ARTWORK BY NEW YORK ARTIST
ACCEPTED BY MDA ART COLLECTION

"I Have Seen the Future"

TUCSON, Ariz., Aug. 17, 2004 — A collage by artist Gary Spradling of Brooklyn, N.Y., has been accepted by the Muscular Dystrophy Association’s Art Collection. Now in its 13th year, the Collection features artwork by people from across the country with neuromuscular diseases.

“I Have Seen the Future” is a unique mixed media piece designed as a tribute to a prophetic collage Spradling made in 1993 that shows him sitting in a wheelchair and connected to a ventilator. He created the work years before symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) began to appear.

Spradling says his subconscious intuition predicted in 1993 what’s happening to him now. “I Have Seen the Future” is a reference to this startling revelation.

Spradling has been a prolific artist for 35 years and has lived in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn since 1978. He lives in a loft building that took him 20 years to renovate.

Spradling is an artist pioneer in Williamsburg, which is now the largest artist community in New York City. He has exhibited his work in NYC, across the United States, and in Canada and Malaysia. His work is in numerous private collections.

In 1997, through Parsons School of Design, he was invited to teach 3-Dimensional Design and Model Making at the Center for Advanced Design in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for 18 months. During the school breaks he traveled extensively to China, Bali, Java, Vietnam, Thailand, Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia and Nepal.

Spradling has contributed work to a variety of exhibitions, including the World Peace Exhibition and Transitions, a one-person show at Williamsburg Art & Historical Center in Brooklyn. He also writes poetry and participates in fund raising for the MDA/ALS Division.

Spradling, 53, received a diagnosis of ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 2000. A disease of the parts of the nervous system that control voluntary muscle movement, ALS causes muscles to become weak and then nonfunctional. Spradling uses a wheelchair and a computer to communicate.

After this diagnosis, he chose to make his future productive and live each moment to the fullest. Since June 5, 2000, he has written 167 poems, created 48 pieces of artwork and used his artwork to raise money for ALS research.

“We welcome Gary Spradling’s work into the permanent MDA Art Collection,” MDA President & CEO Robert Ross said. “His contribution to our Collection will undoubtedly captivate all who see it as it travels to galleries and museums as part of special exhibits of the Collection.”

The new addition by Spradling will be displayed at MDA’s national headquarters in Tucson, Ariz.,. 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 comprises more than 300 works by artists aged 2 to 82 and represents all 50 states.

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; JFK Center at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, Tenn.; Fresno Metropolitan Museum; Duluth Art Institute; Capital 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. In addition to the Eleanor and Lou Gehrig MDA/ALS Research Center at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and an MDA/ALS center at Mt. Sinai Hospital and Medical Center, MDA maintains clinics serving New York City residents with any of more than 40 neuromuscular diseases at Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx; Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine in New York; Hospital for Joint Diseases and Medicine in New York; Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow and Long Island College Hospital in Brooklyn.

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

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