A Passion for People

On a busy day at Passion Works Studio, a young woman with black hair named Kai sits at a paper covered worktable littered with markers and paints in a plethora of colors. She draws on a small block of wood. She first sketches a rough draft, erasing and redrawing as necessary.
Kai is new to Passion Works, but she acts like she comes to the place all the time. In a word, she’s a natural. She diligently works, adding color to her picture to finish it off.
The end result is a closed parasol with bulging eyes, thin legs and a thick tongue hanging out of its gaping mouth. It’s cute in a weird way, like a newborn baby or an animal that’s head is too big for its tiny body. Head of Production, Kasey Winterbatham, walks to the worktable and admires the piece.
“This is very nice Kai,” she says. “Do you mind if I scan it into the computer?”
Kai consents. Kasey scans it into the computer and fiddles with Photoshop. In just a few minutes, the anthropomorphized parasol turns into a Warholesque piece of pop art. Four parasols dance against four different colored backgrounds.
Kai is one of the many artists who come to Passion Works Studio, a place where mentally and developmentally disabled adults exercise their artistic muscles. The studio provides the artists with a creative outlet and a chance to make a little money in the process.
Since 1998, Passion Works has been a part of Atco, a place that helps adults with developmental disabilities find work. Patty Mitchell, a current representative for the Ohio Arts Council, and Passion Works’ current manager David Barba, founded the studio. Barba approached Mitchell in 1996 after realizing that Atco needed a program that worked with the arts. By 1998, Passion Works became a place where adults receiving services from the Athens County Board of Developmental Disabilities could create distinctive works of art.
Passion Works started in a small part of the Atco building, located on 21 S. Campbell Street, not far from downtown Athens, Ohio. The area was named the sheltered workshop and offered studio space for the artists.
David Barba, a tall man with a long gray beard that grazes the top of his chest, recalls the time when Passion Works was in the tiny space and its evolution into something far larger.
“Pretty soon people started asking [at our shows] if they could buy the stuff [the artists produced]. For about a year, I was keeping a cash box in my drawer and trying to keep books on what we were selling. All of the sudden I realized, it was turning into a business.”
Barba eventually approached his business manager when the task of keeping a cash box became too much. Passion Works has grown into a successful business since then. In 2010, the studio generated nearly $200,000 in profit, while it cost $35,000 to run.
Artists earn pay for their time in the studio. According to Barba, artists make money from a range of tasks, such as painting metal to make the Passion flowers and creating their original designs. Artists receive piece rate for the former while they receive pay through a different system for fine art pieces, such as paintings or papier-mache sculptures. Wayne Savage, Passion Works soft-spoken studio coordinator who has been in the arts for 35 years, says, “There is a formula of $0.25 per square inch, an industry standard, that is often used unless the artwork is an obvious masterpiece. This formula usually is sufficient to cover time and materials plus the value of the art.”
When multiple artists collaborate on a piece, they split the profit among themselves, based on how much work they each contributed to the piece. Employees keep track of how much work is done on each piece.
Two and a half years ago, Passion Works moved into its new location, an old video store located on 20 East State Street.
The studio is large with walls painted in Granny Smith apple green, a prevalent color in the Passion Works studio. Colorful Passion Flowers, metal flowers painted by the artists and assembled by the employees, hang from the walls. Handmade jewelry sits on a tall shelf topped with a papier-mache sculpture. An adjacent room holds a small gallery. Cushy, overstuffed chairs covered in artists’ designs surround a table painted in a myriad of colors. An incredibly detailed miniature cathedral sits in the windowsill, able to be seen by passerbys.
The studio where the artists produce these pieces sits in the back of the building. Shelves extending nearly to the ceiling hold art supplies and artwork. Painted suitcases and guitars sit among old canvases and boxes of markers.
In this space, artists surround the table on Monday, Tuesday and Friday, coming and going between 9 A.M. and 2 P.M. Sometimes they work independently, creating original works of art; sometimes they seek inspiration from one of the many art books on the shelves around them. In some cases, the artists work together on a piece, taking turns adding their own details to help complete a new masterpiece.
