S2E4: BONUS: Archipelago at the Treffert Center

In this bonus episode, we visit the Archipelago event held by the Treffert Center - the first and largest gathering of savants in the world. We meet two incredible born savants: Tony DuBlois, a completely blind musician who learned to play the piano at age two and now plays over 23 instruments. And Grant Marnier, an artist whose medium is also his muse - he crafts intricate paintings using recycled materials, most notably, puzzle pieces. _______ Join The Telepathy Tapes Backstage Pass https://thetelepathytapes.supercast.com/ to get ad-free episodes, never-before-heard interviews, behind-the-scenes documentary footage, and access to our private Discord community. This is your invitation to come closer. To help shape what’s next. To be more than a listener… to be a co-creator of this paradigm shift. So if you’ve felt moved, if you’ve felt seen, if you’ve felt the call, subscribe today and join us: thetelepathytapes.com. https://thetelepathytapes.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ky Dickens?

  Hi everyone, this is Kai Dickens and you're listening to the Consciousness Cassettes from TTT Media.

• 0:11Ky Dickens?

  In our first series, The Telepathy Tapes, non-speakers showed us that telepathy is possible, shattering our assumptions about the world itself.

• 0:20Ky Dickens?

  In this series, we're turning to others who've also been dismissed, doubted, or mocked for the ways they claim to know, see, heal, or create. What if only by listening to those who've been ignored, we could unlock the deepest mysteries of who we are, where we come from, and where we're going? This is the Consciousness Cassettes, and we're opening up the next channel.

• 0:43Speaker 01

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• 1:26Speaker 01

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• 1:45Ky Dickens?

  That's musical savant Tony DeBlois, entertaining on the grand piano at the SSM Health Treford Center's Treford Studios in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, a state-of-the-art multimedia creative facility designed specifically for the worldwide savant community. We explored the fascinating world of savants in this past week's episode of the Consciousness Cassettes with psychiatrists from the Treford Center who are carrying Dr. Treford's mission to support, understand, and encourage savants into the future. Treford Studios hosted the world's first international gathering of savants at an event called the Archipelago last July. Let's take a closer look at Treford Studios. Here's the Treford Center's medical director, child and adolescent psychiatrist Jeremy Chapman.

• 2:24Speaker 02

  Because Dr. Treford's work with savants involves, by definition, these beautiful creative gifts, artistic gifts, musical gifts, video. And so they were already thinking, we want to have a place where we can bring all this together, opening a studio and looking for ways to combine that with mental health. And we opened Treford Studios. We designed it from scratch. We knocked down the walls of this 8,500 square foot building to have a hybrid outpatient mental health clinic and creative production studio under one roof. I don't know of any other place that has all of those together. And so we were always looking for ways to marry those two things. And we specifically hired clinicians who have a creative twist to them, a background in film or media, or who know how to play guitar and stuff like that. So we have a really cool team now,

• 3:08Speaker 02

  and we have a totally unique space to serve the savants community of the world.

• 3:14Ky Dickens?

  Dr. Treford's legacy of seeing islands of genius where others see limitation expands every day. The telepathy tapes was invited to visit the Treford Studios for its first ever archipelago event. This historic event was the first official international gathering of savants in history, connecting many of the islands of genius who worked with Dr. Treford for years, and sometimes decades, until his passing in 2020.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  The name referring to a collection of islands, because Dr. Treford's book Islands of Genius referred to the phenomenon in which someone who has Savant syndrome seems to have this island of intactness or genius in an otherwise somehow compromised brain. So we brought Islands of Genius together into an archipelago, and we had an art gallery there. We had a live music performance.

• 3:59Speaker 03

  And we have a very special message for all of you. It's okay to be different. Believe in yourself.

• 4:12Ky Dickens?

