Susan Dlouhy and Patty Mitchell

00:02 My name is Susan dlouhy. I'm 60 years old. Today is October 23rd 2017. We are at the Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.

00:17 And I am Patty Mitchell's business partner.

00:22 My name is Patty Mitchell. I am 52 years old. It's October 23rd. 2017, Athens, Ohio at Ohio University and I'm with Susan dlouhy my business partner.

00:36 This is a conversation with Patty Mitchell artist and social entrepreneur and myself Susan dlouhy Patty's the CEO of creative abundance Consulting in the director passion Works Studio. We've been working together for about 12 years. We started creative abundance Consulting and our nonprofit corporation creative abundance group about 3 years ago.

01:01 So Patty what brought you to this point in your life?

01:06 What brought me to this point in in this point is basically making creating opportunities for people of all abilities to investigate the Arts and their own creative genius and

01:20 What brought me here was living and being really aware of institutional culture and what a lobe are there typically is for people who are perceived as developmentally different are disabled and and what really really is possible. And so I've just been super focused on how to create environment. So that human beings can be at their best by the investigation of their own imaginations.

01:55 So give me your elevator speech.

02:01 Which I think but possibly be maybe 70 floors of an elevator. What is creative abundance? What are we talkin about?

02:12 Well, we're talking about intentionally creating places where we invite people to investigate materials and make things and it's so simple. It's it's it's beyond really as if I was talking to my childhood self. I wouldn't believe it was a simple but in a room full of paper cardboard and and some paint you can literally make giant plants and monsters and animals and anything you want in and sew in weave create a structure where people can investigate making we create an environment where people are seen and they're discovering their own power. So, you know, what we do is we often work with people who are in extreme positions in society on the outliers of of typical society. And so the changes within people are really dramatic. So the elevator speech Susan is that we create environment.

03:13 Create a structure and then surrender the process so people can investigate at their own pace with their interested in and so that we can really see each other.

03:25 As you know, I come across come to this work as as an administrator and I've spent the last thirty plus years of my life working in organizations that support people with disabilities in a variety of different roles mostly in administrative roles, and we certainly come to this from two very very different places and tell me a little bit about what your background is in and what how that combine combination and working with me brought us to where we are today.

04:01 All right. Well, I grew up with knowing that I had a brother who was institutionalized and not knowing where he was really as because he was away and I realized early early on that. He was in his situation because of the physicality in it and a mental state and I was in mine because I was lucky enough to be born in a body that I could move around at my discretion and I just had a different physical presence in mental presents and it really changed.

04:35 Our Direction and how we integrated into the world and when he passed I was 10. He was 12. I really said, okay. I'm going to live for the both of us. And so I became really obsessed with institutional culture and institutionalization and what that meant. It was always a really deep mystery to me and when I came to Ohio University in 1983, I started volunteering at the mental health center as a as a volunteer and then I was invited to live on Ward in exchange for room and board and was going to art school as a photography major. And so I had my major area of focus and where I spent a lot of my time was unlocked men's Ward and I didn't know I was doing I was 19 years old and I was asked to do programming and basically hanging out with people.

05:33 And whatever I was doing at school and classes in the concept of of art-making. I just brought up and we did it on Ward and I saw people absolutely.

05:45 Shift today, they came this you could see their Spirit feeling their bodies. The literally people her cannatonic coming to life or really depressed or we didn't we didn't have to speak we could draw but we were connected and I like man. Okay. This is what I'm going to do the rest of my life. I'm going to create environments where people can come into themselves and be present in an ant identify and feel that they're really cared for I also saw things going on at the at the mental health center that we're not really positive. There was some really beautiful things really beautiful things and then there were elements of abuse and neglect because

06:32 People that wasn't it wasn't that the fluid over cider. And so I thought you know, what if these places were more in the community and you never knew who was going to come through the door that we we're not going to create these pockets of abuse and and so in my travels going to different countries and going to different locations there was there was almost a formula for neglect and abuse and I thought okay, what can we do and that is having

07:02 Studios or making spaces that are part of the community with people who are vulnerable as it's as the center of the participants or equal participants with the happenings going on. So, I've been a one-note Wonder for a long time since I was 19 trying to figure out how to build these faces and do Community Arts programming.

