34 February 21 • 2019
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TOP: This is Sew Abstract! by Aislinn Wendrow
ANTHONY LANZILOTE CONTRIBUTING WRITER/PHOTOGRAPHER
‘Mirror, Mirror’
Soul Studio show at CCS’
Center Galleries
gives artists a professional boost.
A
lyssa Gold has been blind since
infancy, but that hasn’
t stopped
her from becoming a prolific
visual artist. She creates long strings of
beads she nets into large webs, creating
works of art that are both spontaneous
and ordered.
Her work, along with work from 12
other artists from the Friendship Circle
Soul Studio, will be on display in “Mirror,
Mirror” at Center Galleries at the College
for Creative Studies in Detroit through
March.
Founded in 2016, Soul Studio in West
Bloomfield is an art program for neurodi-
vergent adults that works to develop each
student’
s artistic practice and create works
for display and for sale.
Bassie Shemtov, the program’
s founder
and co-founder of Friendship Circle, says
this is not therapeutic art.
“We don’
t want the word client or par-
ticipants … they are here; they are in the
studio; they are artists,
” she says.
Soul Studio’
s facilitating art staff are
practicing artists who have little to no
experience working with people with
special needs. As artists, they focus on
guiding the program’
s members in
painting and sculpture, digital media,
fibers and ceramics.
Gold had beaded before, but it wasn’
t
until joining Soul Studio that she truly
became an artist.
“She started beading in school and
[Soul Studio] took it to the next level,
”
says her mother, Andi Gold. Alyssa works
from a container holding a small share of
tens of thousands of donated beads; now
she also makes her own ceramic beads.
“
Alyssa can thread something that is
exhibition
arts&life
details
The show is open
through March 30.
10 a.m.-5 p.m.
Tuesday–Saturday,
301 Frederick Douglass.
Free parking available in
the CCS parking struc-
ture located on Brush
Street between Frederick
Douglass and Ferry.
Additional programs:
• “The Scribbling Stage:
Disability as Ability at
the Soul Studio,” a talk
with Anthony Marcellini,
Soul Studio exhibitions
and programs manager,
6 p.m. Thursday, Feb.
28, Wendell W. Anderson
Jr. Auditorium, Walter B.
Ford II Building, CCS Ford
Campus.
• A gallery talk with
the artists of “Mirror,
Mirror” at 11:30 a.m.
Wednesday, March
27. Center Galleries,
Manoogian Visual
Resource Center, College
for Creative Studies,
301 Frederick Douglass,
Detroit.
Anthony Marcellini
Alyssa Gold
Rachel Fallert
Aislinn Wendrow