the end of the school year, I was selected along with a [...]
Safe at home! This play was part of the action at the first ever wheelchair softball tournament to be held at a Disney park. Hosted by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays wheelchair softball team, the tourney was held at Disney World in Orlando, Florida. (Photo courtesy of Cynthia Crank, Pages of Life)
By Tom Scott and Bill Hannigan
United Spinal Giants Kick Off Second Season with New Website
On November 16, 2006, the United Spinal Giants made history when they played on the first hard-top football field in New York State, perfect for wheelchair users. Now in its second [...]
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