07:27 I think one of your earlier your earliest experiences within this was after being in the instant after working in the mental institution here in Athens was with passion Works studio. And you know, I know that passion Works has kind of been the place that everybody looks to as the model for how these types of services can be provided. And can you tell me a little bit about how passion work started? Where did that where did that idea come from?

08:04 Well, I went after I graduated then came back to Athens cuz I couldn't stay away. I love Athens, Ohio, and I wanted to go back to the mental health center and do some programming but with the differences in the new budgets and deinstitutionalization that was no longer a possibility and a friend suggested that I check out a sheltered workshop. I didn't know what that was and it took a tour with Jeff bierlein and he showed me what people were too and I walked into this giant room with all these fabulous people and I thought oh my gosh, this is a Community Arts face. We can make our tear and it was everything I wanted was right there and do the Ohio Arts Council, we wrote grants and persuaded a three-week project in a 10-week project at 9 month then nine months and then the County Board had a

09:02 I've contracted with the Athens County Board of Developmental Disabilities. And really I knew if we were relevant to the larger organization. We could stay and continue to make art. So we develop a product line that employed people and we did the things that we were told we couldn't do and that was really energizing, you know, there's there's a certain perspective perception of people who are labeled disabled and I just didn't see disabled people who I was making art with I saw a imaginative creative enthusiastic human beings that I wanted to spend as much time with you as possible and we just started making and responding to community's needs and opportunities and if we were going to be in a parade, we're going to make the best float we were going to dance the hardest and and so that's where passion Works came from and you know, it's not like we invented art and we invite invented partnership.

10:02 We just we just had it grow where we could make it grow and that was in the sheltered workshop in Athens, Ohio.

10:11 Tell me a little bit about the passion flower and I've had the opportunity to build one here in the last couple of weeks as we've been working together closely and passion works and helping out with the studio and doing some Consulting with them. Tell me where that idea came from who's who inspired you to create it. And and what's the story? What does it become?

10:39 Passion flower was there was lots of inspiration for it it right today. It is a product that is made by many many hands and different people and we paint newspaper printing plates and then cut pedals out and construct a 3D sculptural flower. And the idea of the project was to create a product that responded to the workers when I walked through a sheltered workshop and I saw what the work availability was two people it was capping pens and folding paper and stuffing envelopes and you know that that was okay but it wasn't necessarily job match for everybody and it wasn't really something that I don't think anybody would want to do for 20-30 years there other things as well. And so I looked at what was typical for work with in a sheltered workshop and said, but what if we did the direct opposite what if people were doing what they were naturally good at end?

11:39 It was my opportunity to design something that responded to the people. I was with opposed to the people contorting their bodies to the job opportunities and so are we had print printing plates from the newspaper and people could paint them. Anyway, they wanted to and so that was responding and making great use of people's passions and that seems to work if you can really tap into people's passions and you create the structure and surrender the process of that development that it works. So we had a visiting artist early on named Kate Kern and she showed us some paper building skills. She makes books and paper sculpture. And so she taught us some cuts and folds in different things and we transferred that to our printing plates and we made skull through flowers and

12:37 We kept making them and making them and the building of them women really wanted to employ a women who were at home with children as extra income. And so we were making use of lots of people who wanted different kinds of employment and that was flexible and responsive and today over 25,000 of these flowers have been sold their the official flower of Athens, Ohio and there they are there are the ICONic they represent Athens Ohio as a funky Arts community and when you look at them, it's not like oh, you know that was done by a person with disabilities like, oh my God it is and it's also toxic look at that so beautiful and so it works on lots of different levels and I'm really proud of our community and our passion work artist for really making of the flower what it is today.

