Countywide : The Very Picture of Progress

With quivering hands, Wendy Lopez took the paintbrush, dipped it in a palette of colors and started to deftly trace the drawings on the piece of paper in front of her.

Behind her, propped up in her wheelchair, Jeane Cook was giving directions, like a driving instructor:

“Pick up a little yellow,” Cook intoned. “That’s it. Now, mix it with the blue. OK, stop. Do the outside of the circle. Good. Now rinse your brush.”

Slowly, laboriously, the figures on the paper took shape. Lopez shrieked in delight as a red apple, then a pear and a papaya became distinct.

“This is the first time I’ve done this,” said Lopez. “It’s like a miracle.”

Only seven months ago, Lopez, 24, of Lake Forest, was in a coma after suffering a serious head injury. She came out of it in January and has since been trying to rebuild her life.

In March, she was able to walk. And Wednesday, she began an art therapy class at the Tustin Rehabilitation Hospital, which she said will help her regain control of her hands and perform certain tasks for longer periods of time.

What is remarkable about the class is that the instructors are themselves disabled, according to Cherie Housenga, who runs the program for about two dozen patients of the hospital.

“There is a self-esteem issue here,” Housenga said. “When patients are able to create a piece of art, they feel good about themselves and that helps in their recovery.”

The instructors belong to Artability Artists, a Southern California-based group of artists with disabilities. The group is headed by Said Abdelsayed, a Tustin resident whose back was broken in a car accident in 1976 and who is now confined to a wheelchair.

Two members of the group--Cook, 60, and Robert Thome, 40,--are also members of the Elite Assn. of Mouth and Foot Painters, which is based in Europe.

Said’s group conducts art-therapy classes twice a month in Tustin and every other week in San Diego. In addition, they hold art exhibits and painting demonstrations, and speak before community organizations in schools and hospitals.

“We’re artists who happen to be disabled,” said Thome, whose neck was broken during a football game when he was 15. “We’re trying to pass on what we know.”

Thome, a quadriplegic who is married and has two daughters and two grandchildren, said his disability has not prevented him from pursuing a career in art. He said that he has always painted but that it was scary when he started painting by using his mouth: “I thought I may not paint as good.”

Now, some of his paintings, mostly watercolors, which are his favorite medium, hang in many hospitals and private collections.

But the fun part, he said, is being able to teach disabled people to paint.

One of his students at the Tustin Rehabilitation Hospital is 12-year-old Christopher Thompson, who suffered head injuries during a car accident in June.

Thompson is easily distracted, according to Housenga, who also works as a therapist at the hospital. She said the boy has difficulty doing something for more than five minutes.

But since taking art classes he has shown some improvement, Housenga said. One of the five paintings displayed in the hospital’s conference room is a drawing of a cartoon character done by Thompson.

“It’s fun,” Thompson said during an art session Wednesday.

But for patients like Lopez, it has been more than fun. It has been another step in regaining her life.

She hopes to get a job and unite with her three daughters who are temporarily under the care of the Social Services Department.

“I’m learning to be responsible for myself,” Lopez said. “I’m painting myself a dream.”