Conversations around arts and health have become prevalent within the field of arts management, particularly as our world has grown increasingly disabled throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. These conversations often center around wellness, access, and community; however, the experience of disability is multitudinous and diverse: there is no singular way of being disabled, and so there is no singular way of being “well.” This heuristic, arts-based self-study explores what it means to live as a queer, disabled person of color in a queer, disabled relationship within a larger disabled community by asking the questions, “How can I begin to liberate myself? How can I begin to liberate my art?” This report engages the writings of disability justice elders; conducted arts-based research in the forms of knitting, poetry, narrative storytelling, and reflective writing; moved through the six stages of heuristic inquiry – initial engagement, immersion, incubation, illumination, explication, and creative synthesis; and learned the disabled art of play.
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Maxner, A. (2022). Recognizing My Wholeness Through Artmaking. Creative Generation. DOI