KANSAS CITY, Mo. – It’s the fourth year for The Whole Person’s First Friday Art Show in the Crossroads. Every artist displaying their work at this once-a-year show has a disability, but they’re out to show how much more they can do rather than things they can’t do.
Intricately cut pieces of paper intertwined to make beautiful patterns and colorful pictures- this is the work of Kassidee Quaranta.
“Putting it all together into one piece just makes me be able to look at something and smile about my disability,” said Quaranta.
Kassidee has bi-polar disorder, and she says working on her art can help.
“It’s very fragmented. It has little tiny pieces that you put everything together, and that’s kind of how my mind works when I get into weird funks,” she said.
Kassidee is joined by other artists with disabilities, like Robert Gray, an artist with C.O.P.D.
“What used to flow easy, I have to work at harder now, but I still enjoy it,” Gray said.
Robert’s a life-long artist, but only in recent years he started drawing trees using only gel-ink pens. Several weeks going into only one’s creation. But the trees work their magic on Robert every time he finishes one more.
“To me, they give off a spirit of peace, love, spirituality, a calming effect,” he said.
With hundreds of people showing up, Kassidee and Robert hope their artwork makes an impression and perhaps even a sale.
Friday night’s exhibit isn’t a fundraiser for The Whole Person. In fact, the artists get to keep the money they make from selling their artwork.
