Pool of Angels

Book Cover

2006-11-07T11:01:00.000-08:00

Original print size: A4, landscape.

Inside of Cover:

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Text on page:
This book is a collaboration between Mark Suntres, Chicago, U.S.A,
Brooke Dallimore, Wellington, New Zealand and Marcel Baaijens,
Chicago/Wellington, New Zealand.

Original art and text,............................Mark Suntres
Layout design and editing.........................Brooke Dallimore
Scribe, editing and production.....................…..…Marcel Baaijens

Produced and printed (a few copies for Mark only) by Art Compass, Wellington, New Zealand a charitable trust supporting artists with intellectual disabilities.

© 2006, Mark Suntres and Art Compass.

Acknowledgements

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Text on page:
Thanks to the following people for their support with the creation and publication of this book:

Sarah Reitz, Social Worker, Chicago, U.S.A.
Staff and management at Austin Special, Chicago, U.S.A.
Brooke Dallimore, Wellington, New Zealand
Marcel Baaijens, Wellington, New Zealand

Mark Suntres: original art and text
Brooke Dallimore, layout design, editing
Marcel Baaijens: scribe, editing, project facilitation

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Text on page:

foreword....................... 1
introduction....……………......4
belonging..............………...6
life is.....................……….8
what was..............………....10
no sneak, no peek……….......11
dream....................………. 13
angels...................………...14
I like money...........………....17

Foreword (P.1-P3)

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Text on pages:
I met Mark Suntres in 1998 at Austin Special, a sheltered workshop for adults with developmental disabilities in Chicago, U.S.A. I worked there as an Art Facilitator, implementing an experimental studio art program. Mark was one of the participants in the program.

Mark whined a lot about his life, but after he joined the art program that changed. Instead of dragging himself around the place, he soon was first in, last out and helped out. He became a joy to have around. Engaging in a creative process allowed Mark to escape the life he disliked and create a different world, in which he was allowed to take control and express himself freely.

He began drawing angels, a carol singing angel, an African American angel, a banjo playing angel, then a pool for angels, a Sunday school for angels, a sheltered workshop for angels. A story was beginning to unfold through his angel characters and scenes, Mark’s story.
After seeing book with the life story of a fellow artist with developmental disabilities, Mark wanted to write his life story. Unable to write him-self I volunteered as his scribe. When it was time for me to leave the U.S.A. to return to New Zealand, I promised Mark I would one day finish his book.

Back in Wellington, New Zealand I established Art Compass, a studio-gallery for artists with intellectual disabilities. The philosophy, vision and practice driving Art Compass stem from my experience gained while working at Austin Special and research undertaken as part of my Master In Art and Art Education degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Life got busy but five years later, one Friday afternoon, a young woman Brooke Dallimore walked into Art Compass looking for a meaningful project. I invited Brooke to work on Mark’s book.
She was unsure about what to do, as she had never designed a book before.
I encouraged her to just ‘be’ with Mark’s work and see what happens. Three days later she returned beaming with enthusiasm, confidence and a wonderful cover design that became the foundation for the entire book.
Mark’s art and story worked their magic and inspired, touched and transformed a person half a world away. We can learn so much from people with developmental disabilities, if we accept them into our world and if we are willing to enter theirs.

The book you have in front of you is a celebration of Mark’s triumph over all the odds that life has stacked against him all his life. It is the result of a collaboration that transformed both Mark and those who collaborated with him.

Marcel Baaijens, MAAE
Wellington, New Zealand

Introduction (p.4-p.5)

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Text on pages:
Mark’s story touches on subjects we can all relate to. It touches on the importance of family, friends, home, community, a sense of belonging and feeling safe. He draws our attention to basic human needs such as the need to express, be listened to, be taken seriously, feel loved and valued for whom we are. When such basic needs are not met, people often look ‘higher’ for protection and security and try to gain strength through spirituality means for their survival.

