Adults with special needs put talents to work at Soul Studio

Adam Egrin made an electric guitar, cutting the shape of the instrument from wood and piecing together parts from other guitars. He painted it white and adhered colorful beads to the front of it.

He plugged it in and strummed earlier this month at the Dresner Foundation Soul Studio in West Bloomfield, where Egrin is among roughly 60 artists who paint, work with fiber and clay, sew, make music, take photographs and use technology to reveal talents hidden to the average person.

Each of them has special needs, whether it’s autism or cerebral palsy, Down syndrome or other conditions, but all are welcome at Soul Studio, said Bassie Shemtov, who founded the art center about a year ago with her husband, Levi Shemtov.

There, the focus isn’t on their disabilities, but on their abilities.

“We’re really interested in what interests them, and following their lead rather than forcing them to do something,” Bassie Shemtov said. “We want to help them find their talent inside.

"It’s just incredible. A lot of this is inspirational.”

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Egrin, who is 22 and lives in Southfield, has an eye for photography and textiles, but also a knack for music. He started playing the drums at age 2 and the guitar when he was 5.

“If I didn’t have this place, my head would be lost in oblivion,” he said. He visits the studio three days a week, and loves to make things. “Anything that’s hands on, I love. And that’s everything because everything is art. Music is art, and that can be playing on the drums, playing on guitar, playing on the computer, making sounds off the computer.

"And then there’s art that most people think of, like painting and that kind of stuff. I have no preference.”

Egrin and the other adults at Soul Studio work with artist facilitators and volunteers who coax the hidden talents from them, and give their creativity life. Their pieces are displayed gallery-style and sold during shows and during the week to people who stop by. The artists earn 40% of the sales.

The Shemtovs started Soul Studio a year ago as a way to expand the services of Friendship Circle, which they founded in 1994. Friendship Circle initially was an organization to provide companionship and support to recovering drug addicts, but Bassie Shemtov says, the couple soon realized that there was a huge demand for a service that could help special needs children find friendship, support and acceptance.

As the years passed, the program grew; the children grew, too. As young adults, they still longed for that same inclusion and friendship, but found few places to get that interaction. And so, the Shemtovs created a program for them.

"When enough of our families — and they become family to us — came to us, saying, 'My kid is sitting at home, eating at home, doing video games, getting depressed, not wanting to live,' we were like OK. We have no choice. We have got to do something," Bassie Shemtov said.

That's how the Soul Studio was born. Launched a year ago through a partnership with the Farber Center and the Dresner Foundation, it offers art programming for adults with special needs Monday-Thursday every week. The space includes the Soul Cafe, where adults with special needs work, learning new skills in food service while also getting a paycheck.

The studio has given Elyse Weinbaum a new purpose in life.

At age 30, when Weinbaum was pregnant with her second daughter, she started showing symptoms of a degenerative and rare neurological condition called chorea-acanthocytosis. She was having seizures, tics, and speaking differently.

"It’s really a horrible illness. It is a genetic disease and there’s currently no cure for it," said her husband, Chad Weinbaum. But because the disease is so rare, it took years to diagnose.

"When you love somebody, you want to figure out how to fix them," he said. "We constantly kept asking questions," and eventually found a doctor at the University of Michigan who knew what was wrong with Elyse Weinbaum. She went from being an independent mother of two with a degree in fashion merchandising to being unable to work, drive or live independently. Now, 37, Weinbaum has a hard time speaking, eating and controlling her body and has experienced behavioral changes as well.

"We were trying to find a place essentially to give Elyse purpose, to keep her busy during the day," Chad Weinbaum said. "She would go to a rehabilitation place and  have physical therapy and speech therapy, but she really never enjoyed it. The people were very nice, but it didn’t give her any purpose. She was seen as a patient or a sick person. ... Remarkably, the first day she came home from Soul (Studio), she was like, 'I love this.'

"That's the remarkable thing about Soul (Studio). There’s a place for people with all kinds of unique challenges in their life."

Now, she spends four days a week at the studio, picking out fabric and choosing designs for purses that she helps to sew with volunteers. She paints and does screen printing and weaving.

"You know what, I have an eye," Elyse Weinbaum said on a recent visit to the studio. "I see what I want, and I take it. Coming here, I feel strong. I feel energy. It makes me happy, and I work on what I like.

"It’s a home, and I love it."

The inspiration for Soul Studio came from the work of the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, known as the Rebbe. His portrait hangs on the wall of the Soul Cafe, painted by Jordan Hartz, one of the student artists.

Hartz was commissioned to paint it and used a photo of the Rebbe as a reference. In the image, "the Rebbe is actually speaking to someone in a wheelchair," Shemtov said. "There was a group of 60 to 80 adults with special needs ... and he told them that he doesn’t agree with the term 'handicapped.' He said that they should all be called exceptional because whenever God gives someone a challenge, God gives them strength in another area that others don’t have. And that’s what we find 40 or 50 years later. We get it.

"They are incredible. They lead better lives than us."

Words on the wall of the center act as a reminder of its mission: “He encouraged us to help each other fulfill the purpose for which we were each created. His unconditional love to people knew no bounds. To the Rebbe, they are all belonged.”

Contact Kristen Jordan Shamus: 313-222-5997 or kshamus@freepress.com. Follow her on Twitter @kristenshamus. 

If you go

The Farber Center includes the Dresner Foundation Soul Studio and Soul Cafe at 5586 Drake Road in West Bloomfield. It is open 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Mon.-Thurs. Adults with special needs may come to the center to work with artist facilitators at a cost of about $50 per day.

Their work is on display at the center and can be purchased there. The next art show is planned for June 1. For details, go to http://friendshipcircle.org/soul/programs/soul-studio-program/ or call the studio at 248-788-8600.