 Welcome to this edition of Abledon on Air, the one and only program that focuses on the needs, concerns, and achievements of the different label. I'm Lauren Seiler. I'm Molly Seiler. And on this second half, we will focus on Shockwave, which is part of the learning network, Washington County Mental Health Services Recreation as well. With me, we have we have Mary Kay Casper, coordinator of supportive employment and community integration. And we also have Wendy Cabellianco, instructor for the learning network in Washington County Mental Health. Thank you again for joining me on Abledon on Air. Thank you. And just to recap before we get to Shockwave, what is the learning network for those that didn't tune in last time? We have, we do, we make available for people different opportunities for learning and exploring creativity. People come in with their support staff with the people that support them in their living situation or on their own. And we have our opportunities to engage in different courses and classes and activities. And especially with summer and spring coming, yes, it will get nice out eventually. Going out into the community maybe to have experiences they haven't had the chance to do before. We have had the opportunity to take people to the ocean. They have never been to the ocean, that sort of thing. And also to explore writing poetry, it's national poetry month, to experiment with different artistic things, including paint and drawing and photography, collage, scrapbooking, and various classes where you do more talking than doing, such as speaking up for yourself, a little bit of history here and there. I take a class to the library every month. Every time I try to say, well, we've done that. And no, no, no, we have to keep going. Okay. All right, we'll keep going to the library. Yeah, there's a lot of themes. It seems like every week you guys have, or at least through the month, there's the theme of physical fitness and health and wellness. There's a theme of living skills. There's an academic theme. Wendy offers an independent study class where folks will research and study a particular topic and then teach it to the rest of the group. Or provide a report. Or provide a report. Yeah, there's like, you know, the creative expression. So it's great how there are these so different themes so that it meets different needs and interests. So tell us about Shockwave. Is Shockwave a literary magazine, a poetry magazine? What exactly is it? A poetry newsletter? So it's actually all of those areas that you mentioned. It's Shockwave. Actually, it's a larger program that offers the opportunity for creative expression in all kinds of different ways. And then within Shockwave is this magazine that was developed over the years that is evolving into a professional magazine that's literary in art. And it's an opportunity to present to the world the artistic and literary talents of our individuals that we work with. So what types of things do you have? I don't have a copy of the magazine in front of me, but what types of things do you guys do within Shockwave? Is it like new stories? So what? The foundation is visual arts. Painting, drawing, collage. One thing that's featured in Shockwave that's kind of a little different is we don't just have single artist work. We have collaborative work. And sometimes when somebody comes in, maybe they are not feeling confident in doing their own work, but they might feel confident collaborating with one or two other people and coming up with a piece of art, we have one person who had never done art before but likes to write. And that written word became that person's art and has become featured in Shockwave as part of collaboration with other artists, visual artists. And then we discover we have a talent for poetry in groups of folks different groups of folks that come. And some don't necessarily attend but they brought their poetry to us when we asked for it. And it was amazing to see how many people not only let us put their poetry in the magazine, but came to write poetry. And again, collaboration, collaboration, collaboration. I don't think there's anything in Shockwave that was written collaboration yet. In our poetry issue we wanted to feature individual poets and some of the poetry had already been written and was submitted, but we also have, I know I've seen them up on the walls, poems that have been written by groups that are artwork in themselves, how they were written. Well, why don't we do this? Because of course it'll be edited. Why don't we take a look at the Learning Network and Poetry City, a piece that Orca Media did. Let's take a look at this quick segment. Let's take a look at this. Like you told us before that you guys were invited into the library about the poetry readings. Tell us a little bit more about that for those that didn't tune in. What exactly happened? Well, it was like any poetry reading that you would go to. All our individuals had their poems and they came and each one was introduced and had the opportunity to speak to the rest of the audience about and present their poetry. We even have some folks that are so passionate that they were able to present that passion in a way by speaking about how important poetry is. Have any of them got published? Not yet, but that's the next step. That's really a good comment. I would like to see that happen. One of our painters in particular had his painting at the Flint Center opening recently for people with disabilities and I spoke with the folks for the Center, people with visual impairment and we're thinking about collaborating on a piece like you're speaking to so we can have the opportunity to publish so that's a really good point and I hope that that's Do you think some of your participants, okay, well for example, since you're dealing with employment, if someone wants to publish a book or that type of thing, do you guys help them with publishers? Would you guys help them with anything of that nature? If someone wanted to do that, we would definitely do that. Yes, of course. And many of us at work at Washington County have connections to other places and different resources so we would use each other to access that. I have a friend that's a poet and a painter and I had her look at these pieces and she was amazed and said this is professional work and so she's interested, she has an online journal and she said that we would be very interested in publishing the written work and the paintings of the individuals if