Persimmon Blackbridge facts for kids

Persimmon Blackbridge, born in 1951, is a Canadian writer and artist. Her work often explores important topics like identity, living with disabilities, and mental well-being. She uses her art, writing, and performances to share her unique perspective.

Blackbridge's novels often feature characters who face challenges similar to her own life. This allows her to write honestly about her experiences. Her journey with mental health has also become a big part of her art. She uses her experiences to share her views on places that help people with mental health challenges. Blackbridge also took part in the film SHAMELESS: The Art of Disability. This film helps people understand what it's like to live with a disability. Her work helps to change how people think about disabilities. Blackbridge has won many awards for her art that explores identity and its complexities.

About Persimmon Blackbridge

Persimmon Blackbridge was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As a teenager, she moved to British Columbia, Canada, where she has lived and worked ever since.

She was part of a group of artists called the Kiss and Tell collective in Vancouver. Other members included Susan Stewart and Lizard Jones. A book called Kiss & Tell: Lesbian Art & Activism was published in 2025. It talks about Persimmon's life, career, and activism through her work with this group.

A picture of Blackbridge, painted by Susan Stewart, is kept at The ArQuives: Canada's LGBTQ2+ Archives. This is to honor her important role in building culture and history for diverse communities in Canada. She also appeared in the 2006 film Shameless: The Art of Disability by the National Film Board of Canada.

Blackbridge is known for many types of art. These include performance art, installation art, video art, and sculpture. In 1991, she received the VIVA Award for her amazing sculptures.

Important Art Shows

Doing Time was an exhibition by Blackbridge in 1989. She created it with former prison inmates Geri Ferguson, Michelle Kanashiro-Christensen, Lyn MacDonald, and Bea Walkus. The show featured twenty-five life-sized paper figures of the women. It also included stories written by them. This was the first time Blackbridge created such large, mixed-media art.

In 1984, Blackbridge worked with Sheila Gilhooly on an exhibit called Still Sane. This show explored Gilhooly's experiences of being in a hospital because of her identity. They spent 36 months creating sculptures and writings about Gilhooly's time there.

Both Still Sane and Doing Time were mentioned when Blackbridge received the 1991 VIVA award.

In 2016, her exhibition Constructed Identities opened the Tangled Art Gallery. This gallery is fully accessible and focuses on art about disability issues. The Constructed Identities show aimed to change how society views disability. It looked at how race, identity, ability, and gender connect. The art in the exhibition, and the gallery itself, showed the importance of changing perspectives about people with disabilities. The artworks were made from different found materials. They created figures that showed the many ways bodies can be different and not always "normal."

Disability in Art

(See more at Disability in the arts)

Persimmon Blackbridge was diagnosed with a learning disability when she was young. Her artwork explores the many types of disabilities and how they connect with other parts of a person's identity. She earned a degree from Emily Carr University of Art and Design, even with her learning disability.

The film SHAMELESS: The Art of Disability features many artists who live with disabilities. It shows how important art is for expressing yourself in a powerful way. Art can truly change culture.

The term "crip aesthetics" describes how different identities, including disability, come together. It looks at how people with disabilities are sometimes seen as "different" by society. It also celebrates all the unique parts of a person's identity. Blackbridge's sculptures in her Constructed Identities exhibition explore her own experiences as a woman with a learning disability. These sculptures celebrate bodies that don't fit typical ideas of "normal."

When we talk about accessibility in art, it often means making art easy for audiences to see. But it's also important for artists with disabilities to be able to create art. Blackbridge's work helps with this. Her Constructed Identities sculptures celebrate the beauty of disability and different body types. She also showed this exhibition in a gallery that everyone could easily access.

Mental Well-being

Blackbridge had a difficult time with her mental health when she was nineteen. This happened after she realized things about her identity and felt pressure from society. Her art has helped her understand her experiences with Canadian mental health care. She worked with another artist, Sheila Gilhooly, to create Still Sane. This project helped Blackbridge talk about her identity and her disability.

Writing

Blackbridge mostly writes non-fiction, but she has also published novels. Her novel Sunnybrook won a Ferro-Grumley Award in 1997. She also wrote often for Rites, a major Canadian publication in the late 1980s.

Novels

• Sunnybrook: A True Story with Lies (1996) This story is about a woman named Diane. She is dealing with her mental health and hiding her learning disability from her coworkers and friends. She also lives a different life at a bar she visits. A woman from the bar helps her realize she can live a true and honest life.

Non-fiction

• Still Sane (1985, with Sheila Gilhooly)
• Slow Dance: A Story of Stroke, Love and Disability (1997, with Bonnie Sherr Klein)

Awards

• Winner of the VIVA award for visual arts in 1991
• 1995 Lambda Award in Washington DC
• 1997 Ferro Grumley Fiction Prize in New York City
• 1998 Van City Book Award
• Emily Carr Distinguished Alumni Award in 2000

See also

In Spanish: Persimmon Blackbridge para niños