Islands of Brilliance students and St. Ann Center clients team up for fun, communication and creativity.
When Islands of Brilliance staff and volunteers team up with St. Ann Center clients, the connections are, indeed, filled with vibrance.
It’s Monday afternoon on the veranda at St Ann Center’s Stein Campus, a time generally reserved for clients to shake off the weekend and ease back into a week of activities and socializing with their friends — mostly card games, reading and quiet conversation. But the men and women of the Veranda Unit — a pretty spot at the top of Stein’s sweeping staircase that offers views of the plant-filled atrium below and the woods that separates the center from the lakefront – have welcomed visitors instead.
Milwaukee’s own Islands of Brilliance (IOB) is here to partner with St. Ann Center adult clients and staff on Brilliant Connections, the inspiring result that can happen when shared human imagination, communication, teamwork and a boost of technology combine to create art and connection. Islands of Brilliance, a creativity and advocacy workshop for neuro-diverse kids and young adults, was created by Mark and Margaret Fairbanks when they noticed that their son Harry — diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder — showed exceptional talent for learning about trains, applying technology to that passion and building a lively online social community for himself based on his interests.
Launched in 2012, Islands of Brilliance tapped volunteers from the arts and STEM worlds to mentor the students and help them to nurture their talents, their independence and their confidence. Some graduates of the program go on to live and work independently, and some have returned as a teacher/volunteer.
To make their Brilliant Connections, IOB mentors (some of them IOB young adult students) first ask the St. Ann Center participants what’s the one thing that makes them
Team Dog Lovers makes progress on its logo.
smile most. Dogs are big around here. So is Elvis. Love. Bugs. Volcanoes. The gamut. Next, IOB and St. Ann Center staff partner into teams of two with a client. When it becomes readily apparent that participants outnumber staff, a few small groups form. No one seems to mind, especially if it gives them more chance to talk about dogs … and Elvis. A short lesson in making the iPads work and the project gets under way.
First up, the newly-created teams need names, based on something both team members love. For some groups, this is a piece of cake. The Dancing Pups. The Spider Bats. Team Elvis. Team Traveler. Team Margaret, made up of a pair of Margarets, shifts to Team M&M when plenty of mouthwatering images become available. Team Sunflower becomes Team Rose when the variety of sunflower images proves disappointing. Everyone assures Team Sunflower they make a better Team Rose anyway.
When one older gentleman declines to participate, IOB’s Director of Learning and Outcomes, Dr. Kate Siekman, asks him to at least name his favorite thing. “Plum dumplings!” the gentleman crows, catching everyone’s attention and instigating a lively discussion of what we soon learn are jammy, pastry treats that feature a whole prune plum wrapped in potato dough, boiled and then dusted with cinnamon sweetened bread crumbs. In short order, Team Plum Dumpling is underway, with the dumpling pro guiding the artist in a rendition.
St. Ann Center client Barry and his Islands of Brilliance teammate Sylvia discuss a descriptive team name.
At one end of the table, St. Ann Center client Barry — normally the center’s most reliable jokester, brimming with comedy and confidence — approaches his task with a frown and downcast eyes. “I can’t draw,” he says quietly. “I’ve been told that.” Sylvia, his Team Traveler partner, tells him to just try. Pretty soon an admirable feather takes shape on the iPad screen and Barry’s smile returns as he realizes that the stream of compliments are as genuine as they come.
As the teams decorate their logos, making color and size suggestions, socializing, debating whose penmanship is best using the cursor, the screens fill with color. Not just the veranda, but the entire campus, fills with laughter and chatter. Even the clients who chose not to participate today, keep an eye on the action and crack a smile now and then.
Cofounder Margaret Fairbanks, part of Team M&M, carries on a conversation with a pair of gentlemen both sporting ball caps — one rim forward, one rim backward — about their carefully crafted fall forest. Client Laurie holds up her favorite Elvis book, the inspiration for her team. IOB Director of Strategic Operations Matt Juzenas helps wedge one more pooch onto Team Dog Lovers’ screen.
An Elvis book is always great inspiration!
And then it’s time to show off the teamwork. Laughter and shouts of admiration ring out. Sometimes, multiple voices describe a single screen. For this observer, the thought of returning to a desk and working solo suddenly pinches.
It’s exactly the comfortable communication, connection and creativity Mark and Margaret Fairbanks had in mind as Islands of Brilliance took shape. When Harry was little, an early intervention teacher advised the worried parents that no two kids are alike in how they learn and what inspires them — their islands of brilliance — especially children on the autism spectrum. The key is making the time — and freeing your own imagination — to find out. Harry’s teachers were also quick to instill in Mark and Margaret that Harry’s behavioral issues weren’t so much “being naughty,” but rather frustration at being unable to communicate (or be communicated to) in ways that felt comfortable to him. So Margaret became a train and earned her first sustained eye-contact from her son. Mark showed Harry the basics of the Adobe programs Mark used in his work as a graphic designer. Harry learned faster than Mark could teach him, eventually attending UWM for Design and Visual Communications.
Technology and the digital realm, they realized, offered the sort of structure and controlled communication not only Harry but others on the autism spectrum crave — without the pressure to read and respond to social cues. Hence the supporting roles iPads play in Brilliant Connections. Judging by the camaraderie fostered around a table in this single afternoon — and how every St. Ann Center participant eagerly took their spot when Monday rolled back around — that connection was, indeed, a brilliant one.
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A member of Team Elvis shows off its logo.
Team Outdoors collaborates on a beautiful fall forest.
Team Spider Bat have us caught in their web of artistic talent.
Margaret and Margaret, Team M & M, debate their finishing touches.
During Brilliant Connections, lively discussion and teamwork are the norm — and a whole lot of fun.
Team Dog Lovers becomes Team Dancing Dogs as their logo heads toward the finished product.