Hello, my name is Tyronne.  I have Cerebral Palsy.  I have been in a wheelchair all my life.  The way I get over being in a wheelchair is by creating art.  I use a computer with special software called, “Flying Colors” (Magic Mouse Productions, Inc.) and Kid Pix Deluxe (Broderbund) software.  My art has a lot to do with me helping myself because I can create art independently.  I was first interested in art when I was nine years old.  I liked watching cartoons and movies.  I got ideas about how to draw things.  I kept doodling until I got it right.  Before I discovered art I kept things inside me and didn’t talk much.  When my sister went out it reminded me of how much I wanted to walk. Sometimes people would ask my sister questions about me or try to help me without asking me.  I wanted to be treated like everyone else.  I wanted to be recognized as an individual and treated with dignity. I didn’t want to feel like I was invisible.  I always let people know I was there and that I had feelings and thoughts.  My mom and dad always told me they would be there for me and that was very comforting to me. They encouraged me to let my feelings out.

I was born in Tacoma Washington.  My dad was in the army. We moved to California and I started pre-school.  I liked being with other kids but at first it was hard and scary because my mom wasn’t around.  I loved school and had friends and later on I had girlfriends.  The first time I didn’t like school was when I went to high school.  I didn’t like it because it seemed too hard.  I started goofing around.  I wasn’t real serious during my freshman year.  We were living in Madera and my parents were commuting to the San Francisco Bay Area and I was worried about them.  I settled down when we moved again and started a new school.  The teacher spent more time with me.  Some of the kids only spoke to me because they felt sorry for me.  I didn’t like that.  I also had friends who liked me for my personality and that was good.  I wanted to be my own person. After a while I transferred to another school in another city.  I was real happy there and that’s where I graduated.

I had been drawing all through school.  It was called “string art”.  I never used the computer.  I had a summer job at a hotel. I worked in a warehouse where I made keys and unpacked candles.  A lot of people thought it would be too hard for me but it wasn’t.  It showed me that I had to have faith in myself even when other people didn’t.  Some of the people who didn’t think I could do the work apologized to me later.  My family knew I could do it and believed in me.  I had a job coach who made sure I was doing the work correctly.  She was always there for me.  I had perfect attendance at work.  I even took over for people who didn’t come to work.  I was also in summer school and kept my grades up.

When I was a senior in high school we moved to my grandmother’s house in another city. She said we could stay with her until we found a house.  We stayed there for about a year.  It was hard for me to do my homework at her house because there were a lot of people there.  My grandmother helped me a lot.  She said that she wanted all of her grandchildren to finish school.  After I graduated, my family got a new home and that is where I live now.  I began looking for a job and stayed home for a year.  My mom found out about the Cerebral Palsy Center from my case manager.  A counselor came to my house.  She made an appointment for me to see the Center.  She told me that the Cerebral Palsy Center would be a good place to go to get ready for college. 

I’ve been waiting to start a career in art.  I’ve been looking into going to college so that I can take a class in art. I express what I go through in my pictures.  Sometimes it’s harder for me to express my feelings when I think about my disability, so I express the way I feel through my pictures.  The people I want to thank are my mom & dad for the support they have given me.