A Place We Made — How Art Changes Lives | Creativity Explored 2026 Gala Film

Meg is really immersed in her art making. So when she sits down at the table, she's focused. So it's very methodical as well. When she was first diagnosed back in the day, there was less information. And one of the things we were told were like, oh, you know, they don't really socialize. They like to isolate themselves. And we were like, okay, you know, like what does that look like for her future and our future as her parents? Yeah, Ava was very, very nervous to come. And when she got here, she was very apprehensive, feeling pretty nervous and didn't want to come in the building. And we have a really welcoming group of artists and they were like ready to, you know, become friends and she was ready to have a little space to start. Imaginate Yay is a program for artists that identifies neurodiverse. It's a Saturday program and folks come and it's centered around art. These are adults and they're young adults, 18 to 22-year-olds, which is like, that is like the time where you make friends and you have fights and you start dating. There's all these things that happen right at that age. And we also really listen to like what you want to get out of it. The world is not always 100% accepting. If an artist like needs to be stimming or something like that in public, you know, you don't know how people are going to react. And so it might be safe, but it might not. And they are, you know, they're aware of that. They're trying to fit into society and how society wants them to be. It's just like an added barrier that they have to face of trying to like find places where they feel really comfortable and really themselves. That's a big anxiety when she becomes an adult. She has to adapt to the work environment and rarely does the work environment adapt to the person. The creativity explored is a place where all the pictures you see here are like portals to different worlds and different possibilities. It's like Disneyland. Some of the characters are more interesting and complex than Disney characters. It's a very celebratory place. Marianne Orozco is a creativity explored artist who I've had the pleasure of working with for 2 or 3 years now. Nice work, Marianne. Yeah. Really beautiful. We were, I mean, we all got a little bit commenting on this piece. You don't like this one? It's different. Do you have any goals for your work for this coming year? So in my traveling, I've tried different things. I want to do more food paintings. She's very willing to share with others her joy and fascination. Marianne is a very funny person. She has a strong personality. We took 5 of her artworks to the Outsider Art Fair in New York last week and we sold all 5. 5? Congratulations. So I want to save my money. Not get a new house, but maybe like a new oven and do some more cooking and find a hot boyfriend. Unke has been an artist at Creativity Explored for a long time. His work is kind of organized chaos. Yeah, I went to his opening and his work was great. It was interesting to see how it changed through the years. Seeing some of the works in the show, they were kind of mysterious to me. There's a surreality to facing all of that time at once. Art matters to me because I think it's intrinsic to who we are as humans. It's a way to communicate and connect and to also process your environment and where we sit or belong. It's just in our DNA and you can't deny it. I don't think I can imagine Megan not creating art. I can't see the point at which she's like, okay, well, that's all the drawings I have. I've gotten to warm up a lot with our new artist Ava. She worked on her first art project that wasn't a coloring page today since she joined the program, so that was really cool. She's awesome, she's funny. I feel like this room acts as like a third space. The way I think about it really has changed. Now I'm like, no, this is important because people with developmental disabilities, young people, don't always get the opportunities to build community together. You have to go make your safe space for yourself. Yeah, I've been doing art since I was a young girl. Being an artist full-time, oh, it's something that I want to do, yeah. It can be scary to think that, you know, there's no net underneath after we're gone. But CE is one part of that net. It's like another home to her. I'm so happy that my parents are going to find that my future is going to be good in my life, yeah. Are you going to the prom this year? I might, yeah. Maybe we could go together. Yeah, let's do that.