Art flourishes at ACC's 6th annual Art Showcase

The 6th Annual Austin Community College Cypress Creek Campus Community Art Showcase, March 27-31, was proof that art flourishes in the far-flung bedroom community of Cedar Park. The event, coordinated by Cypress Creek Campus Manager Linda Haywood, showcased a diverse group of artists from around the area and abroad.

"We didn't have anything in Cedar Park. We didn't have a gallery; we had nothing. But we did have talent," said Haywood.

The art scene in Cedar Park received support when the ACC Art Department, the Leander and Cedar Park Chambers of Commerce, The Hill Country News and local art instructor Joyce Callaghan, staged the first ACC Cypress Creek Community Art Showcase.

"It has been a spring tradition ever since," said Haywood.

Haywood said the artists were "a good mix of ACC students, faculty, staff, Leander ISD high school students, senior citizens, neighbors and local artists. For some, the pieces they exhibit represent their first experience with artistic expression."

Cedar Park resident Robert Theriot showcased his art at the event. Theriot said he began painting in November of 2005.The extent of his formal training consisted of one three-hour sessions at the local Hobby Lobby.

"I'm not trained or schooled in any form of art," said Theriot, "I don't know any artists. I'm influenced by the things I see."

Theriot's body of work consists of five oil paintings. His most recent is a portrait of a Boy Scout, presented at a banquet as a gift to the boy's father, the scout troop's den leader. He was subsequently commissioned to do portraits for other attendees.

"I would like to make some money to justify [painting] to my family," said Theriot, a CAT-scan machine technician by trade. "If I make some money, they won't complain so much."

Theriot featured his first work, "The Cardinal," and his second work, "The Eagle," at the CYP Community Art Showcase.

"Solitude," a well-known painting from local artist Robert Schusler, on display at the event, depicts a pastoral Texas stream. Schusler, a former ACC staff member, teaches art at his self-designed Hill Country studio from which he draws inspiration.

Also on display were the works of three autistic artists, shown by Dr. Laurence A. Becker, Ph.D., of Creative Learning Environments in Austin. The most prolific artist featured in Becker's exhibit was the late Richard Wawro.

Wawro was legally blind, which required him to work inches from the canvas.

Unable to speak until age eleven, he drew with crayons and chalk from the age of three.

Dr. Thomas Pilkington, head of the Department of Psychiatry at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital in Wawro's native Scotland, worked with Wawro for seven years. Pilkington said Wawro had an I.Q. of 30 and the mind of a 6-year-old.

"I saw a 10-minute film about [Wawro] in 1976 that changed my life profoundly," said Becker. "When I met [him] two years later, I became convinced that the film was almost totally false and decided I had to make a film that would tell his story."

That film was "With Eyes Wide Open," used by actor Dustin Hoffman as part of his research for his now famous role in "Rainman."

"The irony is, one month before I went to meet Richard, I had never heard the word autism before," said Becker. "I had no interest in working with the handicapped; I wanted to work with the gifted. Well, God had other things in mind and I've been working for thirty years with profoundly handicapped but extraordinarily gifted people."

Other autistic artists showcased at the Community Art Show by Becker were Christopher Pillault and Ping Lian.

Pillault, who can not speak, walk, or feed himself, uses his hands to create otherworldly landscapes. His first exhibition in the U.S. was presented at a major Long Island, New York, art gallery in 1998 when he was 14.

Lian is an 11-year-old up-and-coming autistic artist from Malaysia. Becker received 47 prints, a CD, and a portfolio sent unannounced by Lian's mother. Lian, who as a child had no fine motor control, now shows great promise, Becker said.

Becker dismissed the notion of art as collectible assets that appreciate in value like baseball cards. "I think art ought to be with the people, and that's why it's been so satisfying working with Richard Wawro for 30 years."