This wasn’t the post I was going to write today, but I was looking through my Pinterest feed and these works of art caught my eye.  There was something primal, something tangible that reached out.

Subtle yet charismatic.  Sourced from the urge to create.

All made by one woman: Judith Scott.

And then I discovered her story.

Judith Scott and her twin sister Joyce were born on May 1 1943 in Cincinnati, Ohio

Aged seven, because of her Downs Syndrome and profound deafness the decision was taken to send her to an asylum where she spent the next 35 years.

Then her sister Joyce then became her guardian, moved her to a care home near to her and enrolled her in the Creative Growth Art Centre in Oakland.

For two years she did nothing.  And then she started winding thread.

And found the voice she’d never used.

(All pictures from Judith and Joyce Scott website (well worth looking at) and Pinterest)

Judith Scott died in 2005 at the age of 61 in the arms of her sister, but she remains a testament to the power of art, the strength of human nature and an epiphany to how disability can be a footnote.

 

Laters, Kate x