Saturday, May 10, 2008

Creative Corner Saturday: Imagifriends by D.J. Svoboda


For Creative Corner Saturdays I am hoping to go beyond my own family and feature the artwork and poems of individuals with ASD or their family members. Today I am featuring artwork that should make everyone smile. The colorful, quirky Imagifriends are from Imagiville where everyone is nice to each other.

The creator of Imagifriends is D.J. Dvoboda, a 24-year-old man with autism. The artists sells mugs, mouse pads, canvas bags and a fifteen-page coloring book. He also is hoping to create signs or murals with names (as seen above), for individuals and businesses.

From the artist:

"My name is D.J. Svoboda. I am the creator of the Imagifriends of Imagiville. The Imagifriends of Imagiville are based on the experiences I have faced during times at school. There were days at school when I was made fun of, and when I was picked on and treated mean. Those made me feel very sad and hurt. That is how I got the idea of the Imagfriends of Imagiville...D.J."

My thoughts: The artist also has free coloring pages on his site that can be printed out at home. He encourages children to write stories about his characters. I am thinking about sending the website address for Imagifriends to the director of my son's summer arts camp. I can see the campers there coloring his pictures and maybe even writing stories about them.

I can also see parents who of home school their children, particularly children with special needs, using D.J.'s artwork in their curriculum. I love that the artist was inspired by his not-so-great social experiences to create something so positive.

2 comments:

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Anonymous said...

The website address for Imagifriends is http://www.Myimagiville.com...DJ

J said...

I fixed the link. Thanks for letting me know. Take care, jml.