Mike is back. Yay!
It’s been a busy day. We had Laser Eagles. Mike was not the tracker – I worked with Jennifer Marr who is a fabulous tracker! Mostly I was collecting together the paintings that I intend to exhibit at the ROM so that Kimberly can drop them off at the CAVE office. This is where Paul and I are collecting them, where Andrew will photograph them, and where we will make our plans for shaping the exhibit so that its message is as powerful as possible.
Oh yes, Kimberly is back too. Yay! The impact of her absence hasn’t been as obvious to me because she did an excellent job of replacing herself while Mike and she were away. But just the same, lots of things went on hold, like some fundraising, so it’s wonderful to feel the energy picking up again.
I spent a large part of today getting a cat from Hamilton to the northernmost reaches of Toronto. In all, eight people were involved in moving one cat. Mike and I got to do the actual driving and delivery of a yowling and frightened feline. On the one hand, it’s truly bizarre, and as Mike was reflecting as we drove, nothing of this really has anything to do with the cat itself. He simply wasn’t wanted where he was and I knew someone who did want him and Mary and Gloria did not want to see him killed and there you go, grown adults spending a day and a good bit of money moving an animal across three municipalities!
It was good to see Gloria and Mary again as well. I spent a lot of today handing out happy faces and stars. I have discovered in the past few weeks that it is a wonderful thing to surround myself with stars and happy faces. I have been using them to keep track of the twelve projects I am creating so as to keep on track and to keep motivated. The “unintended” result is that it has become ever so clear to me that I made a decision when I was very young, probably four, that I did not want EVER to cry again when people hurt me. It certainly was a simple enough and obvious enough decision for a four year old to make in the kind of situation that I found myself in as a child. Never could I have imagined that by having such a determined focus to be stoic and invulnerable that I would powerfully shape myself into a person who struggles to be compassionate both with myself and others and who is unwilling to be emotional and touched.
Of course, that has shifted a lot over the years but this Third Cycle has powerfully revealed to me that I carry the tightness and the burden of the decision to be encased in a shell. My own shell has way more shaped my body and my heart than did the plastic shells that the doctors encased me in when I was a teenager with a growingly twisted body.
At the same time, while happy faces and stars came into my life to support my desire to shift the world towards giftedness, the same happy faces and stars have cracked the shell and helped me discover a child who deeply longs for affirmation and who responds to affirmation with joy and laughter.
So today I decided to give it away, bought some packages of stars and happy little Easter chicks (actually, one of them is kind of grumpy!) and gave them to nearly everybody I ran into today. Is this something I would do every day for the rest of my life? Probably not, but then again, who would have ever thought I would be exhibiting at the ROM?
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Showing posts with label art. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
April 10, 2011
It’s early on Sunday – about 10:30am. It’s been a very different week so it’s fitting to write at a very different time.
The new guy, Brian, did very well on his first solo shift. This is a saving grace in the midst of the stresses of covering Mike’s vacation and of Helen’ and Eva’s sudden illnesses, and the “back-ups” – people who typically cover an odd shift here and there – all seemingly being elsewhere this weekend!
I think that I wrote recently that I am keeping a chart up each week of the twelve projects – thirteen this week! – that I am juggling. I give myself happy faces each day on each project for efforts I have made and stars for team efforts, with or without me. Mike’s absence leaves a big gap in a third of the chart, which lets me know that I am only in contact with a big part of my life through him right now. It looks like an area where I can build communication with others!
The chart also reveals that I already have achieved my goal with ODSP and I can take it off my project list. I got another new case worker about two weeks ago, and I decided to go to see her in person, to explain my plan to transition off of “the pension” by October. It turned out much better than that. She can, and did!, mark my case as eligible for receiving the drug and dental coverage, and wheelchair repairs and replacements even when I make too much money for the income part. This will also be true after I am 65. This makes a significant difference to my current plans for making money.
Early in the week I noticed that there were very few cubes – prefabricated modular cells made in Texas – remaining in the train yard. The immediate view from my bedroom window was returning to its themes of marshalling yard and industrial wasteland. I assumed that the local prison – now up to four stories with two big towers and one huge one – was near completion. Yet, two nights ago, another train came in and I awoke to several stacks and flatbeds of the largest, grey cubes.
Once again I am fascinated by how much goes on at night in the gigantic playground, and how I just don’t see all of it. This activity is typically accompanied by bright, sometimes flashing lights, and last October I was several times kept awake by an enormous arc lamp. The actual work is accomplished by very few people and humungous machines. How can it be so hidden? Yet they must have discovered ways to be more discreet so that now we all pretty much sleep through it.
Just how big is it going to be, this prison?
I painted today. More gray and blue, but today with some Gesso. It’s my first time with Gesso, necessitated by the use of somebody else’s recycled canvases. It made the acrylic paint work more like oil – thick, slow to dry, easy to scrape off. Expensive. Yet somehow I felt like I was t taking charge of my craft, not just painting. If I truly am a serious artist then I must understand the economics of it – not understanding as in learning but as standing for it to work and grow, to have its own integrity. More than one trained tracker, reliable supplies of sufficient quality, a style, themes, a context, appreciation for its own sake. It is not therapy.
The new guy, Brian, did very well on his first solo shift. This is a saving grace in the midst of the stresses of covering Mike’s vacation and of Helen’ and Eva’s sudden illnesses, and the “back-ups” – people who typically cover an odd shift here and there – all seemingly being elsewhere this weekend!
I think that I wrote recently that I am keeping a chart up each week of the twelve projects – thirteen this week! – that I am juggling. I give myself happy faces each day on each project for efforts I have made and stars for team efforts, with or without me. Mike’s absence leaves a big gap in a third of the chart, which lets me know that I am only in contact with a big part of my life through him right now. It looks like an area where I can build communication with others!
The chart also reveals that I already have achieved my goal with ODSP and I can take it off my project list. I got another new case worker about two weeks ago, and I decided to go to see her in person, to explain my plan to transition off of “the pension” by October. It turned out much better than that. She can, and did!, mark my case as eligible for receiving the drug and dental coverage, and wheelchair repairs and replacements even when I make too much money for the income part. This will also be true after I am 65. This makes a significant difference to my current plans for making money.
Early in the week I noticed that there were very few cubes – prefabricated modular cells made in Texas – remaining in the train yard. The immediate view from my bedroom window was returning to its themes of marshalling yard and industrial wasteland. I assumed that the local prison – now up to four stories with two big towers and one huge one – was near completion. Yet, two nights ago, another train came in and I awoke to several stacks and flatbeds of the largest, grey cubes.
Once again I am fascinated by how much goes on at night in the gigantic playground, and how I just don’t see all of it. This activity is typically accompanied by bright, sometimes flashing lights, and last October I was several times kept awake by an enormous arc lamp. The actual work is accomplished by very few people and humungous machines. How can it be so hidden? Yet they must have discovered ways to be more discreet so that now we all pretty much sleep through it.
Just how big is it going to be, this prison?
I painted today. More gray and blue, but today with some Gesso. It’s my first time with Gesso, necessitated by the use of somebody else’s recycled canvases. It made the acrylic paint work more like oil – thick, slow to dry, easy to scrape off. Expensive. Yet somehow I felt like I was t taking charge of my craft, not just painting. If I truly am a serious artist then I must understand the economics of it – not understanding as in learning but as standing for it to work and grow, to have its own integrity. More than one trained tracker, reliable supplies of sufficient quality, a style, themes, a context, appreciation for its own sake. It is not therapy.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
February 22, 2011
It would be easier, likely, to keep up these blog entries while in Savannah if Mike were more available to type for me. Mike has been working night and day except when Lara is on and is either talking with Kimberly, taking a well deserved break, painting or cooking and cleaning up when I get to the computer. On the other hand I am typically exhausted or thinking about my next presentation when I get here. Either way Farmville or Freecell usually wins out and takes up the last hour of my day.
Today, it’s earlier in the day, the two Citizen Advocacy presentations are done, Mike is painting and the constipation that plagued me since Sunday has given way. In other words I have enough energy to type this myself.
It became apparent, also on Sunday, (today is Tuesday), that the prison painting could not “get done” by Friday, or perhaps at all, in the style we were pursuing. In other words I got through about half of a highly detailed reproduction of the photograph “Dirty Window” and stopped. I have long doubted my own, and Mike’s capacity to make a close reproduction, and quietly wondered if a miracle would strike, or when and how I would choose, with Mike, to take a different approach. The moment came Sunday night, on going to bed, as I asked Mike what question he was going to bed with – to get answered by wake-up time in the morning. I told him that my question was something like: “What sort of painting could get done by Friday evening – the time I make my presentation at the Bean – that would also authentically represent my experience of discovering the construction of a prison in clear view of my bedroom window.”
Sunday evening I explained that I had hit a six month time period in 2005 when I stopped painting. This occurred when I got frustrated when I wanted to paint detail and could neither conceptualize it for myself nor convey the picture in my mind well enough to my tracker to get her to put on the canvas what I was (vaguely) imagining. Eventually I realized that this was NOT a disability issue, but a common phenomenon among artists. The art itself has a way of partly determining what it will be like when it’s done, and to keep on going, the artist must surrender to the art piece, and let it become what it will.
Laser Eagle artists also must surrender to the will and capacity of the tracker. This apparently extra dimension is merely part of the dynamic dance. By dancing the art becomes and in the end it is what it is. Such is life fully lived.
In the midst of this conversation Mike told me that he is a finisher – someone who takes what a graphic artist has pencilled and fills in the lines and colour. This is something I did not know. So now we have begun again.
I will now have five or six pieces for Friday’s presentation – and later the ROM exhibit. I will have an unfinished, detailed piece and three or four side pieces (pieces we made after long detailed efforts on “Dirty Window”, made with left over paint and less constraint). I will also have a more cartoon like piece – unfinished or finished. Together they represent a more complete picture of my journey to respond authentically to the prision outside my window.
