(YOUNGSTOWN-WYTV)
It’s autism awareness month and there’s gonna be a big exhibit that’s gonna be on display at the Butler in October, so why are we telling you about it now? Because we need artists to come on out! Joining us this morning it’s Scott Austalosh with Voices 4 Autism and we have Joyce Mistovich, the education Director at the Butler Institute of American Art.
All right, we’re gonna start with you, Joyce. I know you do lots of special theme shows at the Butler with displays like Black History Month. What made you decide an Autistic Artists show would be a good fit?
Joyce Mistovich “Autistic children and adults bring a special degree of spiritual yet visual beauty into art, and we know that they are very special and we wanted to host an exhibit that would showcase the talent of people with autism across the world.
The Rich Center for Autism, Potential Development have already reached out to get involved.
I met some people on Saturday from A Sight for All United, there is a lot of interest so we are really eager to bring it to the American get it up and bring it to another level and to this exhibition at America’s Museum”

Jim Loboy, “It’s gonna be in October but we’re getting the word out there now. Now Scott,
was this your idea?”
Scott Austalosh, “I’ve been kicking around for about a year we have a mutual friend Ryan Martino from the racing world champion racing team Martino motorsports locally and he’s on the board with Joyce and I reached out to him and he connected us together and Joyce was lucky enough to be on the other end of one of my I have an idea phone calls.
And we we met we talked and she’s a big thinker. We both had the same vision and having it at the Butler there was no other place. I really wanted to have it there. It had to be at the Butler because what I envision is this is gonna be a five day event. This isn’t going to be just a day. It’ll run the 16th through 20 October so it’s a five day event, with a black tie affair on that Saturday.”

Jim Loboy, “Now you’re gonna tie in locally but this is nationwide, putting up the solicit for talented autistic artist to send in their sculptures or paintings. But there is gonna be some local contest winners.”

Scott Austalosh, “We’re gonna keep it local as well. We’re gonna have awards winners that’ll be with the different counties locally, but it’s gonna be open up until the entire country so we’re gonna get submissions from all over the country.”

Jim Loboy, “OK how do people go about getting submitting an entry? What where do they go for more information?”

Scott Austalosh, “Well eventually in May we’re launching it now because of Autism awareness month we’re going to have all the information out next month in May so they they’ll be able to reach Joyce Butler at BUTLERART.COM and Voices4autism.org or they can reach us on social media as well.”

Jim Loboy, “Now, you wouldn’t do this unless you knew there are a lot of people that are on the spectrum that this isn’t just kids, kids and adults that are really talented right?”

Scott Austalosh, “This is gonna go from around of first grade up to adult categories so there’s gonna be different categories Joyce has everything split up in the categories. I’m not allowed to judge it. I was told you have to be at a certain level, which is great because that’s what I love about. It is the fact that they’re going to be judged equally like any other art show that would be held at the Butler.”

Jim Loboy, “That’s the way we want it. all right thank you so much. We’re looking forward to that at the Butler coming up in October and Scott. Thanks for stopping by Voices4Autism. Looking forward to some wonderful art and we will be there first night no doubt.”