  That's Tony de Blois again, playing at the Archipelago Piano Lounge for fellow savants and event guests. We had the pleasure of seeing this amazing community in action, showing artworks, calculating equations, explaining the universe, playing music, and much more. We caught up with Tony and his mother Janice in between Tony's live set.

• 4:29Speaker 04

  Tony was a preemie. He weighed a pound and three quarters of an ounce when he was born. I have a picture of him when he's six weeks old. I'm holding him. His arm is the same size as what my finger is. I was actually given a choice to let Tony live or die.

• 4:46Speaker 05

  Now we do galas. We play a gala tonight at 5 o'clock.

• 4:51Ky Dickens?

  So first off, we're excited to see you perform again tonight at the Big Archipelago Stage Show, and you've played all over the world, right?

• 4:58Speaker 05

  Singapore twice, Thailand three times, Canada, Limerick and Dublin, Ireland, and Lagos in Abuja, Nigeria, Beijing, Wuhan, Shenzhen, China, between the Olympics and the Paralympics of China.

• 5:10Speaker 04

  Who'd you get to play for?

• 5:12Speaker 05

  Leonard Bernstein. I got to meet him. And the United Nations in New York.

• 5:17Ky Dickens?

  Tony weighed less than two pounds at birth. He's autistic and he's 100% blind. Janice got him a toy piano when he was two years old, hoping it might help him to sit upright. But Tony did much more than that.

• 5:30Speaker 04

  He was doing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and I recognized what he was playing. Then he was playing all the songs from all these music boxes.

• 5:38Ky Dickens?

  After so quickly learning Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and theme songs he heard from the television, Tony was not only sitting upright, he was beginning what would become a prolific career in music, years before he could communicate verbally. He was performing music professionally by the age of nine. Now 51, Tony entertains internationally and can play 23 different musical instruments.

• 5:59Speaker 05

  Yeah, 23 musical instruments in 11 different languages and nine impressions.

• 6:04Ky Dickens?

  So Tony, can you sing in other languages?

• 6:06Speaker 05

  Abres mis ojos. His eyes is Spanish. Open my eyes. Abre mis ojos señor. Ayúdame a darle, señor. Abre mis ojos señor. Ayúdame a darle.

• 6:26Ky Dickens?

  By becoming passionate and learning the motions of playing musical instruments, Tony also learned how to do everyday tasks like brushing his teeth that had previously been an incredible motor challenge.

• 6:36Speaker 05

  Oh, with the violin, I used the bow.

• 6:38Speaker 04

  They had to use his music to be able to teach him. And because it was in his head plan, they even had to rent a violin for him to do it, to be able to brush his hair.

• 6:52Speaker 05

  Play the drums.

• 6:53Speaker 04

  He got to take drum lessons. For the up and down wrist motion.

• 6:56Speaker 05

  We played rock and roll 60s songs by the Beatles. We did 50s and 60s music for the, for my recital.

• 7:04Ky Dickens?

  When Tony started undergraduate music studies at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, he was still nonverbal. But eventually, he did learn to speak through song lyrics. Due to his mom's advocacy and love and the deep support from Dr. Treffert, he studied jazz improvisation and graduated magna cum laude in 1996, the first blind autistic student to do so. Tony, like a lot of the savants we met, is now a teacher himself, notably at the Vandercook College of Music in Chicago.

• 7:33Speaker 05

  I'm a visiting professor now.

• 7:34Speaker 04

  Tony is a visiting professor there.

• 7:36Speaker 05

  And I'm teaching the students about jazz improvisation. So I get up at 5:30 in the morning to go teach the students.

• 7:43Ky Dickens?

  Not only can Tony improvise through jazz music, but he has an incredible memory for music in many popular genres, with a repertoire of over 10,000 songs and counting. He can play a song after hearing it only once and loves to do all request performances. So Tony, what are some of the impressions that you do?

• 8:01Speaker 05

  I'm doing three Frank Santor tribute shows with an 18-piece orchestra behind me. It's gonna be a lot of fun. People can probably sit and have a drink, Mom. Enjoy some Sinatra.