I realize now fully why I had to – was compelled to – come to Savannah. The pelicans have little to do with it – they were the dream image calling to me. I saw some last week and have not wanted to see them again.
I came to express my gratitude.
I have been shown a door to expressing the beauty and possibility of inclusion, of citizenship and community, of faith, of diversity, of life itself. For many years Savannah has been a mirror for me, showing me aspects of exclusion, of elegance, of perseverance, of courage, of creativity. I have been able to see myself and to hear my own voice in ways I can and could not experience elsewhere.
Marsha and Jack brought me to Savannah the first time, but this place and the things I have done in it, like Citizen Advocacy work with Tom Kohler and peace work with Gabor, have been expressions of my own dream. Awkwardly I have discovered Judith and her song over thirty years, and the trips to Savannah have been choruses in my melodic creation.
Friday I will “sing” what there is at that point, and I will tell all of Savannah that comes to hear how this beautiful, terrible town, built on the bruised backs of slaves, has opened my door to freedom.
Today, it’s earlier in the day, the two Citizen Advocacy presentations are done, Mike is painting and the constipation that plagued me since Sunday has given way. In other words I have enough energy to type this myself.
It became apparent, also on Sunday, (today is Tuesday), that the prison painting could not “get done” by Friday, or perhaps at all, in the style we were pursuing. In other words I got through about half of a highly detailed reproduction of the photograph “Dirty Window” and stopped. I have long doubted my own, and Mike’s capacity to make a close reproduction, and quietly wondered if a miracle would strike, or when and how I would choose, with Mike, to take a different approach. The moment came Sunday night, on going to bed, as I asked Mike what question he was going to bed with – to get answered by wake-up time in the morning. I told him that my question was something like: “What sort of painting could get done by Friday evening – the time I make my presentation at the Bean – that would also authentically represent my experience of discovering the construction of a prison in clear view of my bedroom window.”
Sunday evening I explained that I had hit a six month time period in 2005 when I stopped painting. This occurred when I got frustrated when I wanted to paint detail and could neither conceptualize it for myself nor convey the picture in my mind well enough to my tracker to get her to put on the canvas what I was (vaguely) imagining. Eventually I realized that this was NOT a disability issue, but a common phenomenon among artists. The art itself has a way of partly determining what it will be like when it’s done, and to keep on going, the artist must surrender to the art piece, and let it become what it will.
Laser Eagle artists also must surrender to the will and capacity of the tracker. This apparently extra dimension is merely part of the dynamic dance. By dancing the art becomes and in the end it is what it is. Such is life fully lived.
In the midst of this conversation Mike told me that he is a finisher – someone who takes what a graphic artist has pencilled and fills in the lines and colour. This is something I did not know. So now we have begun again.
I will now have five or six pieces for Friday’s presentation – and later the ROM exhibit. I will have an unfinished, detailed piece and three or four side pieces (pieces we made after long detailed efforts on “Dirty Window”, made with left over paint and less constraint). I will also have a more cartoon like piece – unfinished or finished. Together they represent a more complete picture of my journey to respond authentically to the prision outside my window.
I realize now fully why I had to – was compelled to – come to Savannah. The pelicans have little to do with it – they were the dream image calling to me. I saw some last week and have not wanted to see them again.
I came to express my gratitude.
I have been shown a door to expressing the beauty and possibility of inclusion, of citizenship and community, of faith, of diversity, of life itself. For many years Savannah has been a mirror for me, showing me aspects of exclusion, of elegance, of perseverance, of courage, of creativity. I have been able to see myself and to hear my own voice in ways I can and could not experience elsewhere.
Marsha and Jack brought me to Savannah the first time, but this place and the things I have done in it, like Citizen Advocacy work with Tom Kohler and peace work with Gabor, have been expressions of my own dream. Awkwardly I have discovered Judith and her song over thirty years, and the trips to Savannah have been choruses in my melodic creation.
Friday I will “sing” what there is at that point, and I will tell all of Savannah that comes to hear how this beautiful, terrible town, built on the bruised backs of slaves, has opened my door to freedom.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
February 12, 2011
It’s the day before I leave for Savannah, with Mike Skubic and Christopher Lee. Things are a bit chaotic around here!
Once again I missed blogging yesterday. I was at the “Work of Hearts” Gala, a fundraiser for Laser Eagles. I think for now it is just better to say that I will blog every four days at least, or twice a week. Until I get my road life back under my belt I don’t want to give the impression that I’m simply choosing not to blog. Rather I am re-establishing the “rhythm” that gets it all done. – (preferably making it all look easy at the same time!)
The Gala was fabulous and a real testament both to what people can accomplish even when they don’t necessarily see “eye-to-eye”, and to Kimberly Fu’s capacity as an event organizer. It was elegance at its best and done on shoe string. Regardless of how much money was made (I have no idea!) the essential value of Laser Eagles was communicated far and wide.
I had a real sense of people working together, as well. Mike Skubic and Helen Tweddle jumped in – with my Dad’s car – to make Greg’s transportation work out. Other tasks were getting handled with little fanfare. It made community seem real.
For me this was all on top of a week of last minute rushes, dramas, inadequate schedulings and opportunities – lost and found. It seemed that I still had only two double bookings to resolve, and they both worked out rather miraculously.
A sense of a fundamental shift is there. The new ODSP caseworker called me to get help in working out my complex financial situation with the clear intention of making it work for me. Olivia passed MY proposal around to all members of the Inclusion Circle. The media CAME to the Laser Eagles event. It feels like I’m actually being taken seriously!
I have wanted to and thought about blogging all the way through, but not had the energy and focus when the time came. I really SHOULD get one of those voice recorders that can be downloaded and converted to a text file.
Anyway the adventure has truly begun. The car is washed, gassed and loaded. Nearly everything is done, except the sleep.
Soon I will be painting, and revealing – mostly to myself – what message the rising Mimico Correctional Centre is trying to evoke.
I guess what really shifted is that I am willing, or nearly so, to be a leader with a distinct point of view, a defined vision of what the next world needs to be like, the beginnings of a strategy, and the willingness to have others improve it.
It is late and my eyes are drooping, my legs aching and my head fuzzy. Let the adventure begin.
Once again I missed blogging yesterday. I was at the “Work of Hearts” Gala, a fundraiser for Laser Eagles. I think for now it is just better to say that I will blog every four days at least, or twice a week. Until I get my road life back under my belt I don’t want to give the impression that I’m simply choosing not to blog. Rather I am re-establishing the “rhythm” that gets it all done. – (preferably making it all look easy at the same time!)
The Gala was fabulous and a real testament both to what people can accomplish even when they don’t necessarily see “eye-to-eye”, and to Kimberly Fu’s capacity as an event organizer. It was elegance at its best and done on shoe string. Regardless of how much money was made (I have no idea!) the essential value of Laser Eagles was communicated far and wide.
I had a real sense of people working together, as well. Mike Skubic and Helen Tweddle jumped in – with my Dad’s car – to make Greg’s transportation work out. Other tasks were getting handled with little fanfare. It made community seem real.
For me this was all on top of a week of last minute rushes, dramas, inadequate schedulings and opportunities – lost and found. It seemed that I still had only two double bookings to resolve, and they both worked out rather miraculously.
A sense of a fundamental shift is there. The new ODSP caseworker called me to get help in working out my complex financial situation with the clear intention of making it work for me. Olivia passed MY proposal around to all members of the Inclusion Circle. The media CAME to the Laser Eagles event. It feels like I’m actually being taken seriously!
I have wanted to and thought about blogging all the way through, but not had the energy and focus when the time came. I really SHOULD get one of those voice recorders that can be downloaded and converted to a text file.
Anyway the adventure has truly begun. The car is washed, gassed and loaded. Nearly everything is done, except the sleep.
Soon I will be painting, and revealing – mostly to myself – what message the rising Mimico Correctional Centre is trying to evoke.
I guess what really shifted is that I am willing, or nearly so, to be a leader with a distinct point of view, a defined vision of what the next world needs to be like, the beginnings of a strategy, and the willingness to have others improve it.
It is late and my eyes are drooping, my legs aching and my head fuzzy. Let the adventure begin.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
February 8, 2011
Well I can see that I am going to have to shift something very soon. I’m exhausted, my email inbox is full of over 160 messages, many of them unread, there are still many things to do before we leave and the near future promises to open up with even more possibilities and projects. After Paul Aiello has publicly announced that the ROM has committed to putting up my art exhibit there has been a flood of congratulations and expectation.
I have the same expectations myself, really. It is certainly my intention that this exhibit will form the foundation of a new capacity to speak Inclusion into the world but already I can see that I am not up to fulfilling this potential. I need ways to strip away activities and commitments – not as giving them up but as in having them fulfilled without my personal attention. Otherwise I will not have enough privacy and rest.
Gloria’s right – much must be given away. From my perspective this is no small task. There are so many intricacies that I have brought to the table on my own behalf in the last twenty or so years. For example, today I spent a good hour resolving for the third time the discomfort of my new accountant over the fact that I will indeed overspend my personal assistant budget in the near future. I’ve reassured her that what I need her to do is to tell me the state that the budget is in but not to panic. I know that I have avenues – some already activated – to bring new money into the picture. But these potentials are very difficult for brand new people to see and so I spend as much energy supporting them as if I were doing it myself, or at least that’s how it feels.
Nevertheless the time has come. The potential of the ROM exhibit is too great to try to keep it inside of my own scope. I no longer represent myself.
This is a major reason why I have just seen The King’s Speech for the third time, besides that Bill Worrell had not yet seen it before tonight. There comes a time when a genuine leader is no longer representing them self. This time has certainly landed on me at this point. And so I must distinguish between speaking and doing what is required of me as a leader and speaking and doing what is required of me as a person. It would seem that truly great people somehow manage to do both at the same time, and also take it to such a level that their influence becomes cross-cultural. It is not that I particularly want to do this. It is just clear that it is within my grasp and so history compels me.
