When I explain that you are listening to one of a series of essays about artists with disabilities, you can imagine how I could proceed.  I might remind you of a famous name, and point out that he or she happened to have been disabled all along.  Edward Lear, for example, whose nonsense rhymes and… Read More from Emily Dickinson

Here’s a question to chew over.  Does an artist have to be clever?  For that matter, what do we mean by clever?  Several times, I’ve arranged for artists to give talks, and then been disappointed when they have turned out to be incoherent, even tongue-tied.  But it was of course me who was being stupid:… Read More from Bryan Pearce 1929-2007

In February 2013, as chaos raged through Syria, a small group of men from the Al Nusra front, the local Al Qaida affiliate, gathered in the town of Maari, near Aleppo.  They were there to settle scores with the most distinguished sons of that town, one of the most famous poet of the whole Muslim… Read More from Al Ma’arri: visionary free thinker

Lucy Jones may well be the best British painter who you’ve never heard of. There is no doubt about her disability, because she was born with cerebral palsy. But she has no intention of identifying as a disabled artist. She is a simply an artist, and a very, very good one at that. I hadn’t… Read More from Lucy Jones, crawling to glory