Altered Books with some Kids who are 8,9, 10 and 11

This is my first experience working in this medium with kids of this age group. I recently finished another homeschool class made up primarily of teenage girls. Totally different. We looked at Rookie yearbook, cut pages from Vogue, listened to The Smiths on the Ipod and chilled.

The younger set is great because they are so free. Every one of them. But they move quickly.

Can you guess which of these books were created by A a bubbly and smart girl B my dear son (who is a bit of a cut-up) and C a child who works with such precision he would make a grand scientist?

Candy Darling

Since I am on the heartbreak train tonight, one last photo. Candy Darling, on her deathbed.

Sidney

It has been a week in my neck of the woods. The picture above is Sidney Tapscott. I can tell you a few things about him:

1. He was an old gray haired man the first time I saw him and old and grey this week. This week he passed away at the age of maybe 85 or maybe 92.

2. He wore denim overalls and black framed glasses.

3. He introduced some of the best bands in town. The Hackensaw Boys (who he introduced as the Arkansas Boys) and the Hogwaller Ramblers (who he called the Tennessee Ramblers) and he played harmonica too.

4. He was a street sweeper. He kept the sidewalks clean and was paid by downtown merchants.

5. My friends own a diner and it was written in the contract that they would feed Sidney whenever he came in. One thing he liked to eat was pancakes and one thing he liked to drink was Dr. Pepper. The waitresses cut his pancakes into small pieces, even during the busiest brunch shifts. I have cut many a pancake for him.

This same diner organized his birthday parties, his wake and his funeral.

6. The Facebook group that started in his honor (about 3 days ago) has 1677 friends right now.

7. His eyes twinkled and he was a real flirt. He had a lot of "girlfriends" and a lot of these girlfriends were waitresses.

It's hard to explain what it means to me.  We all knew he had this hard life but I don't know the details. The care that people gave him was genuine.

Celebration!

 

Look at this party!

In September I was in Hanover - Ashland, VA. The Community Services Board sponsored a Recovery Festival held at the city Arts building. I drove past it at first, thinking it was a wedding. White table cloths, flowers, sunshine, fruit and veggies and lemonade - then came booths and booths of art made by people with psychiatric histories. Art of every stripe - hand-painted helmets, lithographs, altered books, flower arranging, photography, painting...then came the drum circle! And amazing hula hoopers! And a live band!

Somehow my name was put out there as a person who could speak about art and recovery on the stage with a microphone. And I really want to do these sorts of things even though I can't stand so much attention! (I know people look at me, covered in tattoos with my loud, goofy laugh and assume I love attention, but I promise I'm an introvert)

Sometimes I talk about how few rituals and celebrations we have built into our society - I really believe we are meant to make music together, to make art, to celebrate. This was wellness in action - a glorious day!

(all photos - www.photosbyjoelle.com)

Telling Stories

I hear a lot of good stories. And I had the idea to tape them and put them in a slideshow format like a beautiful piece that I saw on the New York Times website. Somehow I didn't realize how much I am not like the New York Times - in terms of knowledge, know-how,  resources, equipment...

Barbara is a friend of mine, nearly 35 years my senior. She has shown me a different way of  "growing up" than I knew was possible. And she achieves a lot through the art of storytelling.

Here Barbara tells me about the purple lady, an artist and character who impacted her life.

http://hosting.soundslides.com/mkv9v/

May was Mental Health Month

I may need all of June to recuperate! I had a garage sale/fundraiser for Firewalkers. Then we hosted a Wellness Expo with On Our Own on the 20th. I put out a little art group leaders guide book. We applied for grants because our money runs out in July. Then the VOCAL conference and all that brings. In my case it brought a crown making workshop, among other festivities. Here are some pictures:

I had all of my usual art supplies and together we made crowns. At the end we had an official crowning ceremony where we took on a title, such as Princess of Faith, Queen of Books and King of Jews (this one caught me off guard!).

Being an activist can be draining and I'm not even much of an activist! Happy to have this time to play...

What have ya'll been up to?