It will be simpler next week. By this time next Tuesday we will be getting ready for a painting day in Savannah. At least for a short time I will be left in peace.
It feels to me like I am complaining right now. I’m not really. This is exactly what I want and have wanted since I was very young. The gap that I am experiencing comes not from being pushed into a life that I don’t want but simply that this is required of me to shift how I do things so that many many more people can be involved. Currently I do not feel like I have the time and resources to expand in two different directions. This is something to be invented.
I am not able to stay awake now. Goodnight.
I have the same expectations myself, really. It is certainly my intention that this exhibit will form the foundation of a new capacity to speak Inclusion into the world but already I can see that I am not up to fulfilling this potential. I need ways to strip away activities and commitments – not as giving them up but as in having them fulfilled without my personal attention. Otherwise I will not have enough privacy and rest.
Gloria’s right – much must be given away. From my perspective this is no small task. There are so many intricacies that I have brought to the table on my own behalf in the last twenty or so years. For example, today I spent a good hour resolving for the third time the discomfort of my new accountant over the fact that I will indeed overspend my personal assistant budget in the near future. I’ve reassured her that what I need her to do is to tell me the state that the budget is in but not to panic. I know that I have avenues – some already activated – to bring new money into the picture. But these potentials are very difficult for brand new people to see and so I spend as much energy supporting them as if I were doing it myself, or at least that’s how it feels.
Nevertheless the time has come. The potential of the ROM exhibit is too great to try to keep it inside of my own scope. I no longer represent myself.
This is a major reason why I have just seen The King’s Speech for the third time, besides that Bill Worrell had not yet seen it before tonight. There comes a time when a genuine leader is no longer representing them self. This time has certainly landed on me at this point. And so I must distinguish between speaking and doing what is required of me as a leader and speaking and doing what is required of me as a person. It would seem that truly great people somehow manage to do both at the same time, and also take it to such a level that their influence becomes cross-cultural. It is not that I particularly want to do this. It is just clear that it is within my grasp and so history compels me.
It will be simpler next week. By this time next Tuesday we will be getting ready for a painting day in Savannah. At least for a short time I will be left in peace.
It feels to me like I am complaining right now. I’m not really. This is exactly what I want and have wanted since I was very young. The gap that I am experiencing comes not from being pushed into a life that I don’t want but simply that this is required of me to shift how I do things so that many many more people can be involved. Currently I do not feel like I have the time and resources to expand in two different directions. This is something to be invented.
I am not able to stay awake now. Goodnight.
Sunday, February 6, 2011
February 6, 2011
I just spoke to Lara, and that deep, edgy Southern lilt breaks/melts my heart. I am just one week, a few phone calls and e-mails, and a very long drive away from Savannah. Deep into the elegant veneer and the ball breaking poverty and racism. Within salty scent of cold Atlantic waters and magical pelicans.
It is like I have already left. There are over a hundred e-mails in my Inbox. I have fallen off the map of the Wisdom team. I have begun to consider how to pack the car and what road food to bring.
My circle met today. We had yet another fabulous pot luck – this time with a variety of chicken and pastries. Gloria told story after story of what she learned in and from members of the First African Baptist Church.
It’s funny but we clearly had very different trips to Savannah that winter of early 2008, or was it ‘07. for me it was all about advocacy, beginning to collect peace stories and meeting Lara. For Franziska, about having a GREAT time, for Gloria about the stories of blacks building their place in the world, society and community through turning Christianity back into a revolutionary journey.
The telling of our stories pulls together a mosaic. The story is bigger than the five women who lived it.
This morning I was reflecting on my commitment as a journey to tell a different story. I began to think of my MA as Magical Artist. I was seeing the power – the Syncopated Transition – in telling a story that interrupts the oppressive mirage. Even more than that I was seeing the power – the Syncopated Transition – in simply having perfect faith that one’s story IS the story, even though every other person is creating and fulfilling another drama.
I have heard the story of one black, deeply disturbed yet innocently diverse and fundamentally spiritual man – a man with a stack of disability labels – who single handedly pacified a police department which is known to be so aggressive as to blame a Chinese woman for being run down in the street.
So now I will paint a prison while retreating into the bosom of blatant racism. I am beginning to see Third Cycle as being about building stories that can, just by being told, interrupt and transform the space so that people can see the different choices that are available to them.
It was not long after the Savannah trip that Gloria and Franziska came on, and the shorter two that followed closely afterward, that I met Gabor Podor, and we created the model – Syncopated Transition. I am now beginning to see the unfolding of its power.
Syncopated Transition
In jazz, musicians use syncopation to emphasize a weaker or ignored beat in such a way that they create a new melody that challenges or counters the original melody. The original melody is not destroyed. The overall piece is transformed.
Syncopated Transition is a method of creating Inclusion by valuing and building on a characteristic or gift which has been rejected or suppressed by a community. As in jazz this creation is structured in such a way that a new opportunity in community is created.
Peace is a natural outcome of Syncopated Transition. Peace results from people experiencing that more opportunities are available to them while at the same time the fundamental structures of their lives and communities are preserved.
I see that my aim is to be a syncopated transition.
It is like I have already left. There are over a hundred e-mails in my Inbox. I have fallen off the map of the Wisdom team. I have begun to consider how to pack the car and what road food to bring.
My circle met today. We had yet another fabulous pot luck – this time with a variety of chicken and pastries. Gloria told story after story of what she learned in and from members of the First African Baptist Church.
It’s funny but we clearly had very different trips to Savannah that winter of early 2008, or was it ‘07. for me it was all about advocacy, beginning to collect peace stories and meeting Lara. For Franziska, about having a GREAT time, for Gloria about the stories of blacks building their place in the world, society and community through turning Christianity back into a revolutionary journey.
The telling of our stories pulls together a mosaic. The story is bigger than the five women who lived it.
This morning I was reflecting on my commitment as a journey to tell a different story. I began to think of my MA as Magical Artist. I was seeing the power – the Syncopated Transition – in telling a story that interrupts the oppressive mirage. Even more than that I was seeing the power – the Syncopated Transition – in simply having perfect faith that one’s story IS the story, even though every other person is creating and fulfilling another drama.
I have heard the story of one black, deeply disturbed yet innocently diverse and fundamentally spiritual man – a man with a stack of disability labels – who single handedly pacified a police department which is known to be so aggressive as to blame a Chinese woman for being run down in the street.
So now I will paint a prison while retreating into the bosom of blatant racism. I am beginning to see Third Cycle as being about building stories that can, just by being told, interrupt and transform the space so that people can see the different choices that are available to them.
It was not long after the Savannah trip that Gloria and Franziska came on, and the shorter two that followed closely afterward, that I met Gabor Podor, and we created the model – Syncopated Transition. I am now beginning to see the unfolding of its power.
Syncopated Transition
In jazz, musicians use syncopation to emphasize a weaker or ignored beat in such a way that they create a new melody that challenges or counters the original melody. The original melody is not destroyed. The overall piece is transformed.
Syncopated Transition is a method of creating Inclusion by valuing and building on a characteristic or gift which has been rejected or suppressed by a community. As in jazz this creation is structured in such a way that a new opportunity in community is created.
Peace is a natural outcome of Syncopated Transition. Peace results from people experiencing that more opportunities are available to them while at the same time the fundamental structures of their lives and communities are preserved.
I see that my aim is to be a syncopated transition.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
February 5, 2011
Pretty soon I have to deal with the fact that I have taken on more to do than I can possibly manage. I can hear Gloria saying (loudly!) “Give it away!” I feel like I have been giving stuff away but clearly there is some kind of exponential factor going on here. The more you give away the more you’ve got to give away. I guess that’s what abundance is all about.
Giving stuff away is also a dynamic process. The gift must be accepted. And then there’s that difficult space – at least for me – giving something away doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t want to take it back.
Yesterday gave me a good example of this. I have formed an informal partnership with two of my Wisdom City Team colleagues. One is an excellent networker and through her we got to interview David Tsibouchi, a former Cabinet Minister in the Conservative Provincial Government. Things were going well in my view and then this woman turned the conversation into “disability” and claimed that we don’t have an identity as the three of us together. Although this is true in a formal business way, we had already talked about how we have a common accomplishment as being team leaders in the production of the Wisdom course and have international accomplishments that we can lay claim to. Anyways, I had that moment of feeling that I was being left in an untenable position of, first of all, appearing to not know what I’m doing and secondly, being drawn back into the M Level disability conversation.
So what I’m saying is that I have given away unilateral control and suddenly want to snatch it back because it looks to me like the situation could only go in a wrong direction.
It seems like no matter how good I get at communicating who I am and what I want, not to mention what I have to offer, these things don’t get remembered or don’t get appreciated in a way that supports me to move the Inclusion action forward. Now I know that’s not strictly true, maybe not even sort of true – I’m just letting you know how it seems in a situation like that.
In other words I want to keep control over my own legacy. I don’t want to give it away even though that’s what needs to happen with any legacy. It’s a real pain in the ass to keep on hearing over and over again that I’m a leader in the disability world.
Actually I can name you at least half a dozen people who are leaders in the “disability” world who would flatly say that I’m not a leader in the “disability” world. I am actively excluded from many organizations and opportunities in that network. I don’t toe the party line, I’m not doing things that members do, and I’m not reliable to keep within the framework of that type of organization. I would exclude me if I were a leader among people who call themselves disabled.
Perhaps this is a mark that I am actually having an impact – one of those conversations I was having with myself when I was very sick in the hospital. On the one hand I am a hot potato among the people who are promoting a “disability” view of the world – on the other I am being recruited by people who think that Inclusion can be used as a leg up in the “disability” world. Such folks are going to be upset with me indeed!
It’s fascinating and puzzling to me that the ROM has gone to such great lengths to include me in their ponderous planning cycle. It is apparent that three or four key individuals went to bat energetically so that my exhibit would get established inside of 2011. Although I doubt that these people understand Inclusion the way I do – at least not yet – it is clear that they can see that I am offering something different and that I have a way of expressing that is concrete enough and clear enough for the general public to be able to get a flavour of it in a highly visual context.
