Shobu Gakuen - Art As A Haven Of Happiness

    In Kagoshima, Japan, a care facility for special needs persons has emerged that is doing something very special indeed.  Providing a place where these folks with different ways of facing the world they live in, with a space to not only find a way to be useful, and a greater part of that world, but also to express their own feelings without constraints,  Shobu Gakuen  has brought something to the world that we could all learn from.

    After teaching their clients some basic skills, like learning how to throw and glaze pottery or learning how to sew, or embroider, or dye materials, or learning how to play simple musical instruments, the clients are then giving their head to express themselves in their newly discovered media.  The results, and especially in the arm of the facility which deals with textiles are nothing short of astonishing.

    When I say its astonishing, i don't mean because these people have abilities that are lesser than others.  I mean it because we so rarely get to see human creativity that is utterly unconfined by societal rules and expectations.  What happens at Shobu Gakuen, and at facilities around the globe that are like it, is a lesson to all of us that the human spirit is undimmable.  Even with serious restrictions on us, our desire, our baseline need to create, and our inborn ability to do so, if given any chance at all, is capable of wonders.
   Just take a look at what I mean.