238 likes, 11 comments - woods_clara_ on March 9, 2026: "Clara was waiting for her event in Florence and also waiting to meet one of her favorite artists @gianpiero , the one who made the Blue Bear. While we were there she just started having a little conversation with him 🥹. It touched me a lot. I was thinking about how art changed our lives and I can’t even imagine what Clara’s life would look like without it. Art opened doors, gave her a way to express herself and also a future of possibilities and living with dignity. When Clara was younger she used to draw and paint a lot of imaginary friends. School was not easy. It was that strange feeling of discovering a world where you really want to belong but you realize you are in between. You don’t fit, you feel lonely, you don’t have friends to meet after school. I still remember her first day of middle school. I asked her if she wanted to wait a few days so she wouldn’t have to sit there listening to everyone talking about their summer, their trips, their friends, their stories. At that time she was communicating with an AAC book and conversations were slow. The other kids were also just kids discovering the world, also navigating a broke system of inclusion, and it wasn’t easy for them to slow down or understand something they had never been taught about. But Clara, like always, taught me something. She showed up anyway. I will never forget that little girl walking into school with her handkerchiefs in her hands and nausea from being nervous, but still going. She just kept showing up to her life. And maybe that is also why today she can sit in and have a conversation with a blue bear. 💙🐻🥹".