For me this is a genuine achievement. Less than ten years ago I couldn’t get the words out of my own mouth – now I have an audience as well as enemies and followers, albeit some of those followers have little clue what it is they are following.
I feel I must explore what can be given away and what must be hung on to. It’s no good for me to try and do as much as I’m doing. Too much falls off the plate and I will eventually get too tired, although I’m remarkably feisty right now!
Giving stuff away is also a dynamic process. The gift must be accepted. And then there’s that difficult space – at least for me – giving something away doesn’t necessarily mean I don’t want to take it back.
Yesterday gave me a good example of this. I have formed an informal partnership with two of my Wisdom City Team colleagues. One is an excellent networker and through her we got to interview David Tsibouchi, a former Cabinet Minister in the Conservative Provincial Government. Things were going well in my view and then this woman turned the conversation into “disability” and claimed that we don’t have an identity as the three of us together. Although this is true in a formal business way, we had already talked about how we have a common accomplishment as being team leaders in the production of the Wisdom course and have international accomplishments that we can lay claim to. Anyways, I had that moment of feeling that I was being left in an untenable position of, first of all, appearing to not know what I’m doing and secondly, being drawn back into the M Level disability conversation.
So what I’m saying is that I have given away unilateral control and suddenly want to snatch it back because it looks to me like the situation could only go in a wrong direction.
It seems like no matter how good I get at communicating who I am and what I want, not to mention what I have to offer, these things don’t get remembered or don’t get appreciated in a way that supports me to move the Inclusion action forward. Now I know that’s not strictly true, maybe not even sort of true – I’m just letting you know how it seems in a situation like that.
In other words I want to keep control over my own legacy. I don’t want to give it away even though that’s what needs to happen with any legacy. It’s a real pain in the ass to keep on hearing over and over again that I’m a leader in the disability world.
Actually I can name you at least half a dozen people who are leaders in the “disability” world who would flatly say that I’m not a leader in the “disability” world. I am actively excluded from many organizations and opportunities in that network. I don’t toe the party line, I’m not doing things that members do, and I’m not reliable to keep within the framework of that type of organization. I would exclude me if I were a leader among people who call themselves disabled.
Perhaps this is a mark that I am actually having an impact – one of those conversations I was having with myself when I was very sick in the hospital. On the one hand I am a hot potato among the people who are promoting a “disability” view of the world – on the other I am being recruited by people who think that Inclusion can be used as a leg up in the “disability” world. Such folks are going to be upset with me indeed!
It’s fascinating and puzzling to me that the ROM has gone to such great lengths to include me in their ponderous planning cycle. It is apparent that three or four key individuals went to bat energetically so that my exhibit would get established inside of 2011. Although I doubt that these people understand Inclusion the way I do – at least not yet – it is clear that they can see that I am offering something different and that I have a way of expressing that is concrete enough and clear enough for the general public to be able to get a flavour of it in a highly visual context.
For me this is a genuine achievement. Less than ten years ago I couldn’t get the words out of my own mouth – now I have an audience as well as enemies and followers, albeit some of those followers have little clue what it is they are following.
I feel I must explore what can be given away and what must be hung on to. It’s no good for me to try and do as much as I’m doing. Too much falls off the plate and I will eventually get too tired, although I’m remarkably feisty right now!
Monday, January 31, 2011
January 31, 2011
Prison, Jen (massage!), sick Helen!, exploring, peace, confrontation, money.
Themes!
Mirages. Art!
Pain.
Teleconferences, change, sleeping tigers
I think I am going to figure out how to record these blogs instead of writing them. There is an entire talk forming in my head, and a reluctance to write. At the same time there is an article and a painting in there too. Gestation indeed.
Perhaps I am neither butterfly nor pelican. A hummingbird? That would be satisfactory!
Time to sleep.
Jen and I determined today that the pain is a message that I have collected so many credits for contributions made that my credit account is full, and that when my credit account is full I can know that I am ALLOWED to rest.
I am in a new dance. Something is emerging. So be it!
Themes!
Mirages. Art!
Pain.
Teleconferences, change, sleeping tigers
I think I am going to figure out how to record these blogs instead of writing them. There is an entire talk forming in my head, and a reluctance to write. At the same time there is an article and a painting in there too. Gestation indeed.
Perhaps I am neither butterfly nor pelican. A hummingbird? That would be satisfactory!
Time to sleep.
Jen and I determined today that the pain is a message that I have collected so many credits for contributions made that my credit account is full, and that when my credit account is full I can know that I am ALLOWED to rest.
I am in a new dance. Something is emerging. So be it!
Sunday, January 30, 2011
January 30, 2011
It’s probably going to be a short one tonight. Just about three quarters of an hour ago Helen texted that she’s sick and doesn’t want to work tomorrow. Nick and I spend the next 40 minutes sorting it out. Not bad really! But it means that it’s bedtime and this blog loses its fascination!!!
Just the same, it is important to CELEBRATE! We found the money. I am going to Savannah, although perhaps not for the full two weeks. We’ll see.
It was simple enough really. Today I sold the trailer to Rob and Michelle Comtois. Instead of coming to me it is going to Mike so that he can set up the travel arrangements and pay himself. With the amount of money that we have raised we can pay another personal assistant. The lodging is free until February 26, so we should be OK. If I am able to earn some more money somewhere, all the better. It will mean that we can stay for a few days into March and pay for an ocean view hotel on Tybee Island for a few days.
My intention is to finish the “Dirty Window” painting. Doing it in Toronto, one hour a week at a time, which is usually all the time I get at Laser Eagles these days, will not have it finished in time to make it a centre piece of the ROM exhibit. (It looks like it’s going to be scheduled for August.) In Savannah, I am hoping to finish it within the two week period and then begin to build other materials around it, like a story, some posters, and perhaps other paintings related in theme.
My though is that by making the prison assembly a central theme in my exhibit, I can create a dance between Inclusion from the “disability” perspective and Inclusion from other diversities and their gifts.
Mike and I had some intense conversations this last weekend. It is good! I am stretching to explain – with compassion I hope – not only what it takes to create Inclusion but also what it takes to be a creator of a concept which can shift the world. Of course, what do I know about shifting the world? However, I have some very solid experience about what doesn’t shift the world. In fact, this is something of a dilemma for me. I have a natural gift of what is not working, and this is very useful sorting out and leaving behind strategies that are less effective. However, it is not very engaging for partners in the work and also it doesn’t actually create a new direction.
On the other hand, I think I have been very creative around building new directions. I am just saying that I have to struggle with myself not to communicate too much negativity.
I am in a very different space than I was a month ago. Even then I was in a very different space from where I was at a month before that. It feels like acceleration – exponential growth. For heaven’s sake, Mike and I were using Fractal theory to describe a model of inclusion should look like. I haven’t even thought about fractals for 10 years and I have utterly forgotten the names of the terms that are relevant. Yet somehow it is as if all the powerful things that I have ever learned are congealing into one large attempt to put Inclusion on the map. So be it.
Just the same, it is important to CELEBRATE! We found the money. I am going to Savannah, although perhaps not for the full two weeks. We’ll see.
It was simple enough really. Today I sold the trailer to Rob and Michelle Comtois. Instead of coming to me it is going to Mike so that he can set up the travel arrangements and pay himself. With the amount of money that we have raised we can pay another personal assistant. The lodging is free until February 26, so we should be OK. If I am able to earn some more money somewhere, all the better. It will mean that we can stay for a few days into March and pay for an ocean view hotel on Tybee Island for a few days.
My intention is to finish the “Dirty Window” painting. Doing it in Toronto, one hour a week at a time, which is usually all the time I get at Laser Eagles these days, will not have it finished in time to make it a centre piece of the ROM exhibit. (It looks like it’s going to be scheduled for August.) In Savannah, I am hoping to finish it within the two week period and then begin to build other materials around it, like a story, some posters, and perhaps other paintings related in theme.
My though is that by making the prison assembly a central theme in my exhibit, I can create a dance between Inclusion from the “disability” perspective and Inclusion from other diversities and their gifts.
Mike and I had some intense conversations this last weekend. It is good! I am stretching to explain – with compassion I hope – not only what it takes to create Inclusion but also what it takes to be a creator of a concept which can shift the world. Of course, what do I know about shifting the world? However, I have some very solid experience about what doesn’t shift the world. In fact, this is something of a dilemma for me. I have a natural gift of what is not working, and this is very useful sorting out and leaving behind strategies that are less effective. However, it is not very engaging for partners in the work and also it doesn’t actually create a new direction.
On the other hand, I think I have been very creative around building new directions. I am just saying that I have to struggle with myself not to communicate too much negativity.
I am in a very different space than I was a month ago. Even then I was in a very different space from where I was at a month before that. It feels like acceleration – exponential growth. For heaven’s sake, Mike and I were using Fractal theory to describe a model of inclusion should look like. I haven’t even thought about fractals for 10 years and I have utterly forgotten the names of the terms that are relevant. Yet somehow it is as if all the powerful things that I have ever learned are congealing into one large attempt to put Inclusion on the map. So be it.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
January 29, 2011
Gloria had a fabulous idea today. She suggests that I take all the entries I have made about the cranes, cubes and the prison which is rising before me and make them into one article and publish it – somewhere like The Globe and Mail.
I will do this, but not tonight.
The doing of this is related in a number of ways. First on my mind is to develop the capacity to be calm, courageous and to celebrate life in the midst of all that is life destroying, horrible and disgusting. My automatic response is to ignore or run away. Truly I want to do neither. I want to be able to continue to look out my window, to be a watcher as my Mother was, and to celebrate the fabulous variety of insignificant events that continue to emerge moment by moment just outside my bedroom window. I want to continue to love living in this odd neighbourhood, so close to the lake, so “underdeveloped”, so human. I want to paint the emergence of life around me. I do not want to stop seeing and I do not want to have to go away. These are ways of the past that I have been able to rise above. This is my personal legacy – to be able to be where I am and be who I am whether or not I am afraid.
