Art Relief

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Painter Li Dan and model Tang Yijun are both survivors of the devastating earthquake that struck Sichuan Province four years ago. At the time, they were seniors at Dongqi Middle School, the site of the deaths of 249 students.

The lives of the surviving students were turned completely upside down. After spending a few months in a hospital receiving treatment, they began to worry about their ability to re-adapt into society.

Now, four years later, they sit in a studio, preparing their new artworks in a vocational school in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province. Were it not for the Multicolored Fund, they said, they might never have dared to face their future.

Another Meaning of Art

The founder of the fund, Zhou Chunya, is an artist based in Chengdu. Back in January 2008, there was a little girl in the city who suffered leukemia but whose family could not afford the heavy medical fees. Since she had a talent for drawing, local media came to Zhou seeking help, and Zhou organized an event to help the girl sell her works for charity. The project turned out to be a big success which drew the support of over 100 artists, and raised over 1 million yuan. The girl underwent her operation and her life was saved.

Zhou Chunya was happy to find that art could indeed play an important role in society. When the earthquake struck, Zhou knew he could not be of very much financial help to the earthquake survivors, but he went to the hospital to visit children, and gave them picture books and other art materials in an effort to cheer them up.

He also began to think about the children’s futures. The first thing that occurred to him was to teach them how to paint, so as to encourage them to develop artistic ability. He hoped that art could help them to face their future with a positive attitude, or at least give them a skill with which they could potentially make a living.

The first time Zhou went to see Li Dan, Li was still in her hospital bed, with tubes all over her body, unable to move. But when Zhou told her she could learn to paint, her eyes lit up. Quite often, Zhou would take books of painting collections with him to the hospital, and tell them stories of famous disabled artists.

In March 2009, he launched the Multicolored Fund, China’s first artist-led charity, and has helped over 100 disabled children undertake art training. 13 of his former students have now gained admission to university.

Hard Efforts

Initially, due to the children’s physical limitations, volunteer art teachers from the Multicolored Fund Art School went to students’homes, sometimes more than 50 kilometers away from Chengdu, to teach art lessons. Students would begin learning line drawing, and then progress to more complicated techniques.

For students who had lost limbs, things were even more challenging. Li Dan had lost her right hand during the earthquake, and had to practice using her left hand before she could begin to learn. She had to spend over ten hours each day to get used to holding the brush. However, her teacher Geng Bo kept giving her strict instructions. Geng tried to avoid looking especially sympathetic to the children, in the hope that they would gain confidence, and realize that they were no different from able-bodied children.

Tang Yijun, who had lost both his legs, had to struggle to lean his upper-body forward to reach the canvas when drawing. Wei Ling suffered serious paraplegia after the earthquake, and for quite some time, she was bad-tempered and easily agitated. She once quarreled with the doctors and her art teachers. But her teachers did not give up, and Wei gradually started to create vivid sketches, becoming absorbed in the pleasure of painting. She calmed down, and her drawing skills began to mature.

Wei Ling still lives in Deyang Recovery Hospital, and this March she gathered with other members to attend an art exhibition held in Shenzhen. On the day NewsChina met Wei, she had just finished making a large pumpkin sculpture with thin, tangled vines, dotted with golden peanuts. She named it Life. She seems more optimistic than before, and is even thinking of opening an online shop to sell her handicrafts.

More than Emotional relief

For most children, the paintings were initially a reflection of their self-image. The majority of Tang Yijun’s art is related to amputation, for example, a tall, folded walking stick, and a human-sized statue that Tang named Stand Up. Kou Juan, who also underwent an am- putation following injuries in the earthquake, painted a piece called Face to Face, which shows a mirror reflecting a blurry image of a girl’s face, hidden partially behind her hair. The painting is gray and dark, but Kou herself likes it, and believes the painting reflects her attitude towards life during a previous period of time. “At that time I was at loss, unable to figure out the reason for my existence,” she told NewsChina.

How does art help them? “It is hard to say precisely. But undoubtedly art can make someone’s heart more colorful, and help one to understand more about oneself, fostering the capability to discover the beauty of life,” said Zhou Chunya to our reporter. “On the canvas, one can integrate oneself absolutely into the painting, with the adaptation of different colors or design. The achievements of finishing a work are a kind of spiritual relief more effective than any other means.”

But for Zhou and the fund, the purpose of teaching the children art is to help them to “walk out of the shadows.”

The first step is to hold events like fundraisers and art exhibitions. In Zhou’s opinion, it is crucial to find a way to help the children regain confidence and re-enter society. One year after he set up the fund, Zhou clarified his goal: to help the first nine students, including Li Dan and Tang Yijun, get a college education.

In order to pass the art school entrance exams, the students practiced day and night. Teacher Geng Bo remembers many memorable moments. The disabled students helped each other to sharpen pencils, and those who could walk helped those who could not to climb the five stories to the studio.

However, even after admission to college, it is not easy for them to fulfill their dreams of studying. The biggest challenge is that colleges remain ill-equipped to handle the needs of disabled students.

Zhou Chunya said that disabled-accessible facilities in urban China are insufficient to accommodate the daily needs of China’s disabled, who number over 75 million. “In China, we rarely see disabled people in public places. Why? Because it is inconvenient for them to leave their homes. Despite the fact that some new constructions have improved facilities, getting between different buildings is difficult,”said Zhou.

When the fellow students gained admission to the Sichuan Huaxin Vocational Art School, the fund donated 70,000 yuan (US$10,998) for the school to upgrade its disabled facilities.

Next year, the students are due to graduate. Most of them have chosen their future professions. Tang Yijun said he will work as an advertising designer, Song Linlin will be a landscape architect, and Li Dan hopes she can work as a web designer in the coastal city of Shenzhen.

“They need to face the post-earthquake world directly, and we cannot help them forever,” Zhou said. “They are young, and have learned some life skills. They have successfully made the first step of accepting themselves, and have been revitalized through art. Now, they hold great expectations for their future. This is all that we could help them to fulfill.”