Great audio peice in the New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2010/09/16/health/healthguide/te_schizophrenia.html

In other news, I am going to be on public radio talking about what it is like to break down, why we need a variety of services (and quick access to them) and why it matters.

AND this coming Saturday is art group at the VOCAL office 11:30 until 1:30. malaina@vocalvirginia.org for more info.

Love this magazine!

http://www.mulemagazine.com/

Worth a peek for a job well done!

Collage Crush

http://www.salaczar.com/collage.html

David Wallace. Love this.


Two facts - I am exhausted and I love these collages.

New Blog to Follow

http://www.coriberg.blogspot.com/

The blog of artist Cori Berg. My sister in Cyberspace whom I just met.

FRIENDS IN HEALING

Join us! We are a healing support community, where you will find connection and laughter, but most of all support in our troubles. We work toward being defined, not by our challenges, but by our strength, knowing that only together can we become better than we are today. Our chat room is open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and we have members from all over the world. 

JR, French artist, wins humanitarian award

 

http://jr-art.net/

Quasi legal street art - images of the poor on the grand scale - a desire for the art to speak, not the celebrity

"Winning such a prize is a consecration for JR and a headache. He was refusing to give media interviews yesterday because he regards celebrity as an obstacle, even a threat, to his work"

Bulb planting time

http://www.guerrillagardening.org/ggseedbombs.html
and time to toss some seeds into empty lots - instructions on the link above
(and some gorgeous pics from the site http://www.guerrillagardening.org

Here is how Wikipedia defines it:

Guerrilla gardening is gardening on another person's land without permission. It encompasses a very diverse range of people and motivations, from the enthusiastic gardener who spills over their legal boundaries to the highly political gardener who seeks to provoke change through direct action. It has implications for land rights, land reform. The land that is guerrilla gardened is usually abandoned or neglected by its legal owner and the guerrilla gardeners take it over ("squat") to grow plants. Guerrilla gardeners believe in re-considering land ownership in order to reclaim land from perceived neglect or misuse and assign a new purpose to it.
Some guerrilla gardeners carry out their actions at night, in relative secrecy, to sow and tend a new vegetable patch or flower garden. Some garden at more visible hours to be seen by their community. It has grown into a form of proactive activism or pro-activism.

Post 101 is about my #1 Favorite artist

It really starts here for me. Thinking back lately of things that I saw or experienced when I was young that made such lasting inspiration. Certainly seeing Howard Finster, the man and his vision and art, was one. Self taught, hard working and a great storyteller with a unique vision. Love it so much.

http://www.finster.com/HFBiography.htm

From the biography on his official site: "A little boy standing in the fields of sweet home in Alabama had his first vision at age three. Howard Finster looked up to see his sister come down from the clouds with steps appearing before her as she came and went, never touching the ground. Her name was Abby and he called to her. Little did he know that he had just seen his first vision. He grew up in a family of thirteen children, several siblings left him to be with Jesus before he was grown. At the age of sixteen he was called to preach. He started many tent revivals, and built several churches. He married Pauline and they raised five children. They have always been faithful to their marriage, to their children, and most of all, to the service of the Lord. Howard and Pauline would have been married sixty-six years October, 24, 2001, the day after he left to be with Jesus. The story is told that the Reverend Howard Finster gave up preaching because one Sunday night he asked who remembered his Sunday morning sermon. No one did. Now he reaches out to the congregation of the world."

 Howard created more than 46,000 pieces of art and created Paradise Gardens at his home in Somerville, GA.

The art of Richard Lange and Judith Selby Lange

In 1999 we started collecting plastic debris—carrying it away by the bagful— all from Kehoe Beach, a remote stretch of the Point Reyes National Seashore, in Northern California. Certain items would catch our interest: milk jug lids, combs, toy soldiers, disposable lighters, cheese spreaders from lunch snack packs. We were attracted to things that would show by their numbers and commonness what is happening in the oceans around the world.

The plastic we continue to find is not left by visitors; it is washing up from the ocean. Back in our studios we clean, sort and categorize the pieces according to color and kind. We use the plastic to make artworks including large sculptures, installations, photo tableaus and jewelry.

We are a collaborative team. Our love of nature is combined with our interest in science to produce an on-going series of art works about the oceans and the environment. While the content of our work has a message about the spoiling of the natural world by the industrial world, our final intent is aesthetic and celebratory.

Judith Selby Lang    Richard Lang

http://www.beachplastic.com/beach_plastic/What_and_Where.html

Really?

German toymaker Paraplush has designed a controversial new line of toys with an assortment of psychiatric disorders. The company advertises stuffed animals who suffer from a range of mental illnesses (bipolar disorder, depression, multiple personality disorder) and even come packaged with a personalized medical history and treatment plan.

"'Patients' from the Paraplush toy company include Dub the turtle with severe depression, Sly the snake who suffers from terrifying hallucinations, Dolly the sheep with a multiple personality disorder and a crocodile with an irrational fear of water,"

http://www.parapluesch.de/

http://theicarusproject.net/forums/viewtopic.php?p=183257

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.