From another perspective it is too simplistic and fundamentally not true to say that this prison building is wrong. It is very much not what I would choose, but this is not the same thing as being wrong. There are many dynamics that bring about the global economy that result in Texan prisoners building cubes for Ontario prisoners to assemble and live in. I would prefer that people make different choices, and organize themselves differently in the awesome, largely unconscious, effort to work together around the planet. Just the same, although the results of this effort seem so contrary to life and its affirmation, still it is life and living people that are bringing it about. I do not understand and perhaps understanding is not an adequate response or approach. However, in my not understanding I can still appreciate the awesomeness of what is beyond me and my capacity to understand.
I have spent most of my life in a conscious choice to make a difference that I call Inclusion. I feel that this choice, this calling, is in some kind of coordination with the eternal impulse that brings life to the world – often called God. The rising presence of a massive prison in my backyard – rising night by night as I sleep or don’t sleep in my bed – can it be accidental? And even if it is accidental is it not something to which I can respond? What is before me at this time is to discover the response that I can make that forwards the conversation called Inclusion because that is who I am.
If I write my life with a large brush then it seems that Camphill fell through and my finances fell apart so that I might end up in this bedroom looking out this window at the very time when this prison is being assembled. Of course, I could say the same thing about other elements of my life – for example, that Gabor turned against me so that Mike would come to fill the empty position, or that I would have to turn to ODSP so that I would be in a clear position to choose powerfully how I accept or do not accept the next plan from ACF, or that I would contract a life threatening infection and have five doctors deal with it ineffectively so that I might end up lying and looking out this window for nine weeks. I am sure that many would say that I am far too full of myself to write such a major role into my life script.
On another topic, tomorrow is the day that I set to choose if I am leaving for Savannah, or not, on February 12. It seems that we are about $4000 short of what it would take to pay Mike and another assistant separately from the CILT based fund for my personal assistance. The value of doing it this way, besides keeping the peace among myself, CILT and the Ministry of Health, is that I would recoup a large part of the overspending of this account that has happened in the last seven months.
Unfortunately, no such amount of money is forthcoming for all the usual reasons. It is certainly not for lack of looking for it, although I’m sure there are sources that I have not discovered or touched. For the last six weeks I have kept a chart with happy faces and stars to reinforce my efforts to find money. The chart has helped. I am now more than likely going to earn enough money each month this year to be able to pay back some of the ongoing debt I am in, and to travel to some important engagements like the Conference for Global Transformation in May. Just the same, the money for Savannah is not there today. Of course, it may show up tomorrow. It would be awesome!
What would I do in Savannah? Paint “Dirty Window” and have it ready for the ROM exhibit. (This is the painting of the rising prison.) Catch up on what’s been happening with people who are struggling to be economically included in the most racist place I have ever been. Re-immerse myself in an explicitly Christian environment that somehow moves me deeply. Hang out with pelicans during the month before all the tourists invade. Speak to people about what I have learned and questioned in the two years since I last spent time with them. Enjoy the car ride down and back – a time that always allows me to pull my thoughts together. Eat fabulous southern grits and BBQ and other foods rarely encountered in the cooler north. There is so much more that I can hardly imagine that three or even five weeks wouldn’t pass by in a flash.
But it seems, at least tonight, that I am not meant to go. Seemings can be wrong. I sure hope this one is!
I will do this, but not tonight.
The doing of this is related in a number of ways. First on my mind is to develop the capacity to be calm, courageous and to celebrate life in the midst of all that is life destroying, horrible and disgusting. My automatic response is to ignore or run away. Truly I want to do neither. I want to be able to continue to look out my window, to be a watcher as my Mother was, and to celebrate the fabulous variety of insignificant events that continue to emerge moment by moment just outside my bedroom window. I want to continue to love living in this odd neighbourhood, so close to the lake, so “underdeveloped”, so human. I want to paint the emergence of life around me. I do not want to stop seeing and I do not want to have to go away. These are ways of the past that I have been able to rise above. This is my personal legacy – to be able to be where I am and be who I am whether or not I am afraid.
From another perspective it is too simplistic and fundamentally not true to say that this prison building is wrong. It is very much not what I would choose, but this is not the same thing as being wrong. There are many dynamics that bring about the global economy that result in Texan prisoners building cubes for Ontario prisoners to assemble and live in. I would prefer that people make different choices, and organize themselves differently in the awesome, largely unconscious, effort to work together around the planet. Just the same, although the results of this effort seem so contrary to life and its affirmation, still it is life and living people that are bringing it about. I do not understand and perhaps understanding is not an adequate response or approach. However, in my not understanding I can still appreciate the awesomeness of what is beyond me and my capacity to understand.
I have spent most of my life in a conscious choice to make a difference that I call Inclusion. I feel that this choice, this calling, is in some kind of coordination with the eternal impulse that brings life to the world – often called God. The rising presence of a massive prison in my backyard – rising night by night as I sleep or don’t sleep in my bed – can it be accidental? And even if it is accidental is it not something to which I can respond? What is before me at this time is to discover the response that I can make that forwards the conversation called Inclusion because that is who I am.
If I write my life with a large brush then it seems that Camphill fell through and my finances fell apart so that I might end up in this bedroom looking out this window at the very time when this prison is being assembled. Of course, I could say the same thing about other elements of my life – for example, that Gabor turned against me so that Mike would come to fill the empty position, or that I would have to turn to ODSP so that I would be in a clear position to choose powerfully how I accept or do not accept the next plan from ACF, or that I would contract a life threatening infection and have five doctors deal with it ineffectively so that I might end up lying and looking out this window for nine weeks. I am sure that many would say that I am far too full of myself to write such a major role into my life script.
On another topic, tomorrow is the day that I set to choose if I am leaving for Savannah, or not, on February 12. It seems that we are about $4000 short of what it would take to pay Mike and another assistant separately from the CILT based fund for my personal assistance. The value of doing it this way, besides keeping the peace among myself, CILT and the Ministry of Health, is that I would recoup a large part of the overspending of this account that has happened in the last seven months.
Unfortunately, no such amount of money is forthcoming for all the usual reasons. It is certainly not for lack of looking for it, although I’m sure there are sources that I have not discovered or touched. For the last six weeks I have kept a chart with happy faces and stars to reinforce my efforts to find money. The chart has helped. I am now more than likely going to earn enough money each month this year to be able to pay back some of the ongoing debt I am in, and to travel to some important engagements like the Conference for Global Transformation in May. Just the same, the money for Savannah is not there today. Of course, it may show up tomorrow. It would be awesome!
What would I do in Savannah? Paint “Dirty Window” and have it ready for the ROM exhibit. (This is the painting of the rising prison.) Catch up on what’s been happening with people who are struggling to be economically included in the most racist place I have ever been. Re-immerse myself in an explicitly Christian environment that somehow moves me deeply. Hang out with pelicans during the month before all the tourists invade. Speak to people about what I have learned and questioned in the two years since I last spent time with them. Enjoy the car ride down and back – a time that always allows me to pull my thoughts together. Eat fabulous southern grits and BBQ and other foods rarely encountered in the cooler north. There is so much more that I can hardly imagine that three or even five weeks wouldn’t pass by in a flash.
But it seems, at least tonight, that I am not meant to go. Seemings can be wrong. I sure hope this one is!
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
January 18, 2011
Today:
- The GTA, and apparently lots of the eastern seaboard, stopped in anticipation of an ice storm, or because it really hit. Here in the city of Toronto proper it was all hype. Mike and I walked to and from Laser Eagles.
- Mike and a little bit I started to draft the WPIT organization chart, with the Smart Draw software Peter Christianson bought for us.
- We made real progress with the painting “Dirty Window”, and painted another left over paint piece.
- Elizabeth and I made a little progress with grant writing.
- I landed a small monthly job.
The stuff I DIDN’T get done fills another half page. My desk is a mess. Stuff “to do” is spilling onto the printer, the dining table, the bureau, sometimes my bed.
I haven’t yet started reading the draft of my book!
When life gets like this I get jittery. Yes, I have moments when I experience the “going forward” but I also feel the anxiety of fearing that the “not done” will sneak up and bite me in the ass. Why have I not yet written contracts with Mike, Kimberly, Dan, Elizabeth and Peter? What about scheduling, performance reviews, hiring, training, What about fund raising for the assistant’s salaries? Etc., etc.
Tomorrow I must get “real” and figure out who is going to take some of this on. Gloria keeps on saying I don’t give things away. I don’t think this is what she means, exactly, but somehow I literally can’t keep up with myself, or so it seems today.
At the same time I believe that the jitters really come from the small me fighting the international me, somehow worried that I am not “safe” playing out my life and vision in this way. Be small “it” says. Take on less. Don’t expose yourself.
Well it’s too late for that now, isn’t it!
I have heard it said that a powerful road to success is to plan to fail often and progressively – learning something with each failure. If this works, what failure could I take on next which would make a real difference?
Some candidates are:
- finding two executive assistants
- selling my art for big bucks
- preselling my book
- How about – getting the Nobel Peace Prize? I like that one!
Tomorrow I will start to find out what it takes to win the Nobel Peace Prize! Even if I never get it, putting the steps into place must make a genuine difference in how the world views and does Inclusion.
- The GTA, and apparently lots of the eastern seaboard, stopped in anticipation of an ice storm, or because it really hit. Here in the city of Toronto proper it was all hype. Mike and I walked to and from Laser Eagles.
- Mike and a little bit I started to draft the WPIT organization chart, with the Smart Draw software Peter Christianson bought for us.
- We made real progress with the painting “Dirty Window”, and painted another left over paint piece.
- Elizabeth and I made a little progress with grant writing.
