Laura Craig McNellis Does NYC. Again.

 

"Cupcakes" by Laura Craig McNellis, photo: Pat McNellis

She's a Star in the DisAbility/Outsider Art world. Born the youngest of a loving family of four girls, Laura Craig McNellis has severe mental retardation. In her 50s, she is nonverbal and has the functioning level of about a five year old. Her parents, now deceased, refused to allow her to be institutionalized -- the only option for such children back then. Instead, they kept her at home. Home was a rambling old home in Nashville's historic Belmont neighborhood. A former house of ill-repute, in fact.  The restoration process was lengthy. While Laura's older sisters were off the school, Laura was at home with her mother. From work, her father brought home stacks of newsprint. From these, Laura would create her masterpieces.

Typical of people with developmental disabilities in that era, Laura was never diagnosed with autism until former Vanderbilt Kennedy Center director Travis Thompson Ph.D., asked Laura's sister, Pat McNellis, when she was diagnosed. "What's this about autism ?" her sister puzzled aloud. The occasion was Laura's first art show in the Kennedy Center gallery started by Thompson, an artist, art lover and founder of the gallery. Works show year round in the lobby-gallery of the center. The John F. Kennedy Center anchors Peabody College for general and special educators as well as developmental disabilities research, etc.

The signs to the astute eye, were/are obvious. Laura's early and current tempera paintings are of ordinary objects, such as her mother's dresser top, which often bore a mixture of lipsticks and hand tools used for home remodeling. Always, Laura cut off the four corners of each newsprint-paper painting. The thin, grayish-white paper is still her paper of choice today now that she resides in a special community for artists in disabilities in North Carolina. Often she lined up nonsensical (to the typically developing population) combinations of letters at the bottom or sides of her paintings. Her work is simultaneous child-like in its innocence yet disarmingly sophisticated and always sparking a touch of humor to the admirer.

Laura Craig McNellis made it big. She is carried by Ricco/Maresca, one of New York's and the world's largest galleries featuring DisAbility and other genres of Outsider Art. She is also carried by a gallery in Switzerland and had been featured in a book and subject of a documentary film. About five years ago, she was the featured artist of a show in Nashville's Downtown Public Library, in conjunction with the Kennedy Center. It was the first time VKC's well-kept secret came out in public for the typically developing population to see the jewel of this small gallery and the beauty and potential of people of differences captured through the medium of visual art.

Now it's time for Laura to shine again. And she does and is. Right now. Once again she has a solo show in the Big Apple at Ricco Maresca. Kudos to Laura and her family, especially her sister-agent, Pat, who love their sister simply because she is their sister. They have devoted their gifts and talents to help others see the extraordinary talent of a woman in her 50s who cannot talk, who has mental retardation and autism. But. Boy. Can she paint. Yes. Laura Craig McNellis. That woman can paint. She and her sister Pat are my heroes. And they have inspired me immensely with a vision for my own daughter, 15 year-old artist, Grace Walker Goad.

Comments

[Nancy at GoodFoodMatters]

Wonderful post about Laura. I have had the privilege---and pleasure---through my long standing friendship with the McNellis family of knowing Laura and her art: it's a remarkable testament to the power of love in a family. You have chosen great heroines/models that shall serve you and Grace well.