Our Art Initiative Program helps children and adults with disabilities to express themselves while offering our adults the opportunity to generate income through the sale of their artwork. Our adult program is designed to help our artists develop artistic skills while setting them up for success. This is done by breaking down paintings and projects into small, easy to manage steps, and is achieved with careful supervision and patience. Our artists’ work is sold at local events and galleries, which allows them to earn 70% of the proceeds of each sale while 30% goes to help purchase art supplies.
Artwork Photo Gallery
(click on the image to view all artwork)
Online Store
Visit Fine Art America to purchase prints of our artists’ original paintings. The artwork on Fine Art America can be purchased as a print on stretched canvas, tote bags, t-shirts and much more.
A Sample of Items Available for Purchase
Viktoria Bridgeford, Lead Art Instructor
Originally from Russia, Viktoria has been teaching art to children and adults with disabilities for over 15 years. She received her degree from Russia back in 2004, which is the US equivalent to a Master of Arts in Elementary Education. She also has a degree in decorative painting.
Viktoria’s skills far surpass her education. She has the innate ability to help individuals learn new skills, build their self-confidence, and achieve success with their artistic endeavors no matter what ability level they are on. Her patience and ability to help individuals take each project step-by-step is one of the keys to our program’s success. Viktoria can easily evaluate each individual’s unique ability level and then adapts her technique and lesson plans to best support their abilities. It’s like she’s running multiple classes within each class so that everyone can work on their projects at their own pace and achieve their own success. “I believe that all of my students are like a beautiful musical instrument,” she says, “My job is to teach them to play their instrument to the best of their abilities.”
Viktoria’s skills are helping our adult artists to reach a level where they can sell their artwork and receive much-needed income from the proceeds. Thanks to our artists’ increased abilities, we have been able to showcase our artwork at The State of The Arts Gallery since 2017 in an annual art show. The artists receive 70% of the proceeds of their art sales from the art show while 30% goes to purchase more art supplies for our program. Although the earned income is exciting, the smiles of accomplishment and pride on the faces of the artists are truly rewarding for Viktoria.
Viktoria is a talented artist in her own right and sells her artwork at local art shows and festivals when she has time. She specializes in detailed clay sculptures of fairies, gnomes and other whimsical, mystical creatures. She often teaches ceramics classes at local art studios within our community for the pure joy she gets from sharing her craft with others. Viktoria has run several art programs in the past, including her own teaching studio and at “Confident Day Care,” an adult day care facility in Cherry Hills, New Jersey. Viktoria also had an art studio in the Village of the Arts in Bradenton, Florida for several years. She worked for Manatee Technical College at UCP as their lead art instructor before transitioning to her current position here at Easterseals in 2015.