• 8:13Ky Dickens?

  Tony and his mom Janice are incredibly close, and Janice's dedication, support, and love for her son is tangible in the room as they share memories of their incredible adventures together.

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Tony tells me things now about things that we did when he was little before he had language. Tony, do you remember Mrs. Killam? She was a babysitter that he had.

• 8:35Speaker 05

  Hot dogs.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  Yeah, and I said, well, what do you remember about her? She said, she fed me hot dogs with sweet potatoes and apples in them. I said, Tony. I used to make that for you. I'd put it on in the crock pot before I went to work. And Mrs. Killam used to do that.

• 8:54Ky Dickens?

  The through line and the headline of all the conversations we had with the savants at the archipelago was the unbelievable advocacy and encouragement from their families. When things were complicated or difficult or disconnected, they didn't turn away. They didn't give up. They leaned in.

• 9:12Speaker 05

  And whatever people can think of a song with that word in that song, play that song with the word in it.

• 9:19Ky Dickens?

  Hmm, how about coffee?

• 9:22Speaker 05

  Well, the coffee song by Frank Sinatra. Way down among Brazilians, coffee beans grow by the billion 'cause he's got to find those extra cups to fill. They got an awful lot of coffee in Brazil. You can't get cherry soda 'cause they got to fill their quota. And the way that things are.

• 9:42Ky Dickens?

  Janice's book about Tony, Some Kind of Genius, was published in 2005. We asked Janice if she had any words for those facing the challenges that she and Tony have overcome.

• 9:51Speaker 04

  Listen to their kids.

• 9:53Speaker 05

  And listen to their kids.

• 9:55Speaker 04

  Tune into what your kid wants.

• 9:57Speaker 05

  And tune in what they want.

• 9:59Speaker 04

  Sometimes they make something that doesn't make any sense, but try to figure out what it is.

• 10:06Ky Dickens?

  When it doesn't make sense, try to figure out what it is. In other words, it's a sign to tune in even more.

• 10:12Speaker 02

  People like Tony DuBlois, oftentimes they're born with a disability and some undiscovered gift. And it's a matter of chance that they get exposed to the thing that they can thrive in. And so we didn't want to rely on that. So we have now outfitted our facility, Treford Studios, with all the creative stuff we can. So come on by. We'll sit you down in front of a piano. We'll sit you down in front of watercolors. Let's see what your gifts are. And that's what we do with our patients, but also with the savants to reach out to us.

• 10:46Ky Dickens?

  Because of the Treford Center's insistence on tuning in and connecting, where others see disconnection and challenges, many of the savants in the Treford Archipelago have become art and music superstars. And their lives were literally transformed by someone believing in them and leaning in. What seemed like sometimes nonsensical and destructive behaviors would become amazing examples of humanity and what we're capable of at our best.

• 11:11Speaker 06

  When I was like four or five years old, I had an obsession for paper, coloring, drawing, tearing paper for hours and hours.

• 11:20Ky Dickens?

  This is visual artist Grant Marnier, also known as Jigsaw Grant. At the Archipelago, he's exhibiting the artworks with his mother and collaborator Julie Coy.

• 11:27Speaker 07

  So as Grant would tear paper, he would tear everything and he would get in trouble. And they'd ask me to make him stop tearing.

• 11:37Ky Dickens?

  Julie, then a seamstress, taught Grant how to use scissors. And eventually, instead of tearing paper, he started cutting intricate shapes, which led to his first collage artwork, The Son of God.

• 11:46Speaker 06

  I showed it to my mom and she loved it. And then I just created more and more. And eventually, it turned into a business, the business it is today.

• 11:54Ky Dickens?

  So what are you most known for today as an artist?

• 11:57Speaker 06

  I am known as the eco-friendly artist. That means I reduce, reuse, recycle, and then upcycle paper materials to create beautiful eco-art masterpieces.

