A son's art

In addition to having Down Syndrome, two years ago, Jon, 35, suffered a psychotic break, and last year was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s.

Despite these challenges, though, Jon has found a way to communicate through painting, and Arlene has organised an art exhibition for him. The purpose? To show that people suffering with a mental illness have abilities too.

The exhibition, titled Dis-is-Ability, will take place at Horizons Art Gallery located at 37 Mucurapo Road, St James. It opens at 7 pm on March 21, World Down Syndrome Day, and will continue until March 25 from 9 am to 5.30 pm. It will feature paintings of nature and still life in acrylic paints on canvas board. “It shows the fact that there is ability regardless of what is perceived as a disability. I think the fact that Jon has been able to produce this work is a clear indication that, in some instances there may be people who we may write off because we see them as disabled, and we think they are not able to produce, but Jon’s work is proof that this is not so. If one person goes away from the exhibition thinking, ‘Let me give this person a space to see what they could do,’ that’s enough,” said Arlene.

In fact, she stressed that it did not matter whether or not any of Jon’s pieces were sold because the point was to let people see what he was doing, and to make them aware of the possibilities.

Arlene, a teacher, told Sunday Newsday she remembered one day looking out of her classroom window and watching some boys play football.

Her first thought was that her son would never do that. However, she said a parent of a child with Down Syndrome should not stay at the “why me?” stage and keep dwelling on the negatives.

“You have to move from that place of disappointment because if you don’t, you can’t help your child to develop into a full person, as full as they could be. You have to forget about what is normal for everyone else and work on developing a new normal. So his dad and I decided that Jon needed to have as full and as normal a life as possible for as long as possible.” Jon was included in all family activities, including vacations and visits to the theatre.

They did not limit him but accepted the boundaries of his disabilities. He attended a montessori and primary school as a child, and now attends the Lady Hochoy Vocational Centre. There he got involved in power-lifting and took part in the local Special Olympics for several years.

However, after his psychotic break in August 2015, he stopped this sport but still goes to the gym twice per week.

“When Jon got ill we had a new ‘new normal.’ He lost touch with reality, he lost touch with this thoughts and feelings, he had delusions and hallucinations so he had to be put on medication and joined the psychiatric clinic in Mt Hope,” Arlene recalled. The medication helped immensely, although there had to be several adjustments as he could not articulate how the medication made him feel.

However, she had a lot of support from his doctors and his sister, who is a psychologist, and said Jon has now mostly stabilised.

Even while on heavy medication, Jon started learning football skills and participated in the Special Olympics in football last year, and will do so again in April.

“Mental illness is not just difficult for the person who has the illness. It is difficult for the people all around that person.

I cope because I believe in God.

God is my rock. That’s how I get through every day. If God takes his hand off of me I would have a Matrix moment and I will dissolve.” Arlene said community was also necessary for a person suffering from mental illness. Jon has the support of several communities, including his church, his gym, and Lady Hochoy. She has the support of her family as well as the Down Syndrome Family Network, which is scheduled to hold a conference on March 20 at the Magdalena Grand in Tobago, and on March 21 at the Hyatt Regency in Portof- Spain.

She explained that when Jon first had the psychotic breakdown he was put on strong anti-psychotic medication which had him “withdrawn, zonked out, and he was not responding to much of anything.” In an effort to help him find his way back to himself, Arlene decided, as an experiment, to try art.

She and Jon attended an art and wine event.

“He was not responding much to anything. I thought the teacher would have to go and help Jon, but no. Jon did his background, and his kiskadee looked like a kiskadee, while my kiskadee looked like a pregnant chicken. I was definitely surprised,” she laughed.

When she saw the work her son had produced, and that he was calm and attentive, Arlene decided to continue his art education and found him an art teacher. She said sometimes painting was a challenge for him depending on the kind of day he was having, but he enjoyed it, had an affinity for it, and it was good for him.

“I asked him once if he wanted to go to art.

He said yes and I asked him why. He said it makes him happy. If there’s one thing that makes him happy, I’ll do that one thing 365 days for the year.” Arlene also realised that painting was Jon’s way of expressing himself.

She noted that he had been talking less since the breakdown and art was a way of communicating for someone who could not communicate with words.

She said his teacher, Miss Garcia, pulled emotion out of him, and assisted and guided his work. She added that Jon recently started to paint pictures of the photographs he took on his iPad, giving him a lot of material with which to work as he loved taking pictures.

Arlene decided to have an exhibition when Jon’s pieces started to clutter up the house.

“I was thinking about legacy. Legacy is important to me. As a teacher for many many years, I know where my legacy lies. I’ve always wondered about Jon’s legacy – he’s not going to get married, or have children, and then this happened.

I had been praying about it and one day the Lord said to me, ‘You’ve been asking.

Here it is.’” She is also in the process of publishing a coffee book of Jon’s paintings over the past year, also called Dis-is-Ability. She said because of Early-onset Alzheimer’s, one day splashing paint may be all he could do. Therefore, the exhibition and the book was a way for Jon to leave something behind – something tangible as well as the intangible idea of possibility