Images of angels and God help people visualise the existence of higher archetypal support. Mark’s life story is not unique in that sense, but what makes this story so special is that it is told and visualised from the rare perspective of a person with a developmental disability. In doing so Mark challenges the notion that people like him are different, and should be ‘sheltered’ from the full range of human experiences and thus treated differently on the basis of their perceived disability.
Mark has been through a lot in his life. Through enduring all these experiences he has gained an understanding, perspective and ultimately faith in his world, its people and beyond. His story gives us a unique glimpse of the belief system that he developed to cope in a society that created so many barriers for people like him. By using archetypal angels he has added a global quality to his work that makes it accessible to all. Now all we need to do is accept his invitation and step over our barriers.

When we are willing listen, take them seriously, value them for whom they are and allow them to freely express themselves, we can begin to truly understand people like Mark. Until that time, we can only pretend that we know how to care for them.

Belonging (P.6-P.7)

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Text on pages:
I was in a nursing home before I came to Austin Special.
I used to live with my grandmother
She got too old to take care of me.
She went to a nursing home
I went to another nursing home for 6 weeks.

That place was a dump.
The stairs were broken,
The fire escape too.
Half the time the elevators got stuck between two floors.
If there were a fire there we would all have been dead.
I went there because my grandmother died.

Heart stopped working...

We cremated my grandma.
I was standing close to the furnace.
That was real scary.
The heat!
See her body melt down and ashes.

My grandmother is my family.
No family left.
Me, myself and Austin Special is my family.

My birth-mother is in a hospital for mental health.
She is schizophrenic.
I am not schizophrenic.

Life Is... (P.8-P.9)

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Text on pages:
I get up at 5:30.
Set the table.
We eat breakfast.
There are eight people in my home:
Andrew, Peter, Michael, Danny, Donny, Tibus, and Eddie

We eat cold cereal and toast.
Then I shave, brush teeth and wash.
Watch the news a bit to watch the weather,
Watch cartoons till 8 o’clock.
Then we go to Austin Special.
8:30 we get there.
We start work at 9:30.
Sometime I start working.
Most time we wait around and see what we are doing.
3:30 we leave.
Sometimes we stay there till 5 o’clock, wait ’til van gets here.
It’s not funny, most time it is 4:00 and we get home by 4:30.

Our house is a half hour away.
When I get home I set the table and have dinner.
Saturday I help clean the whole house, top to bottom...
Wash the floors,
Make bed,
Change my sheets,
Clean my room up.
Andrew helps me with cleaning,
But mostly me.

I don’t mind to do the cleaning.
I want a part-time job,
Like restocking shelves in supermarket.
After dinner clean up, do dishes and watch TV.
I like watching TV.

Sunday I hang around the house, watch TV.
If the staff feels like going out we go out.
I am not allowed to get out on my own.
It’s the rule.
If we go out we go with the whole group,
I can walk around the neighborhood by myself
Go to the corner store
But that’s it.

What was... (P.10)

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Text on page:
I used to do part-time job in the neighborhood
When I used to live with my grandmother.
Sanding a desk and paint.
So the old desk would be a brand new desk.
My old art teacher taught me. I would get $18-$20 cash.
We also baked cookies.
I would like to go to my old work center and fix up furniture.

I used to do the shopping for my grandma.
Pay my bills, cash my check, shovel the snow,
Put storm windows in.
I would sand down first so they would fit.

Take care of my dog Freddie.
I had to put it to sleep 'coz we can’t have animals.

So he is dead like my grandma,
Gone to heaven, one for animals,
One for people and one for fleas.

No Sneak, No Peek (P.11-P.12)

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Text on pages:
When people die they go up in the sky, to heaven.
When a fireman dies he goes to a fire station in heaven.
When a man in a milk factory dies
He will go to a milk factory in heaven.
Heaven is clouds, nicer towers and houses and gate and fence.
So you don’t sneak away to here and you don’t sneak in there.

Heaven is an imaginary place; you can’t see it,
Only after you pass away, then you see it.
When you are alive you can’t,
Like ghosts, the spirits of people after you die.

Heaven is a big cloud that’s all.
All clouds are part of heaven.