13:26 I love that that it's the official flower of Athens, Ohio and I've hurt you know, what you and I present together a lot and I've heard this story many times but every single time you tell it it makes me laugh. How did the passion flower become the official flower of Athens, Ohio? Hey, is there official flower of the state in this and that are one for Athens and we couldn't think of it. So we walked into the mayor's office and we are just like they are able would it be okay if this flower became the official flower of Athens, Ohio and he said sure anybody declaration we had a special signing and as soon as we did that than the newspaper showed up in the news from the big city of Columbus came down. We're on the radio and then all of a sudden or a little inside joke and just you know, making something happen turned into something real.

14:26 And it really got traction and now there's a fountain in the middle of the town with the passion flower their barns with the quilt Barn project. We have a flower it's it's all over the place and people are welcome to tell the story and and and then use the flower to represent Athens.

14:46 I think it's really interesting. How you do your talk about the quilt Barn project the fountain in town and you know how something that you created a passion Works Studio has resonated. So strongly within the Athens Community for people who might not be familiar with the quilt Barn project. Can you talk a little bit about that? Sure that was started by my friend Donna Sue gross and Adams County, Ohio and it was to really celebrate her mom who was a quilter and they are murals that are put on to the side of Barns and they create trails and so the intention of encouraging people to drive these beautiful roads. We have down here in South Easton, Central, Ohio and and follow these quilt Barn Trails, but now it's International like talk about something that's gone viral. That's it's all over the place. It's so she's her Legacy is just a beautiful one.

15:42 I did not know that I didn't know it had gone viral when you I know that you and I bet that during some of the time that we were working together that you weren't working directly with passion works. But other we're working on other projects and in different states in North Carolina and Nevada and Indiana and

16:04 Talk a little bit about those years. What was going on? What's up? What were we? What are you how did that come about and what do you think that how do you think that has got to change the direction of what you and I are doing is Consultants.

16:22 Well, it's I've been really focused on what I learned to building passion works. And then with the intent of it's like I have 32 people here in Athens County who's just doing great work in passionworks. Is this a replicable model can this be delivered into other places cultures urban and rural and so it's been an experiment and they have been able to travel internationally and nationally work with different populations including women were presently without home homes VA centers Extended Care Facilities. I always say it doesn't matter who the group is. We're all humans and we all have the same need to connect and have purpose and of course, it does matter who we are. So it's a responsive model where we set up the opportunity.

17:13 And then encourage investigation and so it's it's fitting rooms that are 10 x 10 to the rooms that are the size of basketball Reno.

17:24 Basketball courts. So so that's where I've I've been practicing and being able to be able to share this model so that other people can see it soak it in and then make it their own.

17:42 Your work seems highly personal to you.

17:46 And you always seem to be working. I don't think I know a moment in that since I've known you in the last 12 years or you're not working on something preparing to work on something or just finishing working on something. What do you think motivates you to be constantly working and you really consider it work?

18:10 I consider it work when you saved his true. I'm always working. I don't sit down and only if I'm having dinner with a friend and it's because I am completely obsessed and I know that I know that and I'm obsessed because I know that if we plan a small seed somewhere it's going to have incredible effect. And I know that there are people who are literally living in cages who have programming that won't allow them to get out of their own beds or to move out of their homes to be accessed access their own communities and if we can create the example of what possible then that really low bar expectation for people with differences is not going to be tolerated. And so if we're going to do a project I'm working to a big we're going to do a bold we're going to create spectacle enjoy and it's a revolution through love and

19:10 And so I can't rest because there's so much to do and then once we do it, then then there are other people who pick up the Baton and take it and and that's what we wanted. That's what I want to do. And I know that you're doing it too is it how do we pass this baton and doing whatever we can to to share this model.

