| Joni's bringing exhibit to arts center 03/31/2001 By Kristen Holland / The Dallas Morning News 
Courtesy photo
"What I am able to do ... is a high degree of technical ability," says Joni Eareckson Tada. "Because I have to do things with my mouth, it looks a little too tight for me."
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Joni Eareckson Tada is preparing to open the first full exhibition of her artwork in more than a decade. Until now, the lifelong artist has exhibited her works twice – most recently at the Billy Graham Center in North Carolina in 1988.
Like any artist or public performer, the 51-year-old singer and radio host said she's experiencing her share of pre-show jitters and excited anxiety.
"You feel a little bit of sweaty palms and shaking knees," she said. The exhibit, which opens Friday at the Biblical Arts Center, includes a collection of drawings, watercolors and oil paintings that Mrs. Tada has worked on throughout her life.
During the past three decades, Mrs. Tada has become a household name among the disabled. She's known to most as Joni.
After a diving accident in 1967 left her a quadriplegic, unable to use her hands, Mrs. Tada became an advocate for disabled people. She has written 25 books covering subjects from disability outreach to religion.
While in rehabilitation therapy, Mrs. Tada taught herself how to paint with her mouth and is now an internationally known speaker, author and artist.
Since she began painting with her mouth, Mrs. Tada said, the hardest challenge has been making her paintings appear more painterly – full of texture and large, flowing brushstrokes.
"What I am able to do with my mouth is a high degree of technical ability," she said. "Because I have to do things with my mouth, it looks a little too tight for me."
Mrs. Tada said she's grateful that she can paint at all, but she does wish that she had the flexibility to create the big, sweeping brushstrokes she did as a child.
In spite of the frustration, Mrs. Tada said she has noticed an improvement in the way she structures both her works and her life.
"If the character is not being shaped in the right direction, then I'm on the wrong track," she said. "Good composition in my life is what enables me to live."
Several of Mrs. Tada's works are available for purchase through her nonprofit organization's Web site at www.joniandfriends.org.
DETAILS: Mrs. Tada's paintings will be on display through Oct. 6 at the Biblical Arts Center, 7500 Park Lane. She will be in Dallas Friday for events at the center and again on April 7 for a wheelchair drive that's part of her Wheels for the World ministry. Call the center at 214-691-4661, or Joni and Friends at 214-739-2523.
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