RELEASE: October 16, 2002

Previous Screen

They come from Long Branch, Whippany, West Essex, Flemington, Manahawkin, Guttenberg, North Caldwell and Edison. They include a Vietnam Vet, recent high school grad, gospel singer and grandmother. Some have "shown" their art, others haven’t. But all will come together on Thursday, October 17, from 4 to 6 p.m. for a very special art show in the lobby of New Jersey’s Department of Human Services (DHS) Capital One Plaza building at 222 South Warren Street in Trenton. DHS Commissioner Gwendolyn L. Harris will host the art exhibit, and the show sponsor, VSA arts of New Jersey, will introduce the artists at this free exhibit, which is open to special guests as well as the public.

What these artists do have in common is that they all create beautiful works of art, despite the fact or because of the fact that they are all artists with disabilities.

The exhibit, coordinated by the Division of Disability Services (DDS), is part of the DHS’s observance of Disabilities Awareness Month. It is the first of its kind in the state to showcase so many special artists in one place and to create a new marketplace for their work.

Tom Miller

Tom Miller lives in Whippany, New Jersey. Seriously wounded in Vietnam, he founded the Wisconsin Vietnam Veterans Memorial Project in 1983 in Neillsville, Wisconsin, to honor his partner in Vietnam, L/Cpl. Jack Swender, who was killed when Miller was wounded in the battle of Ky Phu on Operation Harvest Moon. Since then, Miller has painted various memorial series to show what his subjects have gone through in these traumatic events. His Holocaust Series reveals the struggle of life while showing the love and compassion of the life of Janusz Korczak, a physician and progressive educator who ran several orphanages in Warsaw, Poland. His Operation Harvest Moon Series shows the hardships of the fighting man and the horrors of war.

The 9/11 Series brings the exceptional destruction, personal loss, sense of helplessness and heroic but futile attempts of the rescuers. The pain is etched on all the subjects’ faces as they wait for the injured or attempt to find the survivors of that dreadful day. "The atmospheric conditions and dust in the air, the twisting steel and the stress of the rescuers, are some of the things I considered," Miller explains. He plans to "paint out my days" doing memorials to the many Marine operations that took place in Vietnam.

Tom Wilczewski

Tom Wilczewski lives near the seashore he loves, in Long Branch, New Jersey, and has been a watercolorist for over 20 years. Entirely self-taught, his subjects range from still life to seascapes and gardens. As a native of Jersey City, he operated an engraving business for over 30 years and served on the Jersey City Mayor’s Task Force for the Handicapped, and as editor of its newsletter Access. His award-winning work is part of permanent corporate and international collections, and has been used for greeting cards, brochures and calendars. His watercolor "Saturday Wash" was published in the 2002 Calendar of the Christopher Reeve Foundation. Very Special Arts and Amnesty International have published note cards and Christmas cards featuring his work.

Active in The American Artists Professional League (both NY and NJ chapters), and other arts societies, he was recently elected to the board of directors for the New Jersey Polio Network. He sponsors his own annual award given to a handicapped student of the A. Harry Moore School in Jersey City and has written a poetry book Poetry in Watercolor, as well as Tom Wilczewski’s Watercolor Workbook,which he uses when teaching.

Allison Doatch

Allison Doatch, age 19, lives in Edison, New Jersey. She received the VSA arts of New Jersey Arts Excellence Award and the Governor’s Award in Arts Education in 2001. One of her drawings has been recreated as an Earth Day poster distributed by the Department of Defense to be displayed at all military commissary stores throughout the United States and all over the world. In 2001, she also received an Award of Excellence from VSA arts of NJ for representing New Jersey in the Children Beyond Borders International Exhibition at the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. She plans to continue her education, majoring in Fine Arts at Middlesex County College and beyond.

Harriett Schwartz

Harriet Schwartz earned her Bachelor in Arts from Brooklyn College in 1942. She did charcoal sketching portraits of soldiers on the base in Boca Raton, Florida and taught elementary school for several years. For many years she was in business with her husband, Harry; running the office of their company which manufactured prepared baking mixes. They had five children, then sold the business in 1983 and retired to San Diego. When her husband died in 1991, she moved back to the East Coast to be with her daughters. In her early 70's, she took up sculpture and has been studying with Cara London for ten years. She is lives in Flemington, New Jersey.

John Spreen

John Spreen feels that "detours, wrong turns, bumps, and holes (along with full-scale wrecks) serve as the metaphor for the struggle to survive" on his road of life. He uses the experiences of his years spent wandering this road as the basis for his lyrics. Spreen will show his paintings on Thursday, but his first art is music… both guitar and vocals, and he is known as "Jesus Johnny." Finding faith has given him direction on the road, and although it is no less hazardous, he has the strength to go on finding his way home. Spreen lives in Manahawkin, New Jersey.

Regina Marcantuono

Regina Marcantuono, of North Caldwell, is a freshman Art major at Caldwell College, with special interests in Art Therapy and Early Childhood Education. While a senior at West Essex High School, she won the Patrick Flannery Scholarship and was also a representative to the Art Symposium sponsored by William Paterson University. In March 2002, Regina received the Student Arts Excellence Award in Visual Art/Fine Art from the VSA Arts of New Jersey and then went on to receive the distinguished Governor's Award in Arts Education.

Janet Kolstein

Janet Kolstein, a Guttenberg, New Jersey artist, works predominantly in collage/mixed media. She has shown her work throughout the U.S. and was a member of the Collage/Assemblage Society which creates exhibition opportunities in New York City. Previous to a 1987 car accident that left her with a mobility challenge, Kolstein was a textile designer and painter. In 1998, her collage was used as the cover of the Bryn Mawr Alumnae Bulletin and in 2001, one of her works was chosen as the cover of the Elton John Fan Club Calendar which was sold via the fan club’s website. She has had a one-person exhibit at Passaic County Community College in Paterson, and in 2002, her collage work was featured in a group show at New Century Artists in the Chelsea section of New York City.

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