19:34 Yeah, one of the things that I think about is that you have been a very strong influence on me as far as changing the way that I look at how services for adults with disabilities are provided. I didn't you know in the past. I spent a lot of time working in a very traditional environment working with people in sheltered workshops and you know focusing and working the whole thing of a piece-rate work situation and then kind of scheduled activities and classroom type activities for adults that were not involved in in work and what has been when I met you it changed my life and I talked about this sometimes when we're presenting and and it changed the way I looked at that house Services should be provided and my my type A personality and need to control things was really changed when I saw.

20:34 Difference between setting up regimented or scheduled activities in a place while you were at the same time setting up a making space or Studio situation. It seemed like the people in the making space. We're having like incredible amounts of fun and the people in the classroom settings were kind of like Slug and through it and and just can in responding to what what staff members handed to them or ask them to do the difference in the making space. Is that somebody is in fact in creating their own programming. Can you talk a little bit more about that? You know, how do people how does that what's the difference between those two and and it's when like, what's the secret sauce? Why does it work?

21:24 It works I think cuz we're all the same in that. Nobody wants to be told what to do nobody and you know, even even if it's your favorite ice cream, but you have to eat that ice cream right now. It's like the sweetness really Fades quickly. So if I'm all about structure, I am all about structure that supports people and so that they can be at their best. And so there's a structure that suppresses and represses and there's one that holds people up. So the structure of having a making space where somebody can come in like a restaurant and sit down and be served if you would like for painting you don't have to wait 15 minutes to find something to paint or the right brush. It's all right there for you you go. You do it you done painting you stand up and you go over some do something else. So, you know when people feel that they have their own power.

22:16 And they do have their own power. That's what you their respected. They respond to that. You know, it's it's a drag to be have somebody hovering over you and talking about every line you make or what are you going to do next? You know keep your hands out of its back off man, you know, if we talked about this all the time like we set up these faces and people are perceived to have really strong behaviors that they're called negative behaviors. They just melt away and it's it's because that the law of manners definitely rains. I'm good to you. You're good to me. You need to borrow something or we need to collaborate. You know, we talked it through and it and it works if I feel you know, it's oh so the secret sauces

23:04 That it's a roof would create a place where people have connection and they also have purpose.

23:14 We're okay if we have connection of purpose were okay, and then we're making stuff and we actually get to see our own power we manifest and we had quite Visual Evidence of what was possible within us. It's like man that's super power stuff. That's super human and and you can see people don't like it that I did that I did. That's me. I think so. That's the secret sauce. Nobody wants to be lectured to and and have to hear about what's possible. They want to do it and it's really really kind of a simple formula, but the trajectory is really really powerful.

23:57 Yeah, I lied. Like when we talked about the people that that have been traditionally viewed as having negative behaviors come into the space and the making space and we have yet to have one and in the making space seeing people when people seem to have control of Their Own Destiny and control of their own day even in her making simple decisions about which color of paint to use or which paint brush to use and not having somebody dictate those choices to them or whether they want to sit at the sewing station, whether they want to be in the building station and build and build a giant castle you can somebody comes in and they're like I can do that. That's okay and we're like, yeah, we're here to help you. That's what we're going to do. Today. We're going to build a giant castle going to follow your path. We're to follow your direction and I just don't think that folks that we traditionally work with have had those kind of opportunities or had someone

24:57 Responding to them, you know, it's typically that they're they're being asked to respond to us and to conform to what we want and it's a completely sure it's a completely different way of of working with individuals that have disabilities or have any other kind of needs that right now, it doesn't I don't think it's specific the people with disabilities. I think it crosses the Spectrum. As you said, we worked with women who are homeless, we've worked with people that are in the seniors and extended care facility is there's a lot of different audiences that read this reaches. I remember when we rode I block them up cycling sheltered workshops that somebody from a newspaper interview. It was in Sidney Ohio on her name was Pat Spelman and she said to me will this isn't just for people who are in workshops. This is really for everybody this model works for everybody. And I think we've seen that to be true. You know, there's there's definitely been evidence of that.

