By focusing on children and adults with disabilities, each contributor offers critical research which challenges the non-transferable divide between us and them , encouraging art teachers, therapists, critics, and general readers alike to uncover their biases regarding the nature of art and education.
"Challenging notions about artists and artistic practices on the borders of culture, this book engages in broad and inclusive understandings of art. These inclusive views of art and education are needed to engender a truly participatory and democratic society." - Flavia Bastos, associate professor and Interim Director, School of Art, College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning, University of Cincinnati
"During my 30 years of discovering, exhibiting the work of 'outsider' artists, as well as co-authoring several books on this amorphous and indefinable world of wonder, I have had the enormous privilege to witness creativity explode from the spirits of so many who might have otherwise been dismissed by a society that so denies and avoids the different. The struggle to understand and deeply appreciate these variations in the realms of the brain, mind, and creative wellsprings of these outsiders is elegantly and personally addressed in Wexler's immensely important compilation of inquiry and experience from some of the brightest thinkers and students of the field." - Roger Ricco, artist
"During my 30 years of discovering, exhibiting the work of 'outsider' artists, as well as co-authoring several books on this amorphous and indefinable world of wonder, I have had the enormous privilege to witness creativity explode from the spirits of so many who might have otherwise been dismissed by a society that so denies and avoids the different. The struggle to understand and deeply appreciate these variations in the realms of the brain, mind, and creative wellsprings of these outsiders is elegantly and personally addressed in Wexler's immensely important compilation of inquiry and experience from some of the brightest thinkers and students of the field." - Roger Ricco, artist