ArcaMax

When Patty Mitchell wanted to design a product around the abilities of special needs workers, the response she got was, "These people will never make anything anybody would want to buy." That shortsighted attitude plays into the social construct that limits people with intellectual or developmental disabilities to employment workshops that pay below minimum wage and rarely foster community belonging.

Patty wanted better for her community, so she ignored the naysayers and created one of the most inclusive and recognizable brands in the region. Her story starts with her older brother Timmy and exemplifies the power of belonging. It is why I wanted to talk to her for this week's column.

Timmy was "a tender being who needed a lot of care," Patty said. The siblings were born two years apart in the 1960s, and Timmy was institutionalized due to the severity of his needs. Patty didn't really know anything about her brother. When her parents visited him, Patty sat in the waiting room, alone with her imagination, wondering what kind of person he was.

Timmy passed away at the age of 12, and Patty realized her chance to know him was over. But, Patty said, "we're all connected, even if we don't physically spend time, he stays in me."

Her life's work really began with Timmy. Patty became obsessed with environments that cared for people. In high school, she volunteered with kids who had Down syndrome and wondered why special needs people were not around everyone else very much.

When it came time for college, Patty's father recommended she consider Ohio University in Athens, Ohio. It turns out that Athens is where Timmy was born. Patty had grown up in Massachusetts and northern Virginia, but her dad was right. When Patty visited Athens, she loved it. She said, "I'm going to live here the rest of my life."

She attended Ohio University's art program, majoring in photography while volunteering at the Athens Mental Health Center, a large complex of buildings positioned on a wooded hillside that overlooked the campus. It was the early 1980s, and when Patty was a sophomore, the center invited her to move in. She was offered free room and board in exchange for working with residents, while living in a client room just like everyone else.

"It really checked all my boxes," Patty said.

She provided activities for residents and transported people into town. Since Patty was going to art school, she said, "basically what I was learning in class, I just brought up to the hill." What she experienced was simple, yet profound.

"It turned out that just being still with another person and drawing, made it so we could have a connection." Patty said, "We didn't have to use language."

In today's smartphone-driven world, it's easy to forget the power of simple presence. Quietly being in someone else's company isn't "awkward silence"; it's connection. Holding space for others to belong, simply as they are, is powerful.

It was there at the Mental Health Center that Patty began thinking of how to have a "collaborative, art-making kind-of space," she said.

After college, Patty moved to the Caribbean only to return to Athens to earn her master's degree in photography. The Caribbean was nice, but Patty said, "I need purpose." The Athens Mental Health Center closed in 1993 as part of the cultural and political shift to deinstitutionalize severely disabled people.

It was heartbreaking to see people she cared about released into the community with limited support. "To this day," she said, "we haven't recovered." She recognized that institutions weren't perfect, but critical gaps in care remain. "When people are spread to the wind," Patty stressed, "jail is not the answer." Neither is homelessness, nor isolation.

Patty turned her efforts to collaborating with a workshop that provided employment for disabled people. The job was to build and cap pens, and Patty built a little studio in the corner of the workshop for additional activities. Workers who usually took all day to put their pens together finished in 10-15 minutes so they could get a good seat for art-making with Patty. The Ohio Arts Council funded Patty's three-week residency, and they made 100 papier-mache birds. She knew she was on to something and started thinking about creating a more meaningful product, designed with the artist in mind.

The idea was to find out what people loved to do and then do more of that. They took the individual gifts of the artist, looked at recycled material waiting for its second life and found the intersection of these for product development. "So, we don't have behavior plans. We do not have a job trainer," Patty said, "because everybody's studying their own art process, and we get to respond to that."

The Passion Flower was born. Upcycled aluminum printing plates from the local newspaper made perfect metal canvases. Artists painted them as they desired before they were cut and shaped into petals. The finished flowers were mounted to blocks made of upcycled wood from used Louisville Slugger baseball bats. Each one was, and still is, a work of art.

Though naysayers doubted them, PassionWorks has sold more than 39,000 Passion Flowers, and it is the official flower of Athens, Ohio. They adorn homes, gardens and offices around the world. Artists are paid an hourly minimum wage plus commissions on sales of their art.

PassionWorks is an authentic space to its core and a respite for so many who deserve true belonging. "With intention and love and sincerity," Patty said, "we can build together, better community."

Buy a Passion Flower and learn more about PassionWorks Studio at PassionWorks.org.

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Do you know anyone who's doing cool things to make the world a better place? I want to know. Send me an email at Bonnie@WriterBonnie.com. Check out Bonnie's weekly YouTube videos at https://www.youtube.com/bonniejeanfeldkamp. To find out more about Bonnie Jean Feldkamp and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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