Adults with disabilities design fashion show

Access to tech and creative industry employment

Pilot or new project, program, or initiative (testing or implementing a new idea)

Tierra’s more than 35 years’ experience in art career services, along with academic studies, show that people with disabilities experience barriers to cultural life as audiences and as creators (Scandinavian Journal of Disabilities Research 2022). Barriers include inadequate legislation, limited funding, negative attitudes, inaccessibility, and lack of communication with the artists.
Without wrap-around support via clinical services, medication management, systematic instruction, and language interpretation (e.g., American Sign Language, Spanish), artists with disabilities will be unable to pursue their art career goals. However, by centering the individual’s desires and strengths during the planning process (e.g., via Pearpoint and Kahn’s PATH model), these barriers can be overcome.
Artist Catalina Ortega shared, in a recent documentary about her costume-making: “I want to make everyone to feel inspired by my art and inspired by costume. And I want them to feel very happy.”

Through this project, adults with lifelong developmental disabilities will design clothing and other fashion-related art pieces to strengthen their art portfolios, ultimately culminating in a fashion show and exhibition at Tierra del Sol Gallery in West Hollywood. Participants, who are enrolled in Tierra’s Careers in the Arts Program, will take part in fashion workshops throughout the year. These workshops will teach them the design and creation processes, give them access to new materials, and provide them with individualized support via Tierra’s art mentors. Levi’s has committed to donating denim to the project. Workshops, individualized art mentoring, and portfolio reviews will take place at Tierra’s Sunland Studio. The studio is located on Tierra’s seven-acre campus. It includes a wet studio, dry studio, textiles studio, and workshop space. In addition, a recently-renovated outdoor patio area allows artists to work outside (which includes outdoor throwing wheels) to be inspired by the natural surroundings of Tierra’s rural campus. Completed pieces will be added to each artist’s electronic portfolio, which Tierra staff use to submit pieces to other exhibitions and is also used to sell artworks to collectors and other community members. The project will also propel artists with disabilities into the fashion industry through media coverage of the project and event (e.g., via press releases, and via coverage ARTillery Magazine has offered to the project).

The immediate impact will be the new skills and experience gained by artists with developmental disabilities. It will increase their self-confidence, artistic voice and vision, and encourage them to try other creative endeavors. 200 fashion show and/or exhibition attendees, and a subset of Artillery magazine’s 50,000 readers, will gain understanding of the contributions of people with significant lifelong developmental disabilities, while appreciating artwork for its own sake. The World Institute on Disability found that - although beauty brands are increasing inclusivity of body shapes, sizes, and colors - disability representation continues to be left out. 12% of Los Angeles County’s workforce is part of the creative economy (Otis College of Art and Design 2023) – fashion touches 86% of that creative economy (e.g., products, fine and performing arts, entertainment). Long term, this project will increase representation of people with disabilities in those sectors.

This project's goal is to propel artists with developmental disabilities into the world of design and fashion. Artists engaging in fashion will be tracked using:
- Workshop and fashion show sign-in sheets;
- Productive and Personally-Meaningful Life Plans (personalized, goal-oriented annual plans for each person served) that reflect deepening engagement with fashion;
- Artists’ responses to Tierra’s annual satisfaction survey; and
- The number of fashion-related pieces created through the project. Community engagement with the project will be tracked via:
- The number of art pieces exhibited (goal = 60)
- The number of new media, designers, and other contacts made (goal = 5)
- Head counts at the fashion show and exhibition (goal = 300)
- The number of impressions from communications (goal = 5,000). Art creation will be tracked by the Program Directors. Impressions, sales, contacts, and attendance will be tracked by the Gallery staff and Manager of Marketing and Communications.