Art Spark Texas is 30 years old in 2026, and I am proud to say I have been a cog in this beautiful machine for all thirty years.

In 1996, Betty Siegel was the Executive Director of Access Arts Austin, a tiny all-volunteer-run audio description organization, and I became their first employee. I had recently graduated from UT with a BFA in Art History and was looking for any work in the field of the arts.

The advertisement in the paper mentioned "arts and disability." I had no clue how those two topics intersected, but I was intrigued due to my then boyfriend's (later husband) recent diagnosis of schizophrenia. I knew how important the arts were to him, so why not explore this more? 

I worked about eight hours a week for Access Arts Austin from 1996 to 1998, learning all about access to the arts, specifically through the art of audio description. I stepped away as an employee to take on full-time work at the Austin Museum of Art, but still volunteered occasionally.

In 2002, I was again checking out the newspaper want ads, and saw that Access Arts Austin, now a growing organization renamed Very Special Arts (VSA arts of Texas) was hiring. I jumped at the chance to work there again, in a full-time capacity. Besides Audio Description, there were now several projects to work on, such as the professional development programs for emerging artists with disabilities (Artworks), the Art in the Park festival for kids, and so much more. 

Working for this organization has always been fun, because we always had an exciting new project to work on.

Here are a few highlights:

• Dream Big Workshops: We partnered with Imagine Art to host workshops all across the state of Texas, creating vision boards with artists with disabilities. We usually hosted these in museums, and as we identified strengths and barriers and created art together, it was always fun saying, "Now you can say you had your art at the Houston Museum of Fine Arts" or wherever it was. These were such powerful, uplifting two to three-day workshops, and everyone left with skills and encouragement.
• Spring Break and Summer Camps: Wow! What a challenge these were. Each class included about a dozen kids, and we never held back on providing a fun atmosphere with field trips across the city. The impact our teaching artists had on those kids was priceless. We played broomstick and washtub bass, acted out the Wizard of Oz, wrote radio plays, made documentaries, created CDs of original music, and displayed photography exhibits to name a few. The showcases were always a hit with family and friends.
• Access Gallery: With support from the Texas Council on Developmental Disabilities, we were able to take our professional development program one step further, and I ran this gallery from 2009 to 2012. Just down the street from our main office on Cedar Street, we found a cute little storefront with big picture windows. Every month or two, we changed out the exhibition. Our neighbors thought we were moving out all the time, because I would take down one exhibit, patch and paint the walls, and start over. I am so proud of the work we showed there and the boost it gave our artists. I remember one artist's mother seeing her son's work displayed for the first time. She really understood at that moment that this wasn't just a hobby. Her son was talented and valued for that talent.
• Veteran Program: When we started working with Veterans, it was a whole new scene and personally gave me an appreciation for the men and women who serve our country that I never understood before. Besides our programming, we also helped Glenn Towery launch AVAFest. I took on the role of curator of AVAFest, which quickly grew out of control to over seventeen exhibits in the span of one month across the city. I needed physical therapy for my shoulder after that month of hammering nails in walls to hang art. 

These are just a few examples that don't even scratch the surface and don't mention the day-to-day of a close-knit family that the Art Spark Texas staff is and has been in our many forms over the years.

With strong leadership from Celia Hughes, we always knew we would be here in some form or fashion. We didn't always know what that would look like, but we always knew it would be impactful to the people we serve. It is definitely impactful to me.