they wanted to have that. So we got to utilize our resources to get out there and assisting. This seems like a good place to break in and toot our own horn a little bit. We had a Shockwave Magazine had a show at Studio Place Arts. The spa was very in January. So what was the response? It was overwhelmingly positive. It was absolutely wonderful. We took the group over and had a little opening and people came by and we got some verbal feedback as well as written feedback and we really want to thank the people at the spa for making that possible. How do you retain the copy of the magazine? Pardon me? Yeah, if someone wanted to come or if someone wanted a copy of Shockwave, how does someone get a copy? So yes, we and we even have copies, still have copies from the past so if you want a copy of Shockwave you just write to us and we will put you on our subscription list and we will send one out or bring one to you if you live in the central Vermont area. Not at the end of a dirt road month. I have actually have somebody, we have an Instagram account for the work and that's another way to get the word out and on the Instagram and it's Shockwave Art Magazine and on that you can like it and you can put right down that you want to get a copy of it and let us know and we'll send. How large is Shockwave? Is it like a huge magazine type of thing? It's about this big. It's about it's that size with 12 pages or so if you can't you know this is a page so we printed ourselves. We're definitely a shoestring operation. I don't know if you read the, what's that paper? Which one? The one that comes out every Wednesday. Oh, seven days? They had something about these disability films that came out. Oh yeah, speaking about you know the media and we're talking about films and media as well. What is your opinion? No, you're talking about artists, okay. Artists sometimes are like starving artists, you know. What is your opinion about, let's say for example if someone in your group wanted to learn about film or TV or media or something like that or to learn how you know what is it that goes on in a film set type of thing. Would you guys make that happen for you know Vermont? Already happened. It already happened. Explain a little bit about that experience. Well it's not something I'm at liberty to discuss in any detail but we have a number of folks who have gotten degrees at universities. That's one way of finding that sort of thing out. At least to keep the mind working. If somebody was interested in an apprenticeship type thing I'd need to go looking for that. We'd probably access the people that got degrees and see if they had connections. That would be a good place to start. And places like here and you guys, like accessing you in terms of helping to support us, provide those opportunities and what can ORCA do to help us provide. So this is a wonderful resource to bring in. Because you know Vermont is well, I mean there's you know movie festivals and that type of thing. But at first Vermont wasn't the type of place to have those things but now you know there's poetry readings, there's film days and so on and so forth. So Shockwave, how long have you guys been publishing? Wow, it's been five years that Shockwave has been in origin and it's always been published in some form. I wasn't here when it first got started. Who came up with the idea of Shockwave? We had a couple of artists in residence. One is no longer with us and Walt Ward who is still with us was part of the original Shockwave. And now we have Aaron Martino who is kind of at the helm of that ship. But those are our two artists in residence and I credit them with making so many opportunities possible for folks. Also they make sure that the magazine goes out into the community. They make sure that it gets sent in the mail to a few people and then we have places they drop it off. It's published once a month. I don't think we said that. With a couple of special editions, we had a special edition for the art show at the spa. We had one for the Aldrich Library show which is hanging right now. Go to the Aldrich Library folks. It's there to the end of April. Do you want to see Shockwave on a larger scale? Well it's interesting because Aaron and I have talked about this and you know it's becoming more and more difficult to print at our location and we really do need to find the funding source to be able to have a professional printed copy. Did you ever think of putting it on the internet? Yes, that's the other thing. I would like to do an online journal and as soon as the agency is working on new technology and a new website we will be going to an online journal. Because we have a handicap paper in New York that's called ABLE but it's online. That will be happening for sure. Let's see what I would like to see. Since you talked about Shockwave being a magazine, what about this? Getting a group together, bringing them to a newspaper place where they see the printing presses and all that. Now everything mostly is done online these days but they're like the New York Times taking a trip just there. Or the daily news or something like that. So then you can make Shockwave into a newspaper or newspaper. Or the Time Angus in Paris. Because everything is done digitally. It's not like it was years ago where you see printing presses. I mean some places still have them when you have printing presses. Now in terms of what goes into the magazine, is there someone there that kind of decides, hey, well this goes in this month, this goes in that month. Or does it certain editions deal with, how does that work? So Aaron, so Walt does the open studio. And any kind of, if there is a theme that's created with Shockwave, folks can work on it there. But also Aaron does a Shockwave class. And so there are different themes to different editions. Thank you. Like it was the Halloween edition. We have a Halloween edition and then so folks, that's the opportunity for individuals to paint or write related to that theme. And that's what goes in. So there's a deadline, there's a submission process. There's a theme that goes ahead of time. So it needs to come in by October 1st for the October one. So you can have it during October. So that stuff needs to be done in September. So now in terms, so there is a Shockwave class. Are you working with, since you're an instructor, do you work with the Shockwave? How does that work within New York? So we have four instructors. And I don't do a whole lot of visual arts. When I started my