• 12:07Ky Dickens?

  Grant's paper tearing blossomed into a prolific career, and he's now known for his master award-winning collages. And Grant, now you use a lot of recycled materials in your works, right?

• 12:16Speaker 06

  Wallpaper, posters. Nowadays, I can use beads, jewelry. But what I'm best known for, my signature mark, is using recycled puzzles. What I do with puzzles is I like to peel the prints off of them one at a time so they're nice and paper thin.

• 12:31Ky Dickens?

  Jigsaw Grant and Julie now teach other kids like Grant how to make earth-friendly art and how the art-making process can grow and heal. They collaborate making children's books together.

• 12:40Speaker 07

  Yeah, we write children's books, too. Grant's my illustrator and I'm the author.

• 12:44Speaker 06

  A lot of them are based off our friends. The message we are trying to convey is that it's okay to have challenges because there's always a way to overcome them.

• 12:51Speaker 07

  And an animal to make you feel good. We sold over 20,000 books. Then we wrote one with Dr. Temple Grandin. And that one's about autism. And Dr. Temple Grandin has taught me the different ranges. So she calls them fully verbal, partially verbal, non-verbal. Everyone had their story to tell. So an animal is connected to a person here. This is Tony, who's actually here today playing the piano.

• 13:14Ky Dickens?

  Another challenge that Grant and Julie faced recently was Grant's cancer diagnosis.

• 13:19Speaker 07

  In 2021, Grant was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma cancer, almost stage three. For me, it just was one day of screaming and crying.

• 13:29Speaker 07

  Because I knew we worked so hard and, and he was still young. I mean, 24, I think you were at the time. And then we went to the SSM Cancer Center and they took care of Grant. He was tired after each chemo, but never got sick. So we used a lot of tuning forks, meditation, frequency healings, and we did it. And everybody who was praying for Grant as well. I would say in the six months process, Grant was cured within three months.

• 13:56Ky Dickens?

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• 14:38Ky Dickens?

  and I love the 14 karat gold station bead choker. I wear it with everything. It can be dressed up, it can be dressed down, it can be layered with other necklaces. I love it. And you'll see it in a lot of our video podcasts. Find the fall pieces you'll reach for most at Quince. Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers, or go to quince.com. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. And when Quince asks where you heard about them, let them know it was the telepathy tapes. It's the best way to support our show.

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• 15:37Speaker 06

  Working with my art is like a form of therapy to me. It's a, it's like meditation. I, once I start and I just get into the artwork, I could be doing it for hours and hours. And by the time I look up, I'm like, when did it get dark outside?

• 15:49Speaker 07

  We have a program called Grant Gives Back. That's therapy for us to give back. And he's raised over a half a million dollars with his art for special needs, wheelchairs, hearing aids, equine therapy scholarships. Another program that we have is called the Voices of Inclusion, and we do voiceovers. And we have people, those with disabilities and not, help us with the voices of these characters. And our goal is to, either a network series or a streaming series, and using the voices of our people, not AI voices, because our people are authentic. You can't make those voices up the way our people speak for themselves. And that is my goal, called the Voices of Inclusion.

• 16:32Speaker 07

  Grant has a professional tape, voiceover tape, and he's, he's quite a character himself.

• 16:38Speaker 06

  Basically, I'd just like to say, my autism does not define me. I define my autism through my talents and skills. And I hope you all will feel the same way, too, whether it's autism or anything else and challenge you have.

• 16:50Ky Dickens?

  The Islands of Genius that we met at the Treford Archipelago validate that neurodivergency is a transformative strength.

