For many, art isn’t just a form of expressing one’s self, but also a form of therapy, both mental and physical.
That’s why Miriam Bagwell, of Onalaska, decided to create a new nonprofit art studio for herself and her son, Jazmyn Aguilar, who is recovering from burns and the loss of his right hand and both legs above the knee.
Aguilar has spent the past couple of years recovering from injuries he sustained when his tent caught fire while he was sleeping. By the time the fire was extinguished, 80% of his body had been burned and he was left clinging to life with a rough recovery road ahead of him. His mother, Bagwell, is no stranger to that road herself.
The Jaz Man Enrichment Center — located at 1995 state Route 508 in Onalaska — is a nonprofit art studio designed to give artists of any kind space to create and display their work.
From painting and sculpting to sewing and designing digital art, artists can do it all at Jaz Man, which is what Bagwell and Aguilar set out to do as he began his own recovery process.
Additionally, they made an open invitation to all artists in the area to come display their work for free at the Jaz Man Enrichment Center during the upcoming Onalaska Apple Harvest Festival, scheduled from Oct. 4 to Oct. 6.
“Please come and join us for the Apple Harvest Festival weekend, let us show the world who you are,” Bagwell said.
Art is part of the family
Bagwell got her own start in art at the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles in the early 1980s.
There, she studied under fashion industry legends such as Edith Head, an eight-time Academy Award-winning costume designer who worked for both Paramount Pictures and Universal Pictures, and Bob Mackie, a fashion designer who has dressed the likes of Cher, Dolly Parton, Elton John, Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Marilyn Monroe, Lucille Ball and more.
After graduating from the institute, Bagwell's marriage with her first husband fell apart due to “the rigors of living in Los Angeles,” with drugs destroying the relationship, she said.
She remarried and helped her second husband with his construction business in addition to running her own costume design business, where she created dresses and gowns for Miss Teen USA and Miss America pageants and completed custom work, such as creating era-accurate uniforms for Civil War reenactors.
“Then I got hit by a drunk driver, and my neck was fractured,” Bagwell said.
She was forced to close her business and spent months struggling with physical therapy. To make matters worse, shortly after the accident, her husband was diagnosed with cancer.
“Seven weeks from the day he was diagnosed, he died. I spent every day of that seven weeks in the hospital with him and sent my children to their grandparents,” Bagwell said.
Ten months after that, her previous husband also died.
“It was a difficult period, and it took me about 10 years to rebuild my life again while raising the children,” she added.
She now had five children, including Aguilar, and raised them all in the arts teaching them how to do everything from carving wood to sewing clothes.
Using art to heal
Eventually, Bagwell and her family moved north from California to Oregon, then to Castle Rock, Washington.
In March 2021, Aguilar was in the fire while camping alone near Santa Rosa, California.
He was zipped into his sleeping bag when the fire broke out at around 2 a.m., and sustained most of his burns struggling to get out of the sleeping bag while the flames engulfed his tent.
“They are not certain how the fire started, but he was fully engulfed in flames before he really knew what was going on,” Bagwell said.
Aguilar spent months in the hospital, most of the time in a medically-induced coma and being woken up once a week to speak with doctors. It was when the doctors woke him up to tell him they were going to have to amputate his legs that things got the darkest.
“It’s a devastating thing when your son’s begging you to bring him a gun, and I wasn’t going to let him do that. I wasn’t going to let him give up on his life,” Bagwell said.
“Being in a fire is really hard for people. I cried every day for the first six months at least. That’s why I was crying, because it’s harder to try than not too,” Aguilar said. “And I’m still dealing with things like skin grafts breaking down, but I’m getting better.”
While he’s been without his legs for a while now, Aguilar had to have his right hand amputated just two weeks ago. He still sees a burn specialist weekly.
“There’s been a lot of things in my life that I’ve learned that have helped me, and I’ve needed every one of them,” Aguilar added. “... I remember before the fire there’s a lot of things I learned, like if you can’t do anything about something, don’t hate it every day. You can’t change it. Like Christmas music, I remember working before I decided to love Christmas music while all the other employees hated it, and it did the trick. I decided to be happy, and I was happy. That’s what I’ve done since the fire.”
Despite being a multiple amputee, he still engages in wood carving, metal sculpting and more, which he said helps him maintain the right mindset.
After selling her Castle Rock home, Bagwell found Jaz Man’s location in Onalaska and purchased it, not only to set up as an art studio for her son, but for all of her children.
“One of my daughters wants to plant a pumpkin patch, so there’s room here for that too,” Bagwell said.
And aside from being an multimedia studio for artists to both work and display their art in, the Jaz Man Enrichment Center is also a venue available to rent for events such as weddings and craft shows.
They plan on adding other features as well, including a meditation grotto, a maker space with a 3D printer, a children’s creation center featuring life size metal sculpture fairies and a dragon, and of course, the pumpkin patch.
Bagwell also plans to host her own events at Jaz Man, including an upcoming Halloween costume ball, artist showcases, dances, movie nights and holiday celebration events in November and December.
“Come and play with us. It’s not about money, it’s about those dreams, let us come and find them and share your dreams with us. We want to be inspired,” Bagwell said.
To get in contact with Bagwell and Aguilar about using Jaz Man or displaying art there, reach out to them on Facebook at https://bit.ly/4cMMQyA or call 360-978-5269.