- I landed a small monthly job.
The stuff I DIDN’T get done fills another half page. My desk is a mess. Stuff “to do” is spilling onto the printer, the dining table, the bureau, sometimes my bed.
I haven’t yet started reading the draft of my book!
When life gets like this I get jittery. Yes, I have moments when I experience the “going forward” but I also feel the anxiety of fearing that the “not done” will sneak up and bite me in the ass. Why have I not yet written contracts with Mike, Kimberly, Dan, Elizabeth and Peter? What about scheduling, performance reviews, hiring, training, What about fund raising for the assistant’s salaries? Etc., etc.
Tomorrow I must get “real” and figure out who is going to take some of this on. Gloria keeps on saying I don’t give things away. I don’t think this is what she means, exactly, but somehow I literally can’t keep up with myself, or so it seems today.
At the same time I believe that the jitters really come from the small me fighting the international me, somehow worried that I am not “safe” playing out my life and vision in this way. Be small “it” says. Take on less. Don’t expose yourself.
Well it’s too late for that now, isn’t it!
I have heard it said that a powerful road to success is to plan to fail often and progressively – learning something with each failure. If this works, what failure could I take on next which would make a real difference?
Some candidates are:
- finding two executive assistants
- selling my art for big bucks
- preselling my book
- How about – getting the Nobel Peace Prize? I like that one!
Tomorrow I will start to find out what it takes to win the Nobel Peace Prize! Even if I never get it, putting the steps into place must make a genuine difference in how the world views and does Inclusion.
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
January 11, 2011
Well there are days when the ball just won’t go between the posts! I was running late pretty well all day. Mike and I went to a consignment store this morning and there were some really great things but nothing in quite the right size. I got an email back from someone who had been asking good questions about WPIT but he declined to donate. I called some more people to be guests at the Wisdom Completion Evening this Thursday but just got message machines. Blah blah blah.
Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.
It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.
In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.
Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.
At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!
It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!
Perhaps the truly concerning “failure” was my need to use Morphine two days in a row. Jen did say there would be major shifts, and there have been. I do recognize it as one of those plateaus before a great step forward. Just the same, I am tired and sore, and kind of wishing I hadn’t booked myself such a busy week! But so it goes and I’m just venting, not really worried or complaining.
It is interesting how the quality of the questions and comments about WPIT as an organization and our projects are taking on a very more rich and serious (in a good sense) quality. I was Skyping with a colleague this evening and she completely bought into our need for a $6 million dollar foundation so that we can do our projects without constantly having our hands in somebody else’s pocket. She also was thinking about who, at the university level, might take on the kind of social/economic research that inclusion deserves. In a sense she is a “nobody” in the world of big money and research but life doesn’t work that way. Talking to her tonight makes it easier for me to talk to the Executive Director of ACF tomorrow, and on the other hand I have no idea who she knows or who knows who she knows. The message is travelling out and getting stronger as it goes.
In Wisdom we talk about fail, fail, failing your way to success. It very much feels like that is where I am at this time. It kind of makes it easier in a way because if lots of failure is the way to success then bring it on, bring it on, bring it on!
Of course, I hope that the failures are getting smarter as we go!
I feel like it’s been a very long time since I worked hard. I did not work hard at my jobs in the early and mid 90’s. The international travel was fun. The paid office stuff was excruciatingly boring and useless but not at all hard. The intense schedule and consistent phoning, writing, speaking that I’m doing now is considerably more difficult in the sense of leaving no room for fooling around, but it’s making a lot of sense and building a network and proving that I can be worthy of a team working with me. It is a very different life than Cycle 2.
Oh yes, I painted today. Well I didn’t actually paint. Mike and I spent about an hour preparing to paint. I am about to attempt reproducing a photograph of a scene outside my window – one of the scenes of the industrial and railway view outside my bedroom. It is a picture that I took during the last week that I spent most of my time in bed. It is very inclusive of all the elements that intrigue me about this view – the cranes, the trains and the sandbox quality of the scene.
At one point this morning I thought that I might not be able to paint today and keep up with all the other things I said I would do. I realized, though, that painting is once again going to disappear as a regular activity unless I stick to it in my schedule. Actually it’s amazing how much disappears when I (or anyone else!) doesn’t stick to the schedule. We talk about freedom of choice etc. But I chose all these things that are in my life and I chose them freely so having them disappear because I don’t keep my schedule is just some sort of insanity. I am free. I just have to remember that!
It’s been a long day. Tomorrow may be a big day if the meeting with Atkinson goes as well as it could! Time to pack it in!
Sunday, January 9, 2011
January 9, 2011
As I was going to bed last night, Mike assisting, after staying up a little late to blog, I thought that the day had been so fulfilling, so replete with authentic experience, that I could happily die with no regrets. Well, I didn’t die. I awoke to a day of more video taping in my winter coat under camera lights, more Farmville, more apple pie, and beautiful sunshine. The vision out of my lake facing window was just like so many of those Christmas card scenes with brilliant sun shining on neat and even tiny houses with perfectly snow covered roof tops!
I got so tired today that I actually fell asleep momentarily during a pause in the taping. Just the same, finally, Michael, Sarah and I reached an ending to the play that we all are excited about. It is in the camera. The editing can happen. I do not have to travel with the play unless I want to.
At the same time I feel the pressure of how structured I am making my life again. Each of my chosen task areas could use whole days in and of themselves to “do” them with research and thoroughness. WPIT, painting, blogging, the ACF Inclusion Circle, travel and workshops, Wisdom Graduate Liaison, the Robert Cooke Coop, attending to the gifts and needs of my staff, not to mention the Individualized Funding envelope upon which we all depend, Farmville, time with my Dad, time watching pelicans and construction cranes – I can’t keep up with myself, and to just give each of them “a lick and a promise” (there’s my Mother again!) fills my day from 6:30am to 12:30am.
Yet I don’t seriously intend to change a thing. It’s all too rich!
A clone? Would it really give me “more time” or would I just expand to nearly burst two lives – not just one?
So often I feel like I never left off being four years old. I just want to play and eat. I do NOT want to go to bed no matter if I can’t stay awake long enough to get there. I want to get into everything, leave the messes to someone else and find out how everything works. And I never really mean to do harm.
Four is compelling and passionate, creative and fantastical, and NEVER reasonable. Four doesn’t have a style, a culture, a career, a financial plan, an ethic or a long memory. Four is optimistic. Four makes and loses friends easily, forgives easily and is easily forgiven. Four is able to bend a long, long way before breaking.
Four is also right on the edge of losing that openness, of becoming fearful, judgemental and certain, of narrowing the options and playing the game. It is nearly the moment to find out there is no Santa Claus.
Then it’s a long, long stretch until maybe, just maybe the adult becomes willing and able to be responsible for creating a world within which she and everyone she touches can be four again.
I want to be, and sometimes am, that adult. It is good!
I got so tired today that I actually fell asleep momentarily during a pause in the taping. Just the same, finally, Michael, Sarah and I reached an ending to the play that we all are excited about. It is in the camera. The editing can happen. I do not have to travel with the play unless I want to.
At the same time I feel the pressure of how structured I am making my life again. Each of my chosen task areas could use whole days in and of themselves to “do” them with research and thoroughness. WPIT, painting, blogging, the ACF Inclusion Circle, travel and workshops, Wisdom Graduate Liaison, the Robert Cooke Coop, attending to the gifts and needs of my staff, not to mention the Individualized Funding envelope upon which we all depend, Farmville, time with my Dad, time watching pelicans and construction cranes – I can’t keep up with myself, and to just give each of them “a lick and a promise” (there’s my Mother again!) fills my day from 6:30am to 12:30am.
Yet I don’t seriously intend to change a thing. It’s all too rich!
A clone? Would it really give me “more time” or would I just expand to nearly burst two lives – not just one?
So often I feel like I never left off being four years old. I just want to play and eat. I do NOT want to go to bed no matter if I can’t stay awake long enough to get there. I want to get into everything, leave the messes to someone else and find out how everything works. And I never really mean to do harm.
Four is compelling and passionate, creative and fantastical, and NEVER reasonable. Four doesn’t have a style, a culture, a career, a financial plan, an ethic or a long memory. Four is optimistic. Four makes and loses friends easily, forgives easily and is easily forgiven. Four is able to bend a long, long way before breaking.
Four is also right on the edge of losing that openness, of becoming fearful, judgemental and certain, of narrowing the options and playing the game. It is nearly the moment to find out there is no Santa Claus.
Then it’s a long, long stretch until maybe, just maybe the adult becomes willing and able to be responsible for creating a world within which she and everyone she touches can be four again.
I want to be, and sometimes am, that adult. It is good!
Monday, December 20, 2010
December 20, 2010
Jen the masseuse, Kevin the frazzling child, trading a ride to Christmas shop with Helen for a car wash – inside and out, fundraising, cancelled meetings all day, tracking down a minced pie for tomorrow’s Laser Eagles potluck, discussing the next phases of WPIT with Mike, answered and unanswered e-mail, wrapping presents – these occupied my day.
Jen says there is no choice except to rest. At the same time we are on a very different plane today with my body, discussing together the intricacies of clearing and opening space for my right side while moving more of what I do with my right side into my left side – practical to spiritual. It’s a much different place than managing pain, though there is still some pain to manage. Oh, by the way, I don’t really get what all that means in a day-to-day way. Stay tuned!
When I get to this moment in the year I generally feel a certain sense of victory. This year, this night, at 3:17am Eastern Time there will be a full eclipse of the moon and we will also pass the Solstice. Thursday will yield more sunlight than today. Daylight will steadily lengthen until June 21, 2011.
There are moments in life when you know for certain that it doesn’t get worse than this. Those moments are perversely joyful, at least to me, giving a sense of power and vitality. Now that I am solidly into my Third Cycle this eclipsed Solstice offers just such a sense of joy and strength. I have already come through some of the most difficult moments of my life, and yet so much potential and realized opportunity is with me at this time.
