Megan Schofield was raised on stories of a magical school that only taught art: NSCAD University.
She found her way there, but a diagnosis of diabetic retinopathy came just months after she graduated from NSCAD in 2017. Her vision began slipping away, but her passion for art never wavered.
“It just seemed like there was no reason to give up now,” said Schofield, who lives in Halifax. “Like, I’ve come this far. We’ve got to go further. It’s what I really want.
“A couple issues and complications aren’t going to bring me down now.”
Megan Schofield is a NSCAD University grad, and frequently works with themes of light and dark as they are easiest to see with her limited vision. (Megan Schofield)
Schofield is one of the many artists participating in this year’s Art of Disability Festival. It runs Aug. 16-20 and is hosted by Independent Living Nova Scotia.
For the second year in a row, everything is taking place online as the province and country deals with the COVID-19 pandemic.
During the festival, people can check out the virtual catalogue of artists at the ILNS website and visit their personal websites or social media pages to look through any works they have available for sale.
The online aspect means the event is open to any Canadian artist this year.
First time entering festival
Schofield, who primarily draws, had her vision stabilized after rounds of treatments and injections. But she is legally blind in both eyes without corrective lenses.
Her vision loss has changed her work, she said, leading her to focus more on contrasts like light and dark, which is what’s easiest for her to see.
This is Schofield’s first time at the festival, and she said she loved the idea of something highlighting artists and creators who “just don’t get as much attention as I think a lot of them should.”
Jen Powley, a fellow festival participant and Halifax writer, also said she wanted to take part because she’s “constantly amazed” by what other people are able to make.
Powley has published two books: a memoir called Just Jenabout living with multiple sclerosis, and one of interactive fiction titled Sounds Like a Halifax Adventure.
“I love creating because I am in control of the words. I get to say when, and how,” Powley said via a text-to-speech system.
“The event is important because it highlights what people are able to do, not what their disabilities are.”
Writer Jen Powley of Halifax is taking part in this year’s Art of Disability Festival (CBC)
She said moving the festival online again this year was the right call since many artists are in vulnerable health situations and this removes any risk.
But the fact that an event like this still has to exist in 2021, in a time when people with disabilities have low rates of employment and little government support, is “disheartening,” Powley said.
However, Powley said such a festival is helping build a better province. As Nova Scotia has committed that the province will be accessible by 2030, Powley said the biggest obstacle to achieving that goal is overcoming “deeply ingrained” biases.
She said the festival shows the talents and imagination of the participants.
Meaghan Ernst, left, and Brad Gabriel are summer co-coordinators for Independent Living Nova Scotia. They are putting together this year’s Art of Disability Festival. (Meaghan Ernst, Brad Gabriel)
Meaghan Ernst and Brad Gabriel, summer co-coordinators for ILNS, said in a recent interview they had about 12 artists signed up so far but hoped for many more before the Thursday deadline.
In the past, Ernst said they’ve had artists in various mediums including books, paintings, sculptures, costume design and many more forms of art.
ILNS is also hosting free virtual events throughout the week on Zoom, including a paint-a-long and dance event.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
