The Arts Could Help Adults With Disabilities Lead Independent Lives

Brian Armour Jr. poses for a snapshot with Cheryl Sutton
(left), Kathleen Henderson of Studio Route 29, and his
aunt Beverly Towns Williams. Photos by Wiley Henry

Jenni Clark, the founder and CEO of StarThrower  

Group, says Armour is ‘creative, clever and kind.’

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the final installment of a two-part series about adults with special needs.

 

MEMPHIS, TN – “Are you proud of me?” Brian Armour Jr. asked his aunt after his performance at Studio Route 29 on Oct. 28 and after leaving the opening of his art exhibit at ArtYard, both in Frenchtown, N.J.

“Yes, I’m proud of you, B.J.,” Beverly Towns Williams assured her nephew on the way back to the house.

He’d asked Lionel Scriven, Williams’s partner, the same question before the “big day” had unfolded. “Are you proud of me, Uncle?”

Scriven answered yes.

Though Armour was the center of attention that day, he still wanted to know if he’d done a good job. 

Children and adults like Armour, who grapple with intellectual and developmental disabilities, may be impaired in one or several areas: physical, learning, language, or behavior.

Some of them may be more impaired than others.

Armour, however, is imaginative and creative. But he needed a structured program, said Williams, who was able to get him in the state’s pre-vocational program where he had trial work experiences.

“He worked at a food pantry,” she said. “He worked at a local department store. And he worked in an office setting just to see and measure what pre-vocational skills that he had.”

He needed a little more, Williams was told. “In these pre-vocational settings, it was only two to three times a week. Now he’s in a program with a combined internship with Studio Route 29.” 

The program spans the entire week, she said.

Developmental disabilities occur among all racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic groups in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Recent estimates show that about one in six (or about 17 percent) of children aged 3 - 17 in the U.S. have one or more developmental disabilities or other developmental delays.

The list varies: ADHD, autism spectrum disorder, cerebral palsy, hearing loss, intellectual disability, learning disability, vision impairment, and other developmental delays.

Williams and Scrivens would like to see Armour achieve independence some day and function within the scope of normalcy – if possible. That is their goal. But what is normal?  

Jenni Clark has the same goal for her three children – a boy and two girls. Each one is autistic, she said, and added: “It’s just that they’re high functioning.” 

Concerning her son, she asked, “Who’s going to take care of him? I want to see him set up and living in his house and he’s doing okay.”

Her aunt, whom she cares for, has special needs as well.

Clark is the founder and CEO of StarThrower Group, a non-profit that provides services to over 40 families in Hunterdon, Somerset, Warren, and Mercer counties in New Jersey.

Armour, a former Memphian, joined the group about a year ago. “He’s been so amazing,” said Clark, “because he’s so creative, and clever, and kind, and he really cares about everybody that he’s around.” 

A former schoolteacher, Clark launched the non-profit in 2018 after cashing out her Girl Scouts of Rolling Hills Council pension. She was the director of Volunteers and Training.

“We have people of all different areas of the autism spectrum,” she said about StarThrower. “We have people with Down syndrome, people with fragile X. There’s a lot of mental health concerns as well.”

Kathleen Henderson worked at Creative Growth Art Center in Oakland, Calif., for over 10 years before opening Studio Route 29 a year ago in Frenchtown, N.J. Both are progressive art studios and serve artists with developmental disabilities.

“Since I got here, I have found out that there’s an incredible amount of activism around youth with disabilities,” said Henderson, the founder and executive director of Studio Route 29. 

She’s also an artist from the Bay Area in California.

When Stacy Tuzik, the executive director of StarThrower Group, brought Armour to Studio Route 29, Henderson welcomed him to the program.

“B.J. comes to the studio every morning with a dream that he’s had,” she said, “and he starts right out with his dream. He tells us about his dream and he works on his dream.”

Armour said his ideas come from his mind, his brain. “Nobody else but me. It’s all me.”

He’s proud of himself now.

Copyright 2023 TNTRIBUNE. All rights reserved.