25:58 I asked I said that you were somebody that heavily influenced me who's influenced you.

26:06 I don't I don't think I can I'm incredibly and easily influenced than and really influenced. Me and Rob Garza and Kathy Johnson or some artist Wendy. Mine are it's at its like the last person I made something with his influence to me. It's it's nonstop, and I think I I'm just so hungry to learn things and then to find people that I can respond to and understand and indeed I've learned from you you build you build these structures and go forward and, you know, get things done and seal the deals and you know, if you have a Pied Piper approach and and I've also seen you.

26:56 You know believe that there is there is a certain path like with the sheltered workshops and certain programming and your convert to this really backing away and saying this is what I believe to be true and now I'm seeing something else and I know you have a type A personality and I think that it's really brave and strong to go. Okay. I'm going to try something different. I'm going to do something. I don't I don't make stuff.

27:21 But now you can't say that anymore because you do make stuff then I've seen it bring you a lot of pleasure and just change the way that you interact with people and when at Zone

27:33 You know, it's it it's been an interesting process because we weave come from very different sides of the same coin to want to change the lives for people with disabilities and make better communities and you know and have fun while we're doing it and and so our combined efforts. I think if really strengthen the message that it's not this goofy artist is just think guys with put on a parade, you know, it's like we're going to we're going to put on a parade and we're going to monetize the situation and we're going to create employment and we're going to follow the Medicaid Medicaid rules and be able to build, you know, a stronger culture from inside this Workshop out into the typical community. And the thing man has been fun. That's a lot of fun. And you know, I like people ask me what I do for a living now and I said, I'm living the dream, you know, this is it is so much fun. And and I know you did it influence me it was

28:33 Interesting how you approached me with making things. I kept saying. I'm not a maker. I'm not an artist. I don't make things and you never pushed me to do it and what you did do was I think it's the same approach that you use with people when we're doing consulting with the individuals and the folks that we work with whether it's the staff members or the people that are served by the program kind of fruit, you put the opportunity out there and allow people to respond to it at their own pace and that their own at their own level and you know you doing that for me was incredibly helpful. I like yeah, I've been making all kinds of things lately. I decapitate of Beanie Babies for a while. Remember I put different bodies under different in different heads together. And those were quite popular for a while. And then I also made a hand puppets those were popular and now I've just started doing things that are more collaborative and I wanted you to talk a little bit about that because a lot

29:33 Artist that I don't that I know I don't use a collaborative approach. They make their own things. And I know you make your own things you so you make incredible dolls and Life-Size dolls and and puppets and things like that. But you also work collaboratively with people talk a little bit about that and what the what's the artist process in collaboration?

29:57 Well, I think that all of it is just practice and so, you know, if I'm working with the piece of fabric and then all of a sudden I feel it's precious and can't be touched then. It's then I like Let It Go or I got into it and it's like, nope. It's all just process. It's all it's and so really thinking like a Pied Piper or Tom Sawyer. It's like I love starting stuff and then handing it off cuz I I think that's really hard for a lot of people is just beginning and being brave enough to say this piece of cardboard is going to become a big giant bird, you know in and then once you start people kind of see it and then they can jump in and

30:38 I love seeing what what can happen if it is soon as I let go of like some of the control over making something and bring in another person. It can go in a direction. I never anticipated and then I just learned about myself to I can really see that his practice is how to live in the world that you know, as soon as I can let go and let somebody else in then my world expands and and to see somebody else's joy and happiness and making things especially when they don't typically allow themselves to do that. It's like you're kind of giving them a passport to find their own power and its really really super fun. And I like being part of a team like it's if you can finish something and jump up and down and go. Look what happened. This is pretty I like it. But if you have five other people go and look what we did then you when you got a little group man, then you can go really make things happen. So I'm I like the collaborative. It's it's how

31:38 I really do my social like it's how I socialize and it's how I like to get things done cuz I can't do it. What's in my head. I can't do by myself. I need help.

