{"id":86,"date":"2022-04-16T01:34:00","date_gmt":"2022-04-16T01:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/2023-2-18-uncovering-creativity-miles-scharfenberg\/"},"modified":"2025-03-17T00:00:55","modified_gmt":"2025-03-17T00:00:55","slug":"2023-2-18-uncovering-creativity-miles-scharfenberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/2023-2-18-uncovering-creativity-miles-scharfenberg\/","title":{"rendered":"Uncovering Creativity: Miles Scharfenberg"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"\"By Patrick J. Droste, MS, MD<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Miles Scharfenberg was born on May 18,1994 in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He was 15 weeks premature and spent his first three months of life in Neonatal Intensive Care Units in Kalamazoo and Royal Oak, Michigan.
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Like many premature children, Miles had challenges from Retinopathy of Prematurity (ROP) and neurologic development. He underwent many vitreo-retinal procedures, on both eyes, by Dr. Michael Trese and his colleagues at William Beaumont Hospital. The most recent procedure was a difficult lens extraction in the left eye during the summer of 2018. Miles also endured challenges from spastic cerebral palsy, which has confined him to a wheel chair and severe delays in speech, hearing and cognition. Miles is non verbal because of his hearing impairment.<\/p>\n

Through the years, the biggest challenge Miles\u2019 eye doctors faced, was a constant struggle to keep his pupils from closing over due to chronic inflammation of the eyes. He underwent many operations to remove scar tissue from the pupils so that \u201cThe light could get in.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miles has viewed his world from two pupils about one millimeter in size. From an early age, he was always attracted to light and colors. He liked to \u201csplash \u201ccolors on white paper and, as he grew, he started to place the colors on poster boards, sheets, walls, table cloths and whatever else he could find. Not being able to speak, he expressed himself with his colors and others noticed his expression and creativity.<\/p>\n

Miles\u2019s mother is an occupational therapist and she insisted that he get as much occupational and physical therapy as possible. Many of his therapists recognized Miles\u2019 talent for putting colors together and as Miles grew, so did the complexity of his \u201csplashing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Miles came under the tutelage of Mr. Ken Freed at the Kalamazoo Institute of Arts. Mr. Freed spent his life teaching students how to make art. Miles presented unprecedented challenges to Mr. Freed and his team of talented occupational therapy students and physical therapists. The team developed special painting innovations which they termed \u201cadaptations\u201d, such as a tennis ball attached to a stick that would allow Miles to paint designs on canvas. Some sticks were long which allowed him to reach high areas of the painting from his wheel chair. Other sticks were shorter for closer distances.<\/p>\n

\"\"People began to appreciate Miles\u2019 expressions of color on canvas. His largest painting is a 7ft. by 5ft painting entitled \u201cEmotion\u201c that is currently displayed at the Public Media Network building in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He also has several smaller paintings displayed on the walls of Mary Free Bed Hospital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Miles spent many of his early years in the Outpatient and Inpatient departments at Mary Free Bed Hospital. In 2013, at 18 years of age, one of Miles paintings was featured on the cover of the Open Journal of Occupational Therapy; a follow up painting was published in the same online Journal in the fall of 2019. In 2018, Miles received recognition for his entry in to the <\/em>Grand Rapids Art Prize Exhibition<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Showcased in this article are just a few of the painting by Miles. One is entitled: \u201cThere is a Crack in Everything: That is How the Light Gets In.\u201d<\/em> These words are part of Leonard Cohen\u2019s song \u201cAnthem.\u201d Carole Scharfenberg , Miles\u2019 mother, felt that this title most closely conveyed Miles message in the painting. \u201cI felt that the painting looked like Miles retina that had a little window of light coming through\u201d, Carole said. From an eye doctor\u2019s point of view, the bright \u201csplash\u201d in the center of the painting, represented Miles\u2019 one millimeter pupil, in his left eye, that allowed light to get into his world. A very gifted occupational therapy student, Laura Weincek, helped Miles make this painting in 2018.<\/p>\n

Miles has been swimming up the Fish Ladder of Life since the very beginning. He continues to rise up the ladder to higher waters; Miles is still on his journey and he is lending his gifts of expression for all of us to enjoy and look at in amazing wonder! Every time one looks at one of his paintings, the individual leaves with a different interpretation, not only of what message the painter is trying to convey, but also what we, as observers, interpret in his creativity.<\/p>\n

To learn more about the incredible journey of Miles Scharfenberg, his adaptive equipment and how he works with his \u201cinnovators\u201d, we encourage you to look at his biopic on YouTube \u201cUncovering Creativity: Miles Scharfenberg.<\/span><\/a>\u201d You can also communicate electronically at scharfenberg.art@gmail.com<\/span><\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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About the author:<\/p>\n

Patrick J. Droste, MS, MD is a PRRF Board Member<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Miles has been swimming up the Fish Ladder of Life since the very beginning. He continues to rise up the ladder to higher waters; Miles is still on his journey and he is lending his gifts of expression for all of us to enjoy and look at in amazing wonder! Every time one looks at one of his paintings, the individual leaves with a different interpretation, not only of what message the painter is trying to convey, but also what we, as observers, interpret in his creativity.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":6678,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,45],"tags":[30],"class_list":{"0":"post-86","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-blog","8":"category-personal-stories","9":"tag-rop"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7999,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/7999"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6678"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/prrf.org\/zh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}