Interdisciplinary artist Aislinn Thomas works through creative possibilities for accessibility, approaching disability as a valuable and generative disruption to mainstream culture. Her experimental approaches are artworks in themselves. As part of the exhibition "Our whole, unruly selves," Thomas was invited to create a sound work of experimental, visual descriptions for artworks on view in the galleries. Such descriptions, usually intended to make visual information audially accessible to people who cannot fully or easily see, can also poetically expand beyond the limits of the visual.

For As I am and as I become, Thomas collaborated with an intergenerational group of twenty contributors from Teatro Visión, San José’s Latinx theater company. She asked each participant to assume a first-person voice and imagine the subject of each painting, sculpture, or photograph as a living entity with its own thoughts and experiences. By weaving together varied perspectives for each work, these poetic descriptions conjure the depth of inner lives and offer possibilities for creative approaches to access.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Aislinn Thomas is an interdisciplinary artist who works alongside and in the legacy of so many who treat access as a space for creative acts. She is a white, disabled and chronically ill, cis-gender settler of Ashkenazic and British descent. She is grateful to live and work in Unama’ki (Cape Breton, Canada), part of Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq under the Peace and Friendship treaties.

COLLABORATORS
As I am and as I become is created in collaboration with Teatro Visión, San José. Project contributors include Ugho Badú, América Barcenas, María Teresa Barcenas, Matt Casey, Alexia Díaz, Veronica Eldredge, Ronald Feichtmeir, José Chuy Hernández, Natalie Herrera, Isabel Hertel, Samanta Hertel, Brissa Ibarra, Rojana Ibarra, Nicole Machua, Citlali X. Oritz, Carolina Pérez, Yasmin Rivero, Marissa Torres, María Vargas, and Vitalina Wainzinger.

Defeated depleted in six times

Untitled (kneeling figure) in four times

Selfie in five times

Captured as hostage in five times

Stillness # 24 in four times

As I am and as I become Acknowledgements

Amari Romero-Thomas, the principal consultant of Mosaic Consulting and Coaching, encourages the practice of mindfulness as a means of achieving clarity and achieving personal and professional goals. She has worked in the profit and non-profit sectors as an executive coach, executive director, sales executive, human resources manager, corporate trainer, and community builder and earned her BA in political science and international relations from Arizona State University, Tempe.

Breathing with the Rose

Anushka Fernandopulle first began studying Buddhism as a student at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, where she earned her BA in anthropology and religion before earning an MBA from Yale School of Management in leadership and organizational behavior. She has studied Buddhism meditation for over 25 years, including four years spent in intensive training in monasteries and retreat centers in the U.S., India, and Sri Lanka. She is also a certified coach who works with groups in the corporate, government, and nonprofit sectors with a focus on synthesizing leadership, innovation and awareness alongside communication and compassion. She teaches meditation workshops and retreats in organizations and retreat centers around the world and writes a blog on the "Huffington Post" about meditation, dharma, and politics.

Cultivating attention with mindfulness

Max Erdstein teaches Buddhist meditation at the Insight Meditation Center (IMC) in Redwood City and at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin.  He has practiced meditation for 18 years, including some time spent in monasteries in Japan, Thailand and Burma.  Max graduated from Stanford in 1999 with a degree in history, and worked at Google from 1999–2004. He teaches an ongoing Sunday evening group for people in their 20s and 30s at IMC, and meditation retreats in the Bay Area.

Opening to the flow of experience

Patrick Cook-Deegan discovered meditation in Cambodia while on a solo journey around the world to find himself, after his sophomore year at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island. Upon his return to college, he started a program for low-income students to travel and volunteer abroad—the first of his many social-action initiatives that reflect his interests in meditation, connection to the natural world, and mentoring youth. He teaches mindfulness classes in schools, lectures across the country, and runs wilderness and mindfulness education programs, with an emphasis on addressing the concerns of young men. He is currently a lecturer at the d.school, Stanford University, Palo Alto, California and writes frequently for "Stanford Social Innovation Review, Huffington Post, Tricycle," and "University of California Berkeley’s Greater Good Center."

San José Museum of Art

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