Photograph by Edmonds Therapist
Accepted by MDA Art Collection

"Oh Bug... Where are you?," Renée Granade

TUCSON, Ariz., July 17, 2001 - A photograph by Renée Granade of Edmonds, Wash., has been accepted by the Muscular Dystrophy Association's Art Collection. The Collection features artwork by people from across the country with neuromuscular diseases.

Granade's "Oh Bug … Where Are You?" shows a cream and white Persian kitten on a sunny day, surrounded by brightly colored flowers, searching for a lost playmate. Granade breeds and shows Persian cats, and has created a series of greeting cards using her photographs of her kittens.

Granade, 31, is affected by spinal muscular atrophy, which damages the motor neurons that control the muscles.

Granade has been creating her line of photographic greeting cards for nearly five years and has broadened her work to include calendars, postcards, posters and computer mouse pads. She works as a behavioral therapist, educational tutor and administrative assistant.

"We're honored to have such an enchanting and playful photograph by Renée Granade in the permanent MDA Art Collection," said MDA Senior Vice President and Executive Director Robert Ross. "Her contribution to our Collection will undoubtedly delight all who see it as it travels to galleries and museums as part of special exhibits of the Collection."

The new addition by Granade will be exhibited at MDA's national headquarters in Tucson, Ariz., and will be included in MDA Art Collection traveling exhibits. The Collection was established in 1992 to focus attention on the achievements of artists with disabilities, and to emphasize that physical disability is no barrier to creativity. The permanent Collection currently comprises more than 260 works by artists ages 2 to 82 and represents 48 states. Each artist is affected by one of the neuromuscular diseases in the MDA program.

Selected art from the Collection has been exhibited at the Dallas Museum of Art; Cork Gallery at Lincoln Center and Forbes Magazine Galleries in New York; Tucson Museum of Art; Bishop Museum in Honolulu; Chicago Public Library, Harold Washington Library Center; Fort Lauderdale Museum of Art; Los Angeles Children's Museum; University of California-Berkeley and Fresno Metropolitan Museum; Duluth Art Institute; Capitol Children's Museum, Washington, D.C.; and the Henry Ford Centennial Library in Dearborn, Mich.

MDA is a voluntary health agency working to defeat neuromuscular diseases through programs of worldwide research, comprehensive services, and far-reaching professional and public health education. MDA maintains clinics for area adults and children affected by neuromuscular diseases at the Children's Hospital Medical Center and the University of Washington's Medical Center in Seattle.

The Association's programs are funded almost entirely by individual private contributors.