Albert "Aly" Costanzo shows off some of the paintings he's created at the Milk River Arts studio. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Albert “Aly” Costanzo can’t stop painting. He paints imaginary landscapes, portraits of Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley, even outer space.
Today, his work is coming alive.
“Look at that!” Costanzo says, as one of his creations, “Trombone Man,” dances in a stop-motion iPad app.
His next animation project is a series of women’s faces painted in bold black strokes on yellow. They’re a band called the Honey Bees.
“Aly, what song do you want to put on that?” asks Jill Wiedemann, the artist who’s mentoring him today.
He answers promptly: “TNT,” the AC/DC anthem.
Milk River Arts, which just settled into its first permanent studio space in Church Hill, is a creative collaboration that’s unique in Richmond. Professional artists mentor emerging artists who have special needs — acting not as instructors, but as supportive problem-solvers. On this bright Wednesday morning, Wiedemann helps Costanzo manipulate the app while mentor Tesni Stephen twists colored thread selected by artist Mark Tresize.
Costanzo never thought “in a thousand years” that he’d show paintings in a gallery, or sell his work, he says. Since joining Milk River Arts two years ago, he has done both. He had a piece selected for “Cabin Fever,” 1708 Gallery’s annual art auction, and the Quirk Hotel has purchased six of his flower paintings for its collection.
“It opens doors for me that I never thought would ever open,” Costanzo says.
There aren’t a lot of job opportunities for individuals with special needs, explains Executive Founding Director Sally Kemp. After high school, many people find themselves adrift.
And “unlike most 21-year-olds, whose world opens up in a big way, their world often closes into a smaller community,” Kemp says. “It can be isolating, and you can also lose a lot of the progress and inspiration that you’ve found from being part of a community that’s counting on you to show up.”
Individuals’ abilities vary, and because it’s a small program, artists are accepted on a case-by-case basis. Milk River isn’t a place for dabblers who enjoy the occasional painterly pursuit; it is a home for dedicated artists who want to make it their career. Its March art exhibition was, for many artists, “the first time they’ve seen what they’ve been doing for years be valued,” Kemp says — valued not because of the creators’ disabilities, but as contemporary art.
Artists and their mentors work together in the Milk River Arts studio. (Photo by Jay Paul)
Kemp worked for eight years at the Visual Arts Center, where she was charged with researching how other organizations used art to build community. She visited a nonprofit called Creativity Explored in San Francisco, a studio and gallery space for artists with developmental disabilities, and knew she had to bring the idea to Richmond.
But, she wondered, was it meant to be a VisArts program? Or its own organization? “I realized if it’s a program, it would always be disabilities first. Right?” she says. “Because that would be the story. But if it’s its own thing, it has the chance to be something very different.”
It seemed easy to duplicate. Fully three-quarters of the funding for the San Francisco program came from Medicaid waivers that support disabled people in their careers. But that proved to be impossible in Virginia.
So Kemp left VisArts, spent a year traveling and researching, and returned to Richmond with a plan. Private donors funded Milk River Arts’ programs, which include paying the mentoring artists. The Virginia Museum of Fine Arts’ Pauley Center, VisArts, 1708 Gallery, Studio Two Three and Glave Kocen Gallery gave artists temporary work space.
Then Kemp found the accessible studio at 401 N. 23rd St. in Church Hill. It’s a bright and peaceful place, where Café Bustelo tins hold colored pencils and Kemp’s puppy Storyman snoozes on the rug. It’s only the size of a largish living room, but already the studio has enabled artists to expand their practice.
One artist, Bukuru Nyandwi, is a Tanzanian refugee who was born without limbs. Holding pencils, pens and brushes between his cheek and shoulder, he creates both architectural line drawings and brightly painted landscapes. Nyandwi was thrilled to discover he could work on the floor, where Kemp sets up a small desk and the materials he needs. “He is 100 percent self-sufficient when you provide the space that allows him to be that way,” Kemp says.
Twenty-third Street is only a beginning. Eventually, Kemp would love to have a larger building, like Studio Two Three, where artists could maintain individual studios. “We spent two years trying to figure out who we are,” she says, “and now’s our time to dream about what’s next.”
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