Young artist with history of seizures receives award

When Donovan Harris was small, doctors told his mother that his disabilities were so severe that he would never ride a bike or learn to tie his shoes. They were wrong. At age 18, Harris continues to deal with life-disrupting seizures. But thanks in no small part to three older brothers, he has grown up to be a warm, funny young man who can ride his bike - and create award-winning art.
His sculpture Seizure Boy recently received the Edward G. Brown Award, one of seven special awards given as a part of the 2007 Eastern/Central North Carolina Scholastic Art Awards.
In this case, special is not a euphemism for people with disabilities. Special means that Seizure Boy was chosen from among 2,070 works of art that middle- and high-school students in 62 of North Carolina's 100 counties submitted to the competition.

Judges - who knew nothing about the students - evaluated each piece on quality and the expression of the student's voice. They chose 207 works to receive Gold Key Awards. From among the Gold Key winners, they chose the pieces to receive the special awards. Harris' award was named after a longtime professor at Barton College in Wilson.

"It is a big deal," said Lynn Foltz, Winston-Salem/Forsyth County schools' arts-education manager for visual arts, dance and theater. "It's exciting to see a student excel in an area that gives him a high level of accomplishment when he has challenges in other areas."

It has definitely given Harris a psychological boost.

"All of a sudden, I'm doing good with this," he said.

Harris' brothers are grown and on their own. He and his mother, Pamela Lillard - whom patrons of the West End Cafe will recognize as a longtime waitress - share a house in Pfafftown. The awards ceremony was held this past Sunday in Wilson. To get there, Harris and other members of his family hopped into a limousine that Lillard rented to celebrate the occasion.

Harris is a junior at Mount Tabor High School, where he has worked with art teacher Mike Spangler. In the introductory art class that Harris took, Spangler said, he has students explore a variety of areas to give them a chance to find a format that elicits a spark. Drawing and painting did little for Harris. But when Spangler brought out the clay, something clicked.

Seizure Boy has gone through several incarnations. The first version was a small bust with wires sticking out wildly from the head. For Harris, the wires represent the energy shooting off him as a seizure comes on.

To simplify conversations, Harris just tells people that he has epilepsy. The more complete story is that his seizures are associated with hydrocephalus, a congenital condition in which fluid builds up in the cranium. It can damage the brain, and, by the time the condition was diagnosed when he was 3 and a shunt put in to relieve pressure, damage had already been done. He also has cerebral palsy and cannot control his left hand as well as he would like.

Medication helps control the seizures, and he may go a week or two without having one. But he knows that sooner or later another will come. Sometimes he has sufficient warning - he likened it to a change in the weather inside his head - so he can make it to a padded spot such as a couch.
At times, it's as though he leaves his body as a seizure begins.

"I can see another one of me next to me," Harris said.

Over the years, he has been in and out of the hospital.

"The hospital is my second house," he said. "I should have my own suite there."

In watching her son deal with his challenges with grace and humor, Lillard said, she has learned a lot.

"He has taught me patience and understanding," she said.

Seizure Boy has also gone through a lot. After that first Seizure Boy bust was done, another student accidentally knocked it off a table in Spangler's classroom. Spangler said that he felt so bad about it that he put a lot of attention into helping Harris make a second Seizure Boy - this one a statue.

After that was done, it fell over - on its own - and smashed. Spangler was dismayed and would have understood if Harris had become discouraged. "Most of my students would have said, 'To heck with you, Spangler.'"

But Harris just set to work making another one, Spangler said. "He's got fortitude to come back and do it again and do it again, which is the main ingredient for success in just about anything."
In retrospect, Spangler said, the second accident was - in a way - a good thing because the next Seizure Boy - the two-foot-tall sculpture that won the award - was all Harris' work.

Why did Spangler choose it to be submitted to the Scholastic Art Awards program?

"I just thought it was neat," he said. "It was expressive. It was a little different."

School has been a challenge for Harris. Besides spending time in the hospital, he may lose a couple of school days here and there recovering from seizures when they come in clusters.

Plus, he has difficulty retaining information. To help him with school and to be there if he does have a seizure, a medical assistant - Kim Patrick - goes with him from class to class during the school day, and she sometimes helps at home after school.

Patrick said she is delighted to see Harris express himself through art.

"Honestly, I think it's a great way to turn something negative into something positive," she said. "I hope that Donovan can make something of this."

So do Harris and his mother. Because of the seizures, he will never be able to drive. And the seizures make it hard for him to imagine taking a job in which he could have a seizure in public. So the idea of a job that he could do at home - such as being an artist - is appealing.

A chance for Winston-Salem residents to see Seizure Boy in the flesh is coming up. The sculpture will be included in a show at Salem College's Fine Arts Center from Feb. 14 through March 13.
As a regional winner, Seizure Boy will be considered for the national Scholastic Art Awards in New York. Whenever Harris uses the word "if" when talking about the possibility of winning at the national level, his mother says that it's not if he wins, it's when he wins.

But even if "when he wins" turns out to be a "perhaps next time," she hopes that the positive attention that Seizure Boy has brought her son "will give him the confidence to continue to create."