Speaking From The Art: 5-Year-Old Brick Boy Raises Funds For Cousin's Cystic Fibrosis Fight

BRICK, NJ — He sits at the kitchen table, bent over his canvas, focused. Headphones fill his ears with the music of the Talking Heads, Queen, and Pink Floyd as he contemplates his next moves. A brush stroke here, a brush stroke there.

"He'll sit there painting from 6:30 in the morning until 9:30, and then again before he goes to bed," Christie Williams says of her son, Luke. "I can't bother him while he creates."

When Luke Williams finishes a painting, however, he sits and talks with his mom about it — about his thoughts, his feelings, and what he was putting down when he spread the brightly colored acrylics across the sheet of construction paper.

"For the most part when we talk, it's very enlightening," Christie said. It's also a joy, because Luke, 5, struggles with a disorder called apraxia. It is a motor speech disorder where a child has struggles because the brain has difficulty coordinating the muscle movements necessary to say the words the child wants to express, according to the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. Luke, who just turned 5 on April 11, was diagnosed with apraxia at the age of 3.

"He's come a long way," Christie said, but during regular conversations Luke still struggles and gets frustrated. Not so when he talks about his art, she said.

"When he talks about his artwork he's not thinking about talking, and it makes talking easier," she said. "He's just telling me what's going on in the picture, talking about his feelings."

"It's beautiful," she said. "It's really cool."

Some of those feelings revolve around Luke's bigger goal: to raise money to help find a cure for cystic fibrosis, for his cousin Aidan, an 11-year-old from Point Pleasant who is battling the disease.

"He knows Aidan is sick and he knows how much he's raised and how much more we need to reach the goal," Christie said. The family is raising funds specifically for the Great Strides for Cystic Fibrosis walk in Point Pleasant Beach on Saturday, May 13. It's a walk the family has done annually since Aidan was diagnosed as an infant, to help raise funds for research into the progressive, deadly respiratory disease.

This year's fundraising effort was no different at first, Christie said. And then a trip to the art store in January changed the course of their fundraising and opened a whole new world for Luke. Though he enjoys soccer and music, puzzles and electronics and building things, he really fell in love with art, she said, and in short order had created dozens of paintings and drawings.

"We decided we'd give them away as gifts to anyone who donates to the walk," Christie said. That plan took on a life of its own.

"We have people who are donating just to get artwork," she said. When Christie posts photos of Luke's most recent creations on his Facebook page — The Gallery According to Luke — donors snap them up like Rembrandts, and the Williamses mat them and happily ship them off to their new homes.

"He doesn't take requests," Christie said. "If I ask him to make me something, it doesn't turn out well. He does best when he's left alone to just create," headphones on, listening to the music on her phone.

One thing she doesn't do is try to work beside him.

"He likes to give me art lessons but I don't let him anymore. He's very critical of my work. 'Mix the colors first!' before you put them on the canvas," Christie said, evoking images of famed chef Gordon Ramsey in miniature, if he traded his chef's apron for an artist's smock.

Luke's art also has resulted in people sending him art supplies to feed his passion. Christie said Luke loves acrylic paints and charcoal — "That makes a huge mess, so he doesn't get to do charcoal very often," she said — but has done works in crayon and other media, she said.

"He's done some pieces with cut-up paper and a gluestick. Anything with a gluestick is fun to him. He's still 5," she said with a laugh.

He's also received acknowledgement from other artists. He recently received a gift in the mail from an artist in North Carolina: a hand-painted Superman "because he's a super guy for helping others," Christie said the artist's note said.

"It's the most beautiful thing for a mom to see this kind of response," she said.

Christie said so far Luke's paintings have raised $2,900 of their $3,000 goal for the walk. He knows that once the walk is over, they'll be done with the fundraiser, but she said Luke already has talked about wanting to raise money for someone else.

"He's got a good heart," she said.

The part she cherishes most, however, is the conversations afterward. "We talk about color and composition. We talk about what he was feeling," Christie said, and sometimes she helps him come up with a name for a piece.

"Sometimes he knows exactly what he wants to call it, and God help anyone who suggests otherwise," she said. "Other times he describes the picture and we come up with a shortened description for the title."

"That's my favorite part of all of this actually. Talking about it afterward," she said.

There have been conversations that have astounded her.

"We missed church one Sunday," Christie said, and when she mentioned it to Luke, he said, "I was painting. I talked to God while I made my art."

"I asked him what they talked about, and he said, 'He told me secrets,' " Christie said. What secrets, she asked, and the little boy leaned over to his mom and whispered: "Take your time."

"I'm not sure if that's a reflection of him hearing us telling him to take his time or what," she said. "But it's a really beautiful metaphor for life."

To see Luke's artwork and purchase a piece for yourself, click here.

Photos by Christie Williams, used with permission