• 16:57Speaker 02

  He has a great body of artwork, and we want to help him get a cartoon about Grant the Jigsaw Giraffe and Friends, where they each have a different disability, such as autism, et cetera. And I would love nothing more than to help any platform we have give him exposure so that he can find more clients and he can become financially independent. These people have very specific dreams and goals, and they deserve to have those things met. And we have the tools now to tell their stories to the world and to carry on Dr. Treford's legacy, his impact on people's lives, and at the very least, if we can help them, and they could help others. We hear from people. They want guidance from us, and of course, they want to connect with others who can relate to them, because it can be very isolating, actually.

• 17:40Speaker 02

  It's, it's cool, but when you can't relate and you don't know how to play into your child's gift in the school system, or perhaps you're an adult, all of a sudden, you wake up, you have a new skill, and it's consuming your attention in your life, it can be very lonely and confusing. So they ask us.

• 18:03Speaker 09

  I call myself the senior savant because I've been with Dr. Treffert for long enough, almost eighteen years, to where I've seen a few go, a few die, some new ones come in.

• 18:14Ky Dickens?

  That's acquired savant musician Derek Amato, also in attendance at the Archipelago, sharing his story with a live audience.

• 18:21Speaker 09

  If there was a circus of savants, I would be the guy in the red coat up front, screaming at all the people getting ready to sit down to watch the show, telling them, "What's about ready to begin? You're in for a ride, right? Welcome to the show." And it's the behind-the-scenes stuff that's amazing, the stuff that the general population doesn't see. Those are the moments that I think everybody would even like more so than the performance, the stage performance, you know? That's so much in itself that that is the show to me.

• 18:52Speaker 02

  We had a little informal gathering at dinner the night before the event, and we had about twenty or thirty of these savants together in a room. Man, it was surreal. And the way that they connected with one another and felt one another and spoke to one another, it was like we, the Treffert Center team, looked at each other and we were like, "The event, the concert, the gallery is just the icing on the cake. We brought these people together so they could meet each other." And when they did meet each other, we could just see, you know, the looks on their faces, the hugs that they gave each other, and the tears that were streaming down their faces, like they'd found their people in a way that was, you know, never before. It was so validating, I think, for them. Of course, all of them

• 19:34Speaker 02

  virtually had been called crazy, or doubted, or not believed, is that when you find people who can validate you in a world where you've been maybe ostracized, or doubted, or just alone and disconnected from the rest of humanity because of their experience of the world.

• 19:51Speaker 09

  And that's why I tell these new savants, man, when they're telling the world, "Hey, I'm here, and this is my gift," I tell them, "Get ready, man. You've got to prepare for some of these rock throwers because it hurts for a second." There's this new kid that came into the circle, a couple of them. And every time I would get near him, I would start crying. He would start crying. His dad would start crying. People around us started crying. And I'm like, what in the hell is happening? There was such an exchange in energy. We wouldn't even let each other go. Like when we hugged, it was like, like we just melted into one. But I found that, that there was a strand of empathy, this relationship and this common denominator

• 20:36Speaker 09

  with a lot of these other people that have experienced sudden genius or what have you. We always want to test one another because we're always, we're fascinated with each other's gifts. Right? So he wants me to play piano for him. I want him to calculate dates at lightning speed. So, you know, I was so worked up. The only thing I could think of to say to him after that two-minute hug was, "My mom was born December 31st, 1943, and I need you to tell me what day that was quickly." And he said, "That was a Saturday, Derek." And I said, "Welcome home, kid." There's so much there to unearth. That's kind of where I'm going with all of this is I'm trying to unearth the possibilities of the human behavior, the human potential. I'm still fortunate to be articulate.

• 21:21Speaker 09

  I'm still very lucky to use parts of my brain that are probably obviously damaged, but still make some sort of sense through life as we go. So I do feel like that ringleader guy, you know?

• 21:36Speaker 02

  It was truly, I mean, it was wild. Seeing them meet each other for the first time, so inspiring. And just when we saw these people look at each other, hug each other, tears streaming down their faces. It was absolutely magical because they connected in a way that we knew none of us could understand.

