Feature Issue on Loneliness and People with Intellectual, Developmental, and Other Disabilities

Cape Cod Collaborative Arts Network (CapeCodCAN) was launched in 2011 as a grassroots creative initiative with a mission to make specialized visual and performing arts programs accessible for adults with intellectual, developmental, and physical disabilities.

Jim Hurley, an engineer and community theater performer, founded CapeCodCAN as a way to share his love of the arts in a meaningful way with his grandson, who sustained a traumatic brain injury. Partnering with Open Door Arts and several local disability-focused agencies, the organization offered weekly art and craft classes within community-based day and residential programs, and produced an annual variety show on the Cotuit Center for the Arts main stage, among other events.

As Jim prepared to retire, I was hired in 2017 as CapeCodCAN’s new director, along with Donna Rockwell, a multitalented artist, designer and instructor as art director. The initiative was still independent and at this point under the fiscal agency of Cotuit Center for the Arts (CCFTA), which provided office space, bookkeeping services, access to their classrooms and main stage, and the ability to secure grant funding. This proved to be an incredible game changer in service delivery, program development, and fostering greater community inclusion.

CapeCodCAN expanded its classes to the CCFTA campus, working in authentic and beautifully messy art studios and performance spaces and displaying artwork in the Center’s light-filled gallery. We created a volunteer partnership program that matches CapeCodCAN members who are interested in theater work with longtime CCFTA volunteers to welcome patrons, usher, and provide customer service. The pairs worked in teams as a skills training opportunity, and we intended to have the newer volunteers work independently after they learned the ropes. Instead, they formed authentic connections and budding friendships, and the teams continue to volunteer together today.

Most of our members are alumni of a nearby boarding school serving students from around the world who have intellectual and language disabilities. Many choose to remain in our area because of its support services and agencies for adults with disabilities.

By March 2020, CapeCodCAN was serving 300 individuals, partnering with more than a dozen referral agencies including the Massachusetts State Department of Developmental Services (DDS), and had launched an inclusive after-school art club curriculum within five high schools.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, CapeCodCAN members left the area to join families across the country for what they thought would be a temporary visit. Months later, as we faced the challenges of keeping afloat a program that is rooted in gathering people together, we heard loud and clear that our members desperately needed connection. They expressed feelings of loneliness, isolation, and regression in social and independent living skills. They missed their jobs, friends, and significant others. It was overwhelming and it worsened their social emotional health. While incredibly challenging, the situation proved to be yet another a-ha moment. Remote programming was informed, inspired, and developed by and with our students. They needed something that would bring joy, something to look forward to, and to count on. Relief grants and DDS funding fueled the creation of “Studio to Go” art kits with video instruction, Zoom open mic nights, collaborative music videos, online art instruction, and a postcard virtual art exhibit. Inclusive Zoom art programs for youth and teens were created, and our target audience increased to include ages 7 through adult.

As we continued to engage with our community, heartfelt and cathartic Zoom conversations, amazing insightful poetry, new songs, new dances and so many people seeking creative outlets emerged. Making art together, cheering each other on, and sharing stories from afar helped to relieve stress, depression and the isolation. It also bonded us, so that when we re-opened the doors, we launched “Hello World,” a trauma-informed curriculum that promoted the arts as a means to process reengagement with community, life, and people. It was a creative soft landing.

In 2022, CapeCodCAN’s membership increased to nearly 500 students of all ages. We created a satellite visual arts program in Plymouth, Massachusetts, presented a month-long multimedia art exhibit covering the walls of the CCFTA upper gallery with art and poetry verses, performed onstage to a live audience and became an official CCFTA outreach program!

The shift in our relationship with CCFTA also created a dynamic culture change within the organization. CCFTA’s mission is “to be a welcoming home for Cape Cod’s artists, performers, students, and audiences, working together to make the creation and experience of art accessible, nurturing, and thrilling for all.” Full inclusion and belonging became a greater priority as CapeCodCAN artists and performers were specifically invited to exhibit art in gallery shows and participate in collaborative art projects. They auditioned and were cast in main-stage musicals, including Dr. Doolittle, The Sound of Music and most recently, Fiddler on the Roof.

Cynthia Goldberg, a visual arts apprentice, and Donna Rockwell, art director, decorate a bus for holiday programs.

Becoming a Mass Cultural Council “Card to Culture” member helped us offer tuition and ticket discounts for individuals and families eligible for public assistance. The organization also created a “Pick Your Price” ticket for shows ranging from $10 to $50 as a companion to the Open Seat scholarship fund. These programs have opened doors for students with disabilities, elders, and individuals and families with limited income.

Two years ago, we formed the CapeCodCAN Advisory Committee, composed of nine members representing each of our partner day and residential agencies. Forming this advocacy group was a longtime goal, and members represent their peers, and survey them to determine their interests in the arts and their goals for CapeCodCAN. They help to inform future programming and serve as organization ambassadors.

CapeCodCAN members Odette Besso-Perez, Noah Taxter, Gretchen Wronski, Ava Klaetke, Rowan Judge and musician/drumming instructor Sam Holmstock after finishing

We also introduced a pre-vocational theater and visual arts internship. The pilot launched in September 2023 with six interns who observed, shadowed, and practiced the responsibilities of backstage crew members or art education assistants. The pilot was successful, and through grant funding, 19 members have now completed the program and advanced to a new apprenticeship level. Workshops in leadership, workplace relationships, interviewing skills through improv, and public communication are presented by professionals. Artists, performers, lighting and sound technicians, stage managers, and gallery managers serve as mentors to the interns and apprentices. The next step is the development of paid part time, seasonal, or event specific jobs.

We are incredibly proud of how the organization has grown and changed to meet the needs and desires of our members. Thanks to the commitment of our accomplished team of artist educators, we are thrilled to watch students become confident artists, performers, writers, and advocates. Equally important, they feel at home on campus, in class, onstage, and within a gallery.

This fall will begin our 14th season, and it is amazing to see the changes that have occurred within Cotuit Center for the Arts. Our culture is now and forever steeped in celebrating our diversity while ensuring inclusion and belonging for all.