career, I was an English teacher. So I deal with a lot of words. I am a wordsmith. That doesn't mean that the people who do visual arts just do visual arts. They don't. They do graphic arts. They do poetry. We sometimes, we may be doing physical activities, but we also like to do a little bit of cooking, a little bit of meditation type relaxation, chill time. Even as we speak, there's relaxation techniques. So we try to spread it out. So in terms of independent living skills, you have a cooking class. Oh, we didn't touch on that. Since we're talking about the whole recreation thing, why don't we talk about the cooking classes that you guys... Very popular. Eating has always been popular. We all do it. We all have our favorites. I think my favorite recent class was one where it was healthy junk food. How do you make chicken nuggets out of real food as opposed to fake food? How could you make a turkey burger a little bit more like a Big Mac? For people who... For people who... My apologies. For people who don't like salad, how can we make salad more attractive? That sort of thing. It needs to be fun. Okay. It's no use doing cooking classes for boring things, because people won't show up. So we like to have a little fun. We both have a call on our experience. So we can... So let's talk after. A guest spot maybe. And the beautiful part about the extension of the cooking class is that we have a number of bigger events that staff put on where so many people gather. And many of those opportunities are included. Well, cooking competition. Oh, that would be a really fun thing. But we do all kinds of... Whether they're spiritual events, or birthdays, or holidays of some kind. And food's always included. Well, the most recent one we did a Passover see. 30 people. Wow. It was no next time. We'll invite you next time. Feel free to call in March. I know it's the first full moon. It's been explained to me 10 times. I still can't remember it. But yeah. Now, so you guys teach them about independent living skills. You know, let's go into that since we have some time. So if someone has their own apartment, okay, we didn't get into that. You teach them how you're doing with the cooking. You teach them how to clean an apartment? Or you use like a mock apartment type of thing? So we have done that in the past. I would like to say, however, that we have a supported apartment program that is part of community developmental services so that people have regular staff hours for whatever kind of support they need. Do you go into the... Those staff do go into the apartment. People that live in their own apartments do also come to the learning network. And we might do a class... Somewhat recently, I did a class on what to do in case of an emergency. Now, everybody's had some instruction from the regular staff. But let's face it, you don't talk about emergencies every week. You do grocery shop every week. We don't provide grocery shopping support, but we might have a class on nutrition. And let me encourage you to make these choices. And then, you know, we all do love macaroni and cheese. Let's face it. We shouldn't eat it every day. So let's talk about that and how we might cook around that. Or I did a class once on how to cook one meal that will last you seven days. Obviously, you freeze most of it. Chicken soup, for example. There you go. Seven days. And how do you put it in the freezer and take it back out of that sort of thing? But the basic support comes from the supported apartment program for folks that are living on their own. And they need some of them very little support. But they might still come to class. Sometimes I have people come to class and they do more teaching than they do learning. And that's fine because it's really, like any other class, it's a group of people who are learning together. Learning together, working together, working in a team. Because media, for example, if you're at a news station, if we're talking about arts, you're working in a team. If you're working in a newspaper, you're working in a team. An artist studio, right? You know, someone handing out paint brushes, someone handing out paints, you're working in a team. It's all about working together, you know, that type of thing. Now, Sackwave, since we have a couple more minutes here. You said that there was an address if someone wanted to get a copy. Do you have that address? Do you mind telling our viewers? Fifty Grandview? Fifty Grandview Avenue. It's Grandview, G-R-A-N-V-I-E-W. Drive. Okay, and that's in Montpelier? That's in Dairy. Okay, so if you wouldn't mind repeating it again. Fifty Grandview, G-R-A-N-V-I-E-W. Bury VT-05641. Okay, now for those, we're going to repeat this question again, and it's good that we are. You should always be creative as far as your art and stuff and never be scared of picking up a paint brush or trying something new. And people have the misconception of, you know, like, oh, I'm scared. What are the misconceptions around people, especially as far as like, you know, when you first meet them? Let's repeat that one more time. That they don't have the ability to communicate? That they don't have the ability or skills to have a job or to engage effectively or how we think effectively is? Maybe you should never be afraid to do something or try something new. Right, right, that's true. Your take on the same question again? You don't know if you can do something until you try it. That doesn't have anything to do with disability. Disability goes out of them. Everything to do with ability and you don't know if you can play tennis or disc golf. We have a number of people who love disc golf until you try it. Or picking up a spatula and cooking something. You never know if you're going to burn it until you try to make it. And you learn when you make mistakes. I don't care who you are. Even the best chef or the best artist makes mistakes. It might not be eatable after a while. And that is your impetus to do it better next time. Exactly. Well, I would like to thank you for joining us on this second part of Ableton on Amp. Thank you so much. For more information on Washington County Mental Health, you can log on to www.wcmhs.org. Or if you need help in an emergency, you can call the following number, 802-229-0591. That's 802-229-0591. Don't be afraid to call if you have an emergency. Well, this puts an end to this edition of Ableton on Air. I'm Lauren Seiler. I'm Lauren Seiler. See you next time for the next edition of Ableton on Air. Stay tuned.