Pretty Amazing- How I Found Myself In The Downtown Eastside

Pretty Amazing
How I Found Myself In The Downtown Eastside by Teresa Pocock
Excerpt from book introduction:  
From Cocoon to Butterfly
What does Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside look like through the eyes of an artist—an artist who also happens to have Down syndrome? Teresa Pocock’s colourful art and poetry let’s us see, hear and feel it from her unique viewpoint.  

Pretty Amazing: How I Found Myself in the Downtown Eastside is Teresa’s art and poetry inspired by her move to the Downtown Eastside (DTES).
Teresa’s drawings and poems are inspired by the people she meets and the places she visits. She has mapped out the DTES neighbourhood in her mind, and in her drawings.

The heart of Pretty Amazing is the unexpected story of Teresa finding herself as an artist and poet. Previously, Teresa’s artistic expression was discouraged and ridiculed.

But here in the DTES, she has found her voice. Her opening poem, I Am Alive, packs added punch when you know that her future was written off a few years ago when she lived in Ontario. In 2013, Teresa was forced into an Ontario nursing home against her will. The Ontario health-care system had wrapped her in—as described by disability advocate Paul Young—“a cocoon of impossibility”. Against her wishes, Teresa’s liberty and freedom was traded for a single bed in an end-of-life nursing home. It was a violation of her human rights. She did not want to be there. Teresa had things to do, places to go, and people to meet!

Teresa won a DTES Small Arts Grants to create and produce the book. The Vancouver Foundation created the Downtown Eastside Small Arts Grants Program, in partnership with the Carnegie Community Centre, to give DTES artists “the opportunity to advance their careers by supporting and showcasing their work”.

Teresa is one of our grant recipients this year.