Nebraska teen with CP finds her passion through art

From the Grand Island Independent:

POLK, Neb. -- If you want to know exactly what makes Erin Blase (pictured) tick, take a good look at her wheelchair.

Way down near the bottom is the biggest clue: a full, splattered palette of colors, crisscrossing the gray wheel.

Blase, a 19-year-old senior at High Plains Community Schools in Polk, has cerebral palsy and can't walk or talk. But when she's painting or designing cards, she's expressing herself as loudly and clearly as any of her classmates.

"She's very compassionate, a very caring person, and I see that in her cards," said Becky Carlstrom, a High Plains paraprofessional who has been working with Blase since she was 4. "She really puts herself into it."

Others have seen Blase's passion and compassion, too: She has won two awards for her artwork in the past month. Last month, Prentke Romich Co., which makes alternative communication devices for people with speech difficulties, chose Blase's design as its company Christmas card, which it sends to all of its corporate vendors and partners.

And this week, Blase found out that a bright, expressionist-style painting she did last year was honored with a spot on the Nebraska Federation Council for Exceptional Children's 2010 calendar.

Blase has only been delving deeply into art for the past four years. She has limited control of her arms, and she was brought into high school art classes unwillingly at first. Gradually, she moved from hand-over-hand painting to using the brush herself and making her own brushstrokes. Once her teachers removed the right arm of her wheelchair last year to allow her greater range of motion, her painting style and enthusiasm took off.

This fall, for example, she created a stylish four-piece series in mixed media depicting tall, thin trees in each season.

"She's really taken more charge of her artwork," said Fran Lott, her art teacher. "She has a good eye for color and some very nice brushwork."

After Blase chooses a color, a paraprofessional, Linda Edson, puts paint on the brush and puts it in Blase's hand. Edson then holds the canvas as Blase brushes, moving it around if Blase indicates she should. Her level of satisfaction with her work can be pretty easily determined from her facial expressions.

It's not always a polished process -- Edson calls it "karate painting" -- but the results speak for themselves.

"I was pretty skeptical at first, but she does it," said Blase's mother, Shawna Blase. "It's her artwork, it's her expression, and it's really cool to see."

Blase has turned her card designs into a small business, thanks to an entrepreneurship class she took last year at Central Community College in Columbus. She designs cards for various occasions (graduation is her busiest season), and sells them to High Plains teachers and a few others around the area.

Blase's mother and the paraprofessionals who work with her said they've seen her artwork help her become more decisive about what she wears and what she does, while also helping bring out her compassion toward others.

Blase, who lives near Hordville, communicates by pointing a laser from a silver dot on her cheek toward a machine mounted on her wheelchair with more than 100 words and names, using sequences of them to spell out questions, statements and commands.

She's like her peers in many ways: She loves the "Twilight" series, texting and fashion, and she frequently finds herself teasing the boys she sees each day. She said her favorite part about painting is listening to music, and her favorite artist is Taylor Swift.

Her artwork also captures a lot of that adolescent emotion. A look at her sketchbook from a stretch this fall when her communication device was broken gives a good picture.

"She was very frustrated, and it showed in her work," Edson said. "She's very, very emotional about her work."

Generally, though, Shawna Blase said her daughter is energetic and fun-loving, thriving on joking and humor rather than becoming sad or self-conscious about her disability.

Blase will graduate in May, then spend another year at High Plains before she turns 21. Her future after that isn't certain, but Edson suspects that her newfound love for art will be a part of it.

"Her art has given her somewhere to go, because it means so much to her," she said.

Whatever she does, she'll go after it with gusto, said her mother.

"She doesn't want to just sit around at home," Shawna Blase said. "She's a go-getter. She wants to get up and go and do and get involved."