From Memphis to N.J., Brian Armour Jr. Has ‘Blasted Off’

Brian Armour Jr. performs to music that he wrote the lyrics
to at Studio Route 29 in Frenchtown, N.J. Photos by Wiley Henry 

Armour explains his artwork to a couple that admires one of 
his pieces on exhibit at the ArtYard.

MEMPHIS, TN – Former Memphian Brian Armour Jr. danced for more than 20 minutes at Studio Route 29 in Frenchtown, N.J. He whirled in a black cape, and his moves – smooth, fluid, robotic, theatrical, mimetic – drew applauses.

The music was refreshing and original, courtesy of Hop Peternell, an artist and the studio’s co-director. Armour lip-synched the lyrics to three pre-recorded songs that he wrote with audio assistance from Peternell.

Studio Route 29, a 501c3 non-profit organization, is a progressive art studio for artists with developmental and intellectual disabilities. Kathleen Henderson is the executive director and an artist herself. 

“Being in the studio with other artists, making surprising things, is just a joy every day,” Henderson said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”

Armour’s performance, however, was the prelude to an art exhibit that followed.

Known as B.J., Armour led his admirers down a short, tree-lined path to the ArtYard, where he and Ricky Bearghost, a textile artist from Portland, OR., have works on exhibit until Jan. 21, 2024.

The ArtYard is an incubator for creative expression and a catalyst for collaborations that reveal the transformational power of art. Jill Kearney is the founder and executive director.

The two-man exhibit, “You Come to Life,” opened Oct. 28. Bearghost, however, wasn’t available for the opening, but Armour carried on nonetheless, mixing and mingling. 

When observers asked Armour to explain his artwork, he processed the request and explained the curlicues, organic forms, splashes of color, and the subtle nuances in his artwork.

“I like the artwork,” said Armour, speaking candidly about his simplistic drawings and paintings from dreams. “Everything is precise; everything is locked in. It’s not out of order. Everything is solid.” 

Armour said he learned from the best. He credits his late mother and craft artist Deborah Towns Armour with passing on her artistic genes to him. He even assisted her in the studio and at art fairs. 

“When my mom was alive, she couldn’t finish the art thing and the singing thing,” said Armour, honoring her memories in his own way. “I don’t know if it’s my soul that connects to her or not.”

It’s conceivable. However, they were inseparable – even when the vicissitudes of Armour’s life tried to rock his world and thwart his burgeoning talent for making art and music. 

“Well, son, I’ll tell you: Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair,” the late Harlem Renaissance poet and playwright Langston Hughes began his popular poem “Mother to Son.” 

For Armour and his mother, it wasn’t a crystal stair either. But they sufficed, to say the least – for she’d prepared him for a life without her.

Memphis was home to Armour since he was around six years old. Born in Germany, the doctors were unsure if he’d survive. That was 39 years ago. The malady he suffered at birth – including being born a preemie – was daunting and life-altering. 

After his mother’s death last year, in January, Armour’s maternal aunt, Beverly Towns Williams, and her partner, Lionel Scriven, stepped in to fill the void. So, he went to live with them in Lambertville, N.J.

“I fell in love with him,” said Scriven, an architect. 

Meanwhile, Armour is undergoing a rebirth, and Williams is amazed. But she was unaware that her nephew was drawn to music, moved by the dance, and immersed in drawing and painting.

Once Armour was settled in the home, Williams competed for services that the state of New Jersey offers for adults with special needs. “There are limited amounts of resources and a limited number of programs,” she discovered.

Williams wanted a comprehensive program that would teach her nephew independent life skills and skills to enhance his potentials. 

“I was looking for a program that would be compatible with the things that he says he wants to do in life,” said Williams, an attorney. 

She found it through the state’s Department of Human Services Division of Developmental Disabilities. It’s called the StarThrower Group, a nonprofit organization that renders services to adults like Armour with special needs. 

“Because he expressed an interest in the arts, he was able to get an internship with Studio Route 29,” Williams said. “From there, he has just blasted off.” 

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the first installment of a two-part series about adults with special needs. 

Copyright 2023 TNTRIBUNE. All rights reserved.