I love my home, my health has returned, I have pathways to money, I have great staff and awesome friends, the ROM is working with me, the Book of Judith will tour this year coming and next, Mike Skubic is putting real legs under WPIT and – mysteriously – I even feel more attractive to men. I want to be a leader, I am a leader and I have the strongest chance ever to make a worldwide difference.
Some euphoria is Morphine, no doubt. Yesterday I took none but today I took two doses. Just the same could Morphine give me a high if there was nothing in my soul to be uplifted? I doubt it.
Besides money, if there is something to be at work to accomplish it would be to paint more frequently and steadily, which means having reliable and frequent access to a tracker that is trained to my ways. Mike has great potential but we have so much else going on that tracking for me easily gets sidelined. There is no reason I couldn’t have more than one tracker.
I never expected that art and writing would play such a large part of my life and be such a strong path to building Inclusion. Yet when I look back over the past seven years, and also twenty-eight years, painting, theatre and writing have been the most expressive and reliable vehicles for me to be Judith.
Funny how long it takes to see the obvious.
Anyway it is time to focus on painting, writing, friends, good food and rest. There are other important aspects to my life, of course, but these are my foundation.
The Third Cycle will continue.
Jen says there is no choice except to rest. At the same time we are on a very different plane today with my body, discussing together the intricacies of clearing and opening space for my right side while moving more of what I do with my right side into my left side – practical to spiritual. It’s a much different place than managing pain, though there is still some pain to manage. Oh, by the way, I don’t really get what all that means in a day-to-day way. Stay tuned!
When I get to this moment in the year I generally feel a certain sense of victory. This year, this night, at 3:17am Eastern Time there will be a full eclipse of the moon and we will also pass the Solstice. Thursday will yield more sunlight than today. Daylight will steadily lengthen until June 21, 2011.
There are moments in life when you know for certain that it doesn’t get worse than this. Those moments are perversely joyful, at least to me, giving a sense of power and vitality. Now that I am solidly into my Third Cycle this eclipsed Solstice offers just such a sense of joy and strength. I have already come through some of the most difficult moments of my life, and yet so much potential and realized opportunity is with me at this time.
I love my home, my health has returned, I have pathways to money, I have great staff and awesome friends, the ROM is working with me, the Book of Judith will tour this year coming and next, Mike Skubic is putting real legs under WPIT and – mysteriously – I even feel more attractive to men. I want to be a leader, I am a leader and I have the strongest chance ever to make a worldwide difference.
Some euphoria is Morphine, no doubt. Yesterday I took none but today I took two doses. Just the same could Morphine give me a high if there was nothing in my soul to be uplifted? I doubt it.
Besides money, if there is something to be at work to accomplish it would be to paint more frequently and steadily, which means having reliable and frequent access to a tracker that is trained to my ways. Mike has great potential but we have so much else going on that tracking for me easily gets sidelined. There is no reason I couldn’t have more than one tracker.
I never expected that art and writing would play such a large part of my life and be such a strong path to building Inclusion. Yet when I look back over the past seven years, and also twenty-eight years, painting, theatre and writing have been the most expressive and reliable vehicles for me to be Judith.
Funny how long it takes to see the obvious.
Anyway it is time to focus on painting, writing, friends, good food and rest. There are other important aspects to my life, of course, but these are my foundation.
The Third Cycle will continue.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
December 19, 2010
I wrote my second draft for the ROM tonight. I now feel free to share the first one. We are pushed back to mid-June or early July, for very good reasons. More soon!
Exhibit Overview – the Legacy of Judith
Preliminary Thoughts
This - Draft 1 - is written by Judith Snow. It is clear to me at this moment that I cannot fairly represent The Book of Judith since Michael Rubenfeld, Sarah Garton Stanley and I have not worked together since the ROM hosted the preliminary meeting on Nov. 29.
I have only a superficial understanding of the needs, structures and processes of the ROM. As such I anticipate that this – the first kick at the can – is off base and I am requesting lots of constructive feedback and an opportunity to meet key players in the near future.
I have spoken at length with nine individuals who come from a variety of communities in my life, such as a Vice President of Spinmaster, which is a toy company, who advised me about interactive toys.
Dreams, Hopes, Must Haves
I am starting at my dream because dreaming is always a powerful place to start!
I want the people who design, build, tour and enjoy this exhibit to be exposed to and potentially fall in love with the understanding that Inclusion is a multi-dimensional approach to building a vibrant society where social and economic benefits accrue from garnering the gifts of diversity.
My art, and the play The Book of Judith, are aspects of my legacy of building Inclusion internationally. This is what the ROM knows about me so this is what we talked about on Nov. 29. However, my paintings and the play are not a complete representation of what it means to be Judith Snow. Therefore I have been imagining an interactive exhibit that says more than these can say in themselves.
I have many long term partners and relationships with whom I want to share this voice. The ROM is primary because they own and have opened the opportunity, and because there is a longer term potential through the Programming functions at ROM to continue to foster understanding and practise of Inclusion. Secondly, the Book of Judith and I are essentially one in this, though it remains to be created how the tour of the play intersects with the tour of the exhibit.
Laser Eagles Art Guild, the Marsha Forest Centre, the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, World Peace through Inclusive Transformation and the City Team of the Toronto Wisdom Unlimited program are all integrated in my journey toward “being” Inclusion. This exhibit is my chance to shine AND to celebrate my community, relationships, collaboration and partnerships. To me they are central to my life and legacy.
While this work can’t be only about ME and my art, at the same time the design of the exhibit can and must integrate these relationships without confusion of the message, distraction from the art and the play, or encumbrances that would make the exhibit unworkable as a touring or stationary unit.
My “must haves” are:
It will be joyful and uplifting to do this - for me and others;
I am partnered with and taught what I need to know to fully participate;
The stationary and touring products represent Inclusion as I understand it;
The exhibit has an interactive component, and the exhibitors work with me to ensure that this aspect is sustained when I am not present to do so; and,
Costs are covered and there is sufficient recompense as to not make my participation a financial burden to me.
The “would love it if” aspects are:
I would like a book to get written, published, to sell well and to launch my ideas through related videos and other media.
I would like to get a teaching venue out of this where I have real control over the teacher, student, content dynamic.
I don’t expect the ROM to promise these, but the exposure and “the resume” are priceless to me! I am asking only that people are aware that these are important to me and to steer in directions that make these results likely.
Limitations, Barriers and Challenges
Inclusion necessarily is a challenge to the status quo in some way. This means there will always be “issues” when we are beginning the effort to be inclusive. I began my thinking about the exhibit itself by “noticing” what came up for me as issues.
The exhibit room is roughly 20 feet by 24 with three doorways and one “lopped off” corner giving effectively 7 discreet display areas of varying size. In addition there is a display panel in the middle of the room that runs on a diagonal and is approximately 9 by 2 by 7 feet high, and from which can be hung paintings, posters, video screens and similar objects. The walls are white, smooth and likely painted. The ceiling is perhaps 20 feet high or more and both inaccessible and not uniform in construction. The floor is smooth and not carpeted. There is no seating of any kind. There is abundant track lighting aimed at the walls and central display panel, making the room bright and very suitable as an art gallery.
The room is essentially a thoroughfare for visitors and staff moving from the Rotunda core or the elevators to the dinosaur exhibit and service areas. When we were being shown the room I observed a continuous low flow of traffic – everything from guests to garbage disposal units moved on through! The challenge is to entice visitors to step out of the flow and spend some time – maybe time that they had allocated for other exhibits – dipping into and dallying with Inclusion.
Other limitations – not necessarily BARRIERS – are that:
Floor space to move around in, after the “stuff” is placed, is not ample;
People who do not easily stand for more than a few minutes have no place to rest;
There is no apparent expectation that the exhibit will cater to children, those who lie down or those with unusual sensitivities or interests in light or sound; and,
Sharing the experience of play or interaction in general is NOT encouraged as there is an ongoing need to prevent vandalism in this and other exhibits.
Concepts for the Exhibit
The room lends itself neatly to the paradigm of structuring inclusive support that I used to call “Harmonizing the Four Things Worth Doing” – the paradigm that formed much of the basis of the 1991 book: “What’s Really Worth Doing and How to Do It”, still available through Inclusion Press.
In my current conceptualization the regular path that visitors who are merely going through the room with no intention of staying will be clearly marked as “The Normal Path – Do Not Stop or Look Around”. All along it there will also be enticements to step aside and stay awhile, learn something and enjoy the experience.
In addition, the room will be conceptually divided into three layers. The middle layer will be for language based communications, including talking videos, text and more realistic paintings. The floor to about 3 ½ feet up will be for playful, interactive and colourful objects and paintings. Six feet up will be for projections, both colourful and those statements and photographs captured and recorded by visitors.
The groupings of videos, pictures and photographs on the central panel will focus on dreaming. The rest of the display space will focus on place, people and resources, indicating how different communities in my life have shaped my expressions of Inclusion. Finally the “dead” space between the “Normal Road” and the South Wall, really 3 short walls connected like a bay window between the main entrance and exit, will be reserved for statements about barriers. For example I will hang my first framed painting, “Vulnerability”, where my tracker was an art therapist who claimed that my work wasn’t art.
I will find ways to include other artists such as Felicia Galati and Irena Kagansky. The intention is to show, first, that I am not unique among artists as a person who does not sit easily with being labelled disabled, and secondly, that I have influenced such artists.
Floor to 3 1/2 feet
The concept is to appeal to children and others who are unlikely to be interested in language driven information. Spinmaster will donate four Aquadoodles. These devices allow drawing, finger and hand prints, and written messages. The message slowly disappears in a few minutes. We can arrange a camera that takes a picture of the design/message, to preserve it and project the growing collection of messages in a slowly moving pattern on the walls and perhaps on hung-from-ceiling panels.