Alexis Rhinehart, a 31 year old women with brown hair and round glasses, has been coming to the studio as an artist for a few years, though she doesn’t exactly know when she started. Rhinehart’s work is characterized by tight cursive letters scrawled on everything from canvases to chairs. She loves Smokey Robinson and she writes stories about meeting him and spending the day together.
Rhinehart says, “I think [my stories] up. The main thing is that I’m in love with Smokey.”
She comes to Passion Works because “I love writing my stories. I like to draw merpeople and Smokey performing his songs.”
She has been the artist of the month, with her picture being featured on Passion Works’ website. She has also had a piece displayed in the Los Angeles Children’s Museum. It is a wooden cutout of Smokey standing on a stage made of the old body of a banjo.
Recently, Rhinehart drew a picture of Smokey as a merperson. He is deep in the ocean, performing one of his songs to a crowd of sea creatures. An octopus with long black tentacles crawls across the bottom of the page. A seahorse, yet to be colored, sings along with Smokey and a starfish has a smile plastered across his face. She doesn’t feel like coloring the water blue; she colors Smokey’s tail orange instead.
When it comes to choosing colors, Rhinehart is straightforward.
“Smokey’s black so I find a brown colored pencil and try to pick out a color for his tail. Sometimes I pick colors that match and sometimes I pick colors I like.”
Working with these artists can be inspiring. David Barba learns from the artists. His favorite piece, Man With Coffee Cup, hangs in his office and serves as a daily reminder of one of his important lessons.
The piece, a line drawing with pastel water colors in shades of yellows, peaches and light blue, depicts a man with a hooked nose holding a blue cup. The artist residence at the time, Wendy Minor, brought the piece to Barba and asked him who did. He listed off name after name, each time guessing wrong. After guessing the correct name, Barba realized that “in my mind, I had already said he wasn’t capable of this.”
Although he had 25 years of experience, he realized he was a limiting factor for the artists. He did the same exercise with his employees, each time turning up similar results.
“We can’t subconsciously limit people from accomplishing things,” he said. “I keep this to remind myself not to put limits on people. You have to be aware.”
The painting reminds Barba daily that he can’t be a factor in stunting someone’s growth.
“We’re trying to help people find joy and we’re trying to help people give joy,” he says. “That really is a good way to live.
Passion Works has found a way to spread its joy across the country. Bliss Duvall’s 2006 documentary that aired on PBS, Passion Works: A Story of Flying, helped the studio gain recognition.
“A lot of people who are working in the field of disabilities found out about us and have modeled arts programs after us,” says Barba.
Passion Works employees have been asked to speak at conferences and the studio has even collaborated with a group in Chile that runs a program for developmentally disable artists called Colores Del Alma, or Colors from the Soul. The Chilean artists have visited Passion Works in the past. Barba says the program had a small budget and money that they made was used quickly. Passion Works made a cash donation to the group so they could buy art supplies while in the United States.
“They were thrilled,” Barba said. “We gave them enough money that probably came close to matching their yearly budget.”
Passion Works has collaborated with the studio, sending pictures back and forth for artists from both Chile and the United States to work on. The Passion Works store sells a collaborative card line along with some tiles.
The spirit of collaboration fits into the Passion Works motto, ‘To inspire and liberate the human spirit through the arts.’ Passion Works is a special place in Athens. While walking down East State Street, take a minute to stop by the brick building nestled between the BP and Zoe, a restaurant. Look in the window at the current display. Take a minute to appreciate the papier-mache Viking ship laden with Norse men in horned hands. The boat sits atop blue waves while fat clouds with faces float around it. If so inclined, go ahead and walk in.
The studio — open from Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. — offers visitors an incredible atmosphere and should be experienced first hand. Passion Works welcomes volunteers. More information can be found on the ‘Volunteer’ section of the website, passionworks.org.