Altered Books

Here is some of the work done by a group of 12 in an hour and a half class. It was a first time experience for all, even though some of the people felt very comfortable about their artistic abilities.

I was really pleased at how everyone dove in and I was impressed with the results! I love how we all start with the same materials and the finished products are so very different.

Thinking of the Fall

My daughter is on the verge of 11 and so "precocious" and growing up fast. She loves to hear stories about me at the same age. The crazy thing is that I was just the same - plotting my escape and imaging the wide world. She would like to move along, fall in love and be a cute cowgirl type. I was reading Andy Warhol's "Interview" and imaging a life in NYC where I would befriend some real, weird artists.

In Detroit we got Canadian television and radio, which was much more adventurous. This Fall video particularly I remember. It made me feel like, "Whoa, life is freaky and limitless"

What is fun to me now, on the saddest most unsatisfying day of my life I can remember that I have done almost everything on my to do list. (There is a whole new list now, but that is for later) Check the record.

San Fran

I came to San Francisco to talk about Firewalkers. First with Wendy at Underground Ads, the amazing folks who did the graphic design for the book (http://undergroundads.com/), then to the staff at New Leaf (a LGBT counselling center), then at Modern Times Bookstore (http://www.mtbs.com/) which has been collectively owned since 1971 and still remains vibrant and vital. My new friend Sascha Alman Dubrul wrote this fantastic post about the event: http://theicarusproject.net/firewalkers-in-the-bay (while you are at the Icarus site, be sure to poke around. They are forerunners in the mad pride movement and this site is packed with great info and an excellent forum)

It has been an enormous blessing for me to connect with people locally and nationally who are thinking about what it means to be "mentally ill", how to treat those who struggle and where we would like to go from here. San Fransisco has its own flavor - thoughtful and progressive among other things. I was happy to bring my bumpkin vibe and feel the love!

Some street images from the Mission where I am staying with friends:

Girlie Girl Army invites me into the glamorous world

http://girliegirlarmy.com/blog/20100221/firewalkers-radically-rethinking-mental-illness/#comment-5503

Well, well, did I write a guest blog about Firewalkers? I did, I did!

And I'm grateful for anyone who visits to leave a comment.

Art group

I've been meaning to take some pictures of our art group in the beautiful space at McGuffey. It has been open to anyone interested, but every week its all women. Sometimes we talk about dark things, some times we giggle, sometimes it is silent. It is all allowed.

Here are some camera phone shots from last Saturday.

Dexter

I watched a documentary called "Two Headed Cow" that my father taped and brought along on a visit from Detroit. It is about Dexter Romweber of The Flat Duo Jets, a band that I adored for their zeal and "spinning out of control and looking bad-ass while doing it" style. In all honesty, I ran away from home at 16 and moved to Athens, GA thinking maybe we could be best friends. It didn't pan out. When we did meet and I told him this anecdote he told me, "Well girly, sometimes shit don't turn out like you plan." Then he downed his whiskey and got on stage.

Now he is calmed way down and medicated. He is medicated because it hurt to be so loose and open. But gone too is that hot spark that drove the people wild.

It has been asked, "If Van Gogh was medicated, would he have painted Sunflowers?" And of course the answer is, probably not. And he may not have cut off his ear either.

I guess it just brought up a lot of emotion in me, knowing that wave that is incredible and creative and destructive and painful all at once. And you know, what do you do with that? We each choose. And I recognized that I liked him better wild because it saves me the trouble of living it myself. I want to watch and be inspired, but I'm not the one cutting myself open wide on stage. Ya know what I mean?

Maybe everyone already knows this?

This Monday morning, my first task of the day, was to clean out a big closet. I needed something to entertain me and egg me on, so I listened to two episodes (it was a big closet)

Here is the link:

http://www.thisamericanlife.org/Radio_Archive.aspx

in case you have anything to clean today.

Say what you will

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Eliza Evans, here in Charlottesville

paints portraits on little slabs of wood of the people who sit in front of her. She painted these pics of my kids. She said Llyr was the wiggliest one ever. I love them so much for not looking totally lifelike but also not looking like a caricature. And now I'm going to New Orleans for a week, so goodbye!