God made heaven invisible.
He does not like people spying on him.
That’s why you can’t see it until it is your time to go up there.
Then you can see it.
You can only see it when he wants you to see it.
When you pass away...
When people die they go up in the sky, to heaven.
When a fireman dies he goes to a fire station in heaven.
When a man in a milk factory dies
He will go to a milk factory in heaven.
Heaven is clouds, nicer towers and houses and gate and fence.
So you don’t sneak away to here and you don’t sneak in there.

Heaven is an imaginary place; you can’t see it,
Only after you pass away, then you see it.
When you are alive you can’t,
Like ghosts, the spirits of people after you die.

Heaven is a big cloud that’s all.
All clouds are part of heaven.

God made heaven invisible.
He does not like people spying on him.
That’s why you can’t see it until it is your time to go up there.
Then you can see it.
You can only see it when he wants you to see it.
When you pass away...

Dream (P.13)

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Text on page:

I had a dream.

Remember the occasion you went to Holland,
Where you saw all your family.
I dreamt you came back,
You gave me an envelope with money in it.
You sold some of your paintings to your family and friends.
And I wake up.

Sometimes I see my grandmother in my dreams.
She just stands there and goes back up there to heaven.
She checks how I am doing, not to forget what I look like,
‘coz every time she goes there she loses her memory.
Get’s wiped off.

I know she has my picture up there.
Had to be, I looked everywhere for it when I was young.

Angels (P.14-P.16)

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Text on pages:
You become a bad angel by doing bad things in life,
Like stealing or killing people.
If you do only bad things you become devil.
Idea just came to me.
I like both abstract and figurative angels.
I draw them like other people.
They draw angels that way, they think that way.
Some people think that angels are animals, others like ghosts.
Some people make angels what they want them to be.

Angels are people who died.
When they come back to earth they change their body,
To any form they wanna be.
They come back to talk and help someone.
When someone does a dumb thing,
Like standing on an edge ready to jump to kill himself.
God sends angels to give them hope

Good angels have halos.
So you can tell the difference between good and bad ones.
Bad angels go downstairs to the basement,
Where it is all warm and hot.
If an angel turns into a devil it goes downstairs.
Hell...

You become a bad angel by doing bad things in life,
Like stealing or killing people.
If you do only bad things you become devil.

As long as you do more good things than bad things
You go to heaven,
As long as you try.

But if you don’t succeed in doing good things,
Then you are in limbo,
Until He sorts it out.
You are not in hell,
Not in heaven,
But in between.

You are in spirit world until He decides where you go.
There you get a second chance to do good things.
They are angels but not full angels.
So so.

Until He decides that you pass then he will say:
Here is a halo, here your wings, clothes, here is your harp.
They come to earth to help people,
Like giving away clothes to homeless people,
Instead of throwing away, be good to people, help a person.

Bad people are greedy.
They want more.
They are afraid of not having enough.

I Like Money (P.17)

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Text on page:
I do sport stuff: track field, soccer, sport!
I like sport.

I like to go on trips like to the zoo and to movies.
I like food of all kinds, mixed food.
I like Halloween.
I like Kath the new manager,
I like all the staff.

I like the art class.
I like Austin Special, the house, the guys, the teachers.
I like Rami, he is a nice guy, too bad I can’t help him walk.

I like all your money.

Help the world, make peace on earth.
If they have no dollars left they can’t buy no weapons.
I would help people in need.

Back Cover

2006-11-07T06:19:00.000-08:00

Text on Page:
Mark began drawing angels, a carol singing angel, an African
American angel, a banjo playing angel, then a pool for angels,
a Sunday school for angels, a sheltered workshop for angels.
A story was beginning to unfold through his angel characters
and scenes, Mark’s story.

Marcel Baaijens (MAAE), Art Facilitator

Mark’s story touches on subjects we can all relate to. It touches
on the importance of family, friends, home, community, a sense
of belonging and feeling safe. He draws our attention to basic
human needs such as the need to express, be listened to,
taken seriously, feel loved and valued for who we are.

Brooke Dallimore (BDes), Art Facilitator