CREATIVE SPIRITS ARTISTRY OVER ADVERSITY IN LOCAL FESTIVAL.

Byline: Dana Bartholomew Staff Writer

Migel Nila sees through shadows. Robert Thome paints through paralysis. And Kathleen Flagg-Brown creates still lifes through trembling hands.

Each painter succeeds despite - or because of - physical hardship.

``It's not your loss of sight, it's your inner vision that's important,'' said Nila, 78, of Hacienda Heights, a blind artist whose award-winning poster of cellist Yo Yo Ma was featured at the Arts of Life Festival in North Hills on Sunday.

The festival, hosted by New Horizons, was billed as the first in the nation to celebrate handicapped artists from a spectrum of disabled service agencies.

The show featured wine from 47 vintners, noshes from 20 local restaurants, two jazz quartets and the work of 118 artists, many of whom hobnobbed with hundreds of visitors who each paid $35 for the event.

``It's a wonderful event, just wonderful,'' said Eileen Harper Dresner, 57, of Sherman Oaks. ``I'll tell you what's so great: The music is superb, the wine is delicious, the art is beautiful. I bought a couple of pieces.''

The Sunday afternoon show featured works by artists served by more than 10 social service agencies, including New Horizons, the Braille Institute, Tierra del Sol Foundation, Stroke Association of Southern California and United Cerebral Palsy.

All proceeds went to support artists and New Horizons services for retarded adults and victims of traumatic brain injuries.

But what was lauded Sunday was not disability, but talent, promoters said.

``This isn't a sympathy art show,'' said Kevin Berg, a North Hills printer and art collector who hatched the idea for a show he hopes to continue next year. ``These are professional artists backed up by the best wine I've had in days.''

Flagg-Brown was an accomplished painter when a stroke last fall wiped out her ability to walk, see and hold a brush. By Sunday, however, she had mustered enough spirit to produce a vibrant still life that won a best poster prize.

``Oh my God, this event got me back in my art,'' exclaimed Flagg-Brown, 52. ``The stroke was devastating. Now I know I've come back 100 percent.''

Thome, of Montebello, learned to paint with his teeth after he was paralyzed from the neck down by a football injury in 1969. On Sunday, he was of world renown.

Nila could have lost hope when his dad died, forcing he and his four brothers to quit school and work in the fields.

Or when a German land mine blew his Jeep 20 feet in the air and crippled his leg 10 days before the end of World War II.

Or years later when glaucoma robbed him of sight.

But the self-taught artist kept at it. Though he can only see vague forms, he loves to paint cellists, flutists, guitar players and others from memory at the Braille Institute.

``It's your soul, I guess,'' he said of his art. ``I don't feel right when I don't do it.''

For Elaine Hartman, whose rainbow landscape ``In Search of Home'' hung in the Skirball Museum last April, art is about discovery.

``It took me two centuries'' to make it, joked Hartman, 47, a developmentally disabled artist from Culver City who paints at L.A. Goal.

``For me, it's calming, it's a place to be. I think sometimes it brings out the real things inside that I'm not even aware of.''

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Photo:

Robert Thome learned to paint with a brush in his teeth after being paralyzed from the neck down in a 1969 sports injury.

Tina Burch/Staff Photographer