31:51 So let's go back a little bit of passion works because I know that some of the people that you met at the very in the very early days were heavily influential in for you in terms of you know, that some of the art that they created some of the personalities and can you talk a little bit about some of the folks that that stood out for you in and what their what their contributions were to Passion works and what kind of role what kind of influence that had on you?

32:23 Yeah, I was I was so lucky at the very beginning of saying let's see what could happen by creating a studio space in a sheltered workshop the individuals who were their receiving Services Nancy deck unbelievable to this day is one of my favorite painters on the planet just absolutely talented and talk about obsessed. She never saw her take a break and it was she painted from the minute. She could to the minute the bus came Carolyn Williams drawing flowers over and over again, then those became the inspiration for the passion flower maryalice with her beautiful. I mean the joy that she had when she was drawing was I just couldn't get enough of being around the people I was making art with and then Wendy mine are local artists to saw a show that we did and she was like I want I have to be a part of this and I'm like, okay come on in then, you know, check it out and you know 18 years later she is just in a

33:23 Extraordinary collaborative artists and she has grown in this process and she's just a natural talent that is when somebody dedicated to practice and she really kind of Ruin me because I thought we would be able to get everyone to the sense that like the bar started so high so now what my expectations of possibility and anticipation of possibility or so high because she's such a talent and such a beauty at at bringing people together and I love her so much and and so many of the people that we've worked with at passion works. I just feel so lucky that bass and so the evidence of the evidence was gleaned from these incredibly talented people to be able to tell the story and other places and it's really been a Magic Carpet have to say

34:12 We could probably talk for hours about some of the folks that you've worked with because I know that they were really special to you and they do very lucky to be involved with passion works again, so tell me what your relationship is with passion works now. So now after traveling the world and sharing this model and passion works. I'm now the director of passion works and we have our own board non-profit and we are building our empire together and I'm really in downtown Athens Ohio right off of our main street of Court Street, and as you know Susan the lot of sheltered workshops in places that serve people disabilities are often in the Hinterlands and and in the in the corners of community and this we are right downtown and in the center of what's happening and we are what's happening. We're not just following we are leaders artistically and as as members of of Athens,

35:12 Not only in our location, but in in our determination to make our where we live at their place.

35:19 So you get to be director and I get to be operations manager again and handle all the packets. That's how we roll isn't it? So I just have like one of wrap up here with a question about this project that you do every every year right around this time of the year right around Halloween called honey for the heart and talk a little bit about that and how that came to be.

35:45 Okay, and here in Athens, Ohio, we are known for our Halloween block party where 24 to 30,000 people come to our Main Street and we have this huge party. We have 28,000 people in the city of Athens so you can they are smart small little town just it's a huge party for us. And so that was happening and we wanted to build on that party but balance it out with some art in like create a new narrative for the description of Athens Halloween and expand on what we already have. So we have a three-week giant puppet making project and we invite everybody to join in. We want University students to be hanging out with community members and people of all abilities and we make giant puppets and at 6 the night of the Bloc Party we March down Court Street with drummers musicians and dancers and

36:42 Anybody else who will join us and we celebrate who we are as a community and kick off our Halloween block party fun. And so that's what we're in the middle of right now. It's it's just a blast but it's the same concept as passionworks We crave the structure of a community making space invite people in gather a bunch of crazy materials and really envisioned them and create them to be something new. It is quite a spectacle and this year. It'll be ending with a honey for the Heart Ball the first inaugural honey for the Heart Ball, right? So we're pretty excited about that. I wanted to thank you again for spending time to have this chat with with me. It's always you continue to inspire you continue to motivate and

37:38 Appreciate everything you do. Is there anything you want to wrap up with?

37:42 Thank you, Susan. Thank you, Athens. Thank you for for everybody. Who's like come along for the ride. It's it's just a blast then Happy be here.