STRICKLAND
The six-minute video has drawn viewer comments from as far away as the Philippines.
Ernie Strickland was 8 when a drunken driver slammed into the car in which he was riding in the back seat. The crash left him with severe bruising at the base of his brain, impairing his fine-motor skills and leaving the left side of his body paralyzed.
During the past 32 years, Strickland has learned how to talk again and, as he has slowly gained some feeling in his legs, to ride a modified tricycle.
Since 1997, he has lived in a Gahanna apartment complex with five caregivers on call 24/7. Strickland’s mother, Macie, said her only child started drawing while in high school at Independence on the East Side. He drew all day during the programs he attended there and continued at night.
“From the time he gets home in the evening to the time he goes to bed, he has a pencil in his hand,” said Mrs. Strickland, 63. “I feel like art has been a jewel for him.”
Since he began visiting Art Outside the Lines — a branch of PALS Chrysalis Health on the Northeast Side — Strickland has seen both his artwork and support system grow. At the studio, operated largely by the adults with disabilities who create there, artists are given jobs based on skill sets. Strickland, with his gregarious personality and disarming smile, manages public relations.
On a recent Wednesday, Strickland — wearing knee pads and a gray sweatsuit — sprawled across a piece of paper on the floor, smudging charcoal dust into a human head. He stared down at the drawing, envisioning the feature he wanted to tackle next. Many of his drawings showcase abstract faces staring at the viewer with large, expressive eyes. “I guess you could call them my children,” Strickland said. “Because when I look at them, they’re reflections of myself.”
The Facebook video has elicited emotional responses from viewers and helped boost awareness of Art Outside the Lines, Davis said, but she hopes it also educates viewers about the real challenges of living with disabilities.
“He said, ‘My knees hurt,’” she said of Strickland. “It was real and honest.”
Because of the strain on his back and knees when he is on the floor, Strickland does most of his drawing on his wheelchair tray or a renovated desk in the studio. He holds his pencil at an angle, making short strokes to fill out his human faces and animal renderings. Tremors make it difficult for him to grip the pencil in an upright position, a problem Jeff Hafer is trying to remedy. When Hafer — the father of Kelsey Hafer, one of Strickland’s fellow artists — first watched the video, he said it crushed him.
“You can tell he’s exhausted by the time he finishes,” said Hafer, 56.
“You look at that and say: ‘This is really someone who wants to express himself. If there are limits, how can you work to remove those limits?’”
Hafer got to work making Strickland a baby-blue desk, cutting out space for his wheelchair and angling the desktop like an easel so Strickland can lean his weight on top.
Next, Hafer plans to take a spoon designed to correct for the shaking of patients with Parkinson’s disease and retrofit it for a pencil or pen.
Strickland, who also works at the Chiller ice rink at Easton several days a week, grew up with a tenacious spirit, thanks in part to his mother.
“He was never allowed to not try anything,” she said. We always said: ‘You have to try it. If you don’t like it, you don’t have to do it, but you have to try.’”
When he picks up a pencil or charcoal, Strickland said, he feels relaxed, allowing instinct to guide what he draws.
“It’s just what happens when my hand hits the paper.”