A Residency of One's Own: A Look at 3Arts Residency for Artists with Disabilities

Visual artist Reveca Torres remembers learning about 3Arts, a nonprofit organization that supports women artists, artists of color, and Deaf and disabled artists in Chicago, and thinking, “I want to be a part of that.” 

“There was a long time where I was like, ‘Am I an artist? Can I call myself an artist?’ And, being associated with 3Arts, I feel like an artist,” Torres, who is an artist with a disability, said. “I feel like I can request an artist fee for a speaking opportunity or if someone was to exhibit my work, I can request being paid for that. I think that's just so important to the development of [artists with disabilities’] work and being a part of the art world.”

In 2018, Torres became a 3Arts University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) Fellow. The fellowship is a customized residency that centers professional development and the creation of new work for Deaf and disabled artists. It is a collaboration between 3Arts, UIC’s Department of Disability and Human Development, and Bodies of Work, a consortium of organizations supporting disability aesthetics and disability culture in Chicago, IL. The program has received multiple awards from the Arts Endowment.  

3Arts Executive Director Esther Grimm said the idea for the fellowship arose when she noticed Deaf and disabled artists were not applying for 3Arts’ other residency fellowships, which are offered in locations across the world.

“I spoke with a couple of those artists, and I said, ‘What's keeping you from applying for these residencies?’” Grimm said. “And they pointed out, while most of the fellowships are relatively accessible, they are in remote places. They would be far away from their support teams, their medical teams.”

Grimm called Dr. Carrie Sandahl, a disability-identified theater artist and professor at UIC, and began discussing the idea of a local residency program that could offer robust support for Deaf and disabled artists. Sandahl offered UIC as a partner, and in 2014, UIC welcomed its first fellow, Robert Schleifer, a Deaf theater and teaching artist, who translated Yasmina Reza's Tony award-winning play Art into American Sign Language.

The program, which started with just one fellow, now supports four fellows each year. 

“The difference between it remaining a one-artist-a-year program and now being four artists a year, and being this really robust program, was actually the NEA,” Grimm said. “I sent in a proposal, and the NEA matched 3Arts' support, and that was the turning point for us, where we thought, ‘Aha. This is really an unusual program. This is something we need to keep doing.’”

The fellowship, in addition to offering Deaf and disabled artists funding to create new work, advocates for and promotes disability arts, culture, and aesthetics in the area. This was an important part of the experience for Torres, who took part in Sandahl’s classes during her fellowship and learned more about disability aesthetics.

 “To me, learning about disability aesthetics was eye-opening, because I feel like when doing the work, many times I have tried to fit what is common or acceptable in a certain genre or a certain medium or a certain industry,” she said. “And this was the way for me to feel liberated from that.”

Before becoming a 3Arts UIC Fellow, Torres began working on a project with fellow disabled artists Mariam Paré and Tara Ahern. Together, Torres, Paré, and Ahern recreated iconic paintings and images like Mona Lisa and The Last Supper with people with disabilities as the subjects. Called Tres Fridas Project, the name stems from a recreation of the Frida Kahlo painting Dos Fridas in which Torres and Paré position their bodies in place of Kahlo’s. 

The project uses the familiarity of these images to talk about the disability experience. For example, a recreation of Birth of Venus is used to talk about body image and body positivity as a person with a disability. 

“The visual images are striking, and people look at them, recognize the work, see people with disabilities and do a double-take,” Torres said. 

Torres credits her 2018 3Arts University of Illinois at Chicago Fellowship with giving her the space, time, and language to make Tres Fridas Project the body of work it is today. 

Torres notes that working with and learning from the other 2018 UIC Fellow Andy Slater was invaluable. Slater, a blind sound artist, helped Torres learn how to make her own art accessible. Tres Fridas Project – which was recently on display alongside a large exhibition of Frida Kahlo’s work at the Cleve Carney Museum of Art – includes image descriptions and detailed labels that discuss data about people with disabilities today.

“It was this beautiful transition to see what a contemporary artist is doing, how a contemporary artist has been inspired by and thinks about Frida, and then goes to a whole different level,” Grimm said of the exhibition at Cleve Carney.

As part of the fellowship, Torres also had the opportunity to present at public events, and said that opportunity was a good exercise in talking about her work, which is reflected in the labels that appear alongside the Tres Fridas Project pieces.

Grimm said working with UIC students and the general public is a core element of the UIC Fellowship. 

“We're building audiences,” she said. “When you think about professional development for artists, part of that is building their body of work, and part of it is also building their careers. It's building a connection to community, a connection to audiences, a connection to each other.”

Torres said the success of Tres Fridas Project and her development as an artist is owed in part to the support 3Arts has shown her, not only through the UIC Fellowship, but through consistent funding and mentorship throughout the years. In addition to the UIC Fellowship, 3Arts supported a fundraising campaign to exhibit Tres Fridas Project at Bridgeport Arts Center. Torres was also invited to participate in 3Arts’ ongoing Disability Culture Leadership Initiative, which invites past UIC Fellows to come together to discuss inclusion of disability culture in equity work. The video interviews are shared on 3Arts’ website.

Torres said listening to the disability community and responding to what the needs are is important for any organization looking to support Deaf and disabled artists. Torres notes funding, mentorship, and exhibition spaces are all vital to creating opportunities for growth.

“[With 3Arts,] it has never felt like a transaction where I got funding for this, and they say, ‘Here's your money. Bye now,’” she said. “It's really been a relationship that continues to help me develop as an artist. I feel like they have my back.”