Clayton Ross Patterson is thrilled to have his own art exhibit. His reaction to the show could best be described as "an aura of light," said Tim Barry, a managing partner of the Hot Shots Art Center at 1301 Nicholas St.
"He simply lit up the room" with joy at seeing his collection, Barry said.
The exhibit, which opens with a 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. reception Friday, will showcase more than 60 drawings, paintings and photographs that formed this talented and promising artist's portfolio before the traumatic brain injury 21 years ago that left him unable to walk and talk.
The 38 acrylics, eight pen-and-ink drawings, two works in chalk and 13 photographs cover a range of themes, experiences and experiments in art media and styles.
His mother, Lou Ann Patterson, and Decia Walker, on the staff at Quality Living Inc., where Clay lives, hung the art without the artist's help. Many of the works are unframed, untitled and undated.
They said it was guesswork to assemble the works coherently, by time frame or theme. Some were already hanging in the homes of family members; some were casually collected in a portfolio among the young artist's personal belongings at QLI.
Clay did many of the pieces as a young student in Torrejon High School in Madrid, Spain. Although he had grown up in Omaha, attended Swanson Elementary School and Westside Middle School, he moved to Spain with his mother when she took a teaching job with the Department of Defense in Madrid.
"We lived in downtown Madrid and this kid was all over that city," Lou Ann said.
On holidays, the family left their base in Madrid and traveled more widely through Europe.
After graduation, Patterson enrolled at Pratt Institute of Art in New York City. He completed two years there and then set off for Florida, to live closer to his father, Phil Patterson.
Clay was taking business classes at the University of Florida and working part-time at a camera shop in Gainesville. He was just shy of his 21st birthday in the spring of 1990 when he crashed his 10-speed bicycle on the ride to work.
Initially, doctors didn't think Patterson would survive. They induced a coma that was to last six weeks.
In the intervening years, he has worked with physical therapists and in exercise regimes that left him with upper body strength, but he depends on a wheelchair for all but swim exercises and recumbent biking.
"I'll tell you what remained intact," his mother said, "his sense of humor, his incredible mind and an incredible memory. He's such a bright young man."
But he cannot speak. For that he uses sign language or a Touch Talker that gives voice to what he types onto the device.
He also has that hard to define element that Hot Shops manager Barry picked up on, an aura that lights up a room.
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