• 21:53Ky Dickens?

  How many Islands of Genius could be undiscovered out there? Who could one day join the Archipelago? And how many did Dr. Treffert estimate could be out there?

• 22:01Speaker 02

  You know, he felt like there were fewer than 100. That's the one thing that I actually disagree with my mentor about. I think there are a lot more. And I think with the advent of social media and the internet and all this stuff, we're going to start finding them. By the way, Dr. Treffert in his day was handwriting letters, you know, correspondences with people. Then he had email towards the end of his career. Now we have social media where people can reach out to us and send us a link. Now, if you Google the terms Savant Syndrome, you'll probably find us, right? Dr. Treffert is the guy for that. Unfortunately, he passed away, by the way, shortly after I took the job. So he never even got to see Treffert Studios. We are all carrying on his legacy here. And now that we hear from Savants and we have Treffert Studios,

• 22:43Speaker 02

  we can invite them and sit down and try and understand and discover the extent of their gifts from all around the world. We've now had people from Nigeria reach out to us, and they found us online, and they're really interested in what we do. And so we're starting to craft a Savant evaluation protocol, which is a comprehensive way of going really modality by modality and seeing what are the extent of this person's gifts? Not because we're trying to give them trophies and, you know, give them, you know, official certifications. It's just more about understanding the brain and guiding them. Because after we do an evaluation, we can then sit with the family and the individual and say, okay, here are some ways that you could maybe build off of that,

• 23:28Speaker 02

  you know, so the person can gain meaningful employment that's rewarding to them. Or maybe just here's another person that you might like to connect to it. It would help us connect them with each other, which is the most important thing. And then lastly, it'd help the world learn about these amazing people and take in their music. Even Savant Syndrome is not really a household term necessarily for many people. And so people have no idea that this even is happening or that people with these gifts are out there. The world should see this stuff. It's beautiful. This is a gift that you should be sharing with the world.

• 23:58Ky Dickens?

  And given the huge success of the Archipelago 2025, the Treffert Center continues their outreach, advocacy, research, and community building, and plans to make Archipelago a yearly event getting bigger and better every year. Keeping Daryl Treffert's vision alive, he saw islands of genius where others saw limitation. Treffert's legacy reminds us that possibility lives everywhere.

• 24:19Speaker 02

  We are trying to identify and connect and elevate the world's Savant community. So we'll be back next year, and it'll hopefully be bigger and better.

• 24:29Ky Dickens?

  Before we left the Archipelago event, we asked Grant and Tony if they had any inspirational words of advice to others on how to make their creative dreams come true.

• 24:37Speaker 06

  Let's see, my advice, if you want to be an artist, whether it's working with paint, working with paper like I do, or maybe it's a different form of art, like music, digital art. I would suggest practice first, then get your name out there, enter competitions, contests to get your name out more. Make a portfolio, start with the small stuff and then work it, work it, and eventually you will reach success.

• 25:00Speaker 05

  Well, we're gonna keep dreaming it and we're gonna keep doing it. Be yourself. To parents out there, well, keep them on their dreams and keep them going where they're going.

• 25:12Ky Dickens?

  To dive in deeper, subscribe to our Backstage Pass by visiting our website. With it, you'll unlock access to bonus content like telepathy tests, Ask Me Anything interviews with myself and guests. You'll be able to enjoy the podcast ad-free, connect with other members on our Telepathy Tribe Discord, and hear and see exclusive content from the Telepathy Tapes Vault. Visit our website at thetelepathytapes.com for more info on how to subscribe to our Backstage Pass. Thank you to my amazing collaborators, original music by Rachel Cantu, logo and cover art by Ben Candora Design, audio mix and finishing by Michael Robino, contributing producer Lorie Rubin, and our incredible, hard-working podcast staff, Jill Pachesnik, Katherine Ellis, and Selena Kennedy. And I'm Kai Dickens, creator and host.