Colourful, abstract paintings will also be hung in this area, perhaps six of mine and another six from Laser Eagle artists, featuring Felicia Galati. They will be unframed canvas boards, solidly attached to the wall and covered with a material like Plexiglas that can be easily cleaned off.
Six feet up…
The Marsha Forest Centre will collaborate to refurbish and/or redesign some of my PATH’s and other graphically designed depictions on newsprint, typically banners that are 8 by 3 ½ feet. The themes will indicate movement from early to later understandings of Inclusion. The newsprint will be “fixed” and can be mounted so as to be moved for the tour.
These will intermingle with the preserved drawings and messages from the Aquadoodles.
3 ½ feet to six
(Please note: exact dimensions of paintings will follow as soon as the basic design is agreed on.)
“Dead Space” of the South Wall:
“My Community” – acrylic on canvas, not framed, approx. 4 by 2 1/2 by 2 inches, accompanied by text about my being ejected from the organization that I started to flow individualized funding to coop members who need personal assistance;
photos of Irene Kagansky in the Book of Judith choir, text from my blog entry about her, and a display of one of her poems;
“Vulnerability” – acrylic on newsprint, framed and glazed, 29 in by 23 in by 1 in, on the South/West wall adjacent to exit, with text about being told I’m not an artist.
East Wall
This area will be used for an extensive exploration of the Laser Eagles Art Guild, including:
video on tracking and tracker training
about 4 framed paintings (dimensions to follow shortly)
photographs of artists at work
statements from the Etobicoke Art Gallery where our work has been displayed an exhibition of Felicia Galati’s work, pictures of her painting and an article that I wrote for the Centennial Flame project acknowledging her gifts (English, French, Text & Audio)
an area for me or other Laser Eagle artists to demonstrate how we paint. This area will not be continuously be used of course and so at other times paintings on easels can be left on display and cordoned off for security purposes.
North Wall – larger area
This will be the People area. It will be organized in sections relative to the important communities of my life.
The area for the Wisdom City Team will include a painting called “Boats”, which is acrylic on canvas, and needs to be framed. It will also include a video slide presentation of people assisting me to climb a rock wall on a cruise ship. The short article that I wrote about this called “Shoes” will be displayed in such a way that it can be read or listened to. Likely other artifacts, collages and text relative to participation will be displayed, (I’m making it up here guys!)
Similar displays will be created with a painting, text and video for other communities as mentioned in the beginning of this document.
In addition to being organized by communities, we will use a “path” that is painted on the wall to demonstrate how my art has progressed from 1984 to now. I will use 4 or 5 unframed paintings, (these may be framed by the ROM if this is their preference). I will also use quotes and text to demonstrate shifts in my thinking about Inclusion.
Following a progression, everything about the Book of Judith play will be around the doorway which is in the west side of the North Wall.
North Wall – smaller area, and West Wall
This area will be used to demonstrate Resources. I will work with Motion Specialties to have a puff and sip, and a touch plate system available for show, and video demonstrating how people drive their wheelchairs and type on computers with these systems. We will also provide video of artists painting using the lasers, and when a Laser Eagle artist is present we will provide lasers for people to attempt tracking themselves.
Central Display Panel
This will be used on both sides for video, text and perhaps 4 paintings (framed) to demonstrate the importance of dreaming.
I have a large 10” diameter Dreamcatcher made by a young aboriginal man with autism. I will display pictures of him creating the Dreamcatcher. This artefact needs to be repaired and cleaned, and hung high enough to not be vulnerable to passersby.
Questions…
Insurable value??? How does that get calculated?
How to represent “Place”??
I’m sure there are many others!
Conclusion
Once again, thank you for this opportunity and please provide extensive feedback so that I may quickly get to work on creating and finding the resources and artefacts that will make this exhibit extraordinary.
Exhibit Overview – the Legacy of Judith
Preliminary Thoughts
This - Draft 1 - is written by Judith Snow. It is clear to me at this moment that I cannot fairly represent The Book of Judith since Michael Rubenfeld, Sarah Garton Stanley and I have not worked together since the ROM hosted the preliminary meeting on Nov. 29.
I have only a superficial understanding of the needs, structures and processes of the ROM. As such I anticipate that this – the first kick at the can – is off base and I am requesting lots of constructive feedback and an opportunity to meet key players in the near future.
I have spoken at length with nine individuals who come from a variety of communities in my life, such as a Vice President of Spinmaster, which is a toy company, who advised me about interactive toys.
Dreams, Hopes, Must Haves
I am starting at my dream because dreaming is always a powerful place to start!
I want the people who design, build, tour and enjoy this exhibit to be exposed to and potentially fall in love with the understanding that Inclusion is a multi-dimensional approach to building a vibrant society where social and economic benefits accrue from garnering the gifts of diversity.
My art, and the play The Book of Judith, are aspects of my legacy of building Inclusion internationally. This is what the ROM knows about me so this is what we talked about on Nov. 29. However, my paintings and the play are not a complete representation of what it means to be Judith Snow. Therefore I have been imagining an interactive exhibit that says more than these can say in themselves.
I have many long term partners and relationships with whom I want to share this voice. The ROM is primary because they own and have opened the opportunity, and because there is a longer term potential through the Programming functions at ROM to continue to foster understanding and practise of Inclusion. Secondly, the Book of Judith and I are essentially one in this, though it remains to be created how the tour of the play intersects with the tour of the exhibit.
Laser Eagles Art Guild, the Marsha Forest Centre, the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, World Peace through Inclusive Transformation and the City Team of the Toronto Wisdom Unlimited program are all integrated in my journey toward “being” Inclusion. This exhibit is my chance to shine AND to celebrate my community, relationships, collaboration and partnerships. To me they are central to my life and legacy.
While this work can’t be only about ME and my art, at the same time the design of the exhibit can and must integrate these relationships without confusion of the message, distraction from the art and the play, or encumbrances that would make the exhibit unworkable as a touring or stationary unit.
My “must haves” are:
It will be joyful and uplifting to do this - for me and others;
I am partnered with and taught what I need to know to fully participate;
The stationary and touring products represent Inclusion as I understand it;
The exhibit has an interactive component, and the exhibitors work with me to ensure that this aspect is sustained when I am not present to do so; and,
Costs are covered and there is sufficient recompense as to not make my participation a financial burden to me.
The “would love it if” aspects are:
I would like a book to get written, published, to sell well and to launch my ideas through related videos and other media.
I would like to get a teaching venue out of this where I have real control over the teacher, student, content dynamic.
I don’t expect the ROM to promise these, but the exposure and “the resume” are priceless to me! I am asking only that people are aware that these are important to me and to steer in directions that make these results likely.
Limitations, Barriers and Challenges
Inclusion necessarily is a challenge to the status quo in some way. This means there will always be “issues” when we are beginning the effort to be inclusive. I began my thinking about the exhibit itself by “noticing” what came up for me as issues.
The exhibit room is roughly 20 feet by 24 with three doorways and one “lopped off” corner giving effectively 7 discreet display areas of varying size. In addition there is a display panel in the middle of the room that runs on a diagonal and is approximately 9 by 2 by 7 feet high, and from which can be hung paintings, posters, video screens and similar objects. The walls are white, smooth and likely painted. The ceiling is perhaps 20 feet high or more and both inaccessible and not uniform in construction. The floor is smooth and not carpeted. There is no seating of any kind. There is abundant track lighting aimed at the walls and central display panel, making the room bright and very suitable as an art gallery.
The room is essentially a thoroughfare for visitors and staff moving from the Rotunda core or the elevators to the dinosaur exhibit and service areas. When we were being shown the room I observed a continuous low flow of traffic – everything from guests to garbage disposal units moved on through! The challenge is to entice visitors to step out of the flow and spend some time – maybe time that they had allocated for other exhibits – dipping into and dallying with Inclusion.
Other limitations – not necessarily BARRIERS – are that:
Floor space to move around in, after the “stuff” is placed, is not ample;
People who do not easily stand for more than a few minutes have no place to rest;
There is no apparent expectation that the exhibit will cater to children, those who lie down or those with unusual sensitivities or interests in light or sound; and,
Sharing the experience of play or interaction in general is NOT encouraged as there is an ongoing need to prevent vandalism in this and other exhibits.
Concepts for the Exhibit
The room lends itself neatly to the paradigm of structuring inclusive support that I used to call “Harmonizing the Four Things Worth Doing” – the paradigm that formed much of the basis of the 1991 book: “What’s Really Worth Doing and How to Do It”, still available through Inclusion Press.
In my current conceptualization the regular path that visitors who are merely going through the room with no intention of staying will be clearly marked as “The Normal Path – Do Not Stop or Look Around”. All along it there will also be enticements to step aside and stay awhile, learn something and enjoy the experience.
In addition, the room will be conceptually divided into three layers. The middle layer will be for language based communications, including talking videos, text and more realistic paintings. The floor to about 3 ½ feet up will be for playful, interactive and colourful objects and paintings. Six feet up will be for projections, both colourful and those statements and photographs captured and recorded by visitors.
The groupings of videos, pictures and photographs on the central panel will focus on dreaming. The rest of the display space will focus on place, people and resources, indicating how different communities in my life have shaped my expressions of Inclusion. Finally the “dead” space between the “Normal Road” and the South Wall, really 3 short walls connected like a bay window between the main entrance and exit, will be reserved for statements about barriers. For example I will hang my first framed painting, “Vulnerability”, where my tracker was an art therapist who claimed that my work wasn’t art.
I will find ways to include other artists such as Felicia Galati and Irena Kagansky. The intention is to show, first, that I am not unique among artists as a person who does not sit easily with being labelled disabled, and secondly, that I have influenced such artists.
Floor to 3 1/2 feet
The concept is to appeal to children and others who are unlikely to be interested in language driven information. Spinmaster will donate four Aquadoodles. These devices allow drawing, finger and hand prints, and written messages. The message slowly disappears in a few minutes. We can arrange a camera that takes a picture of the design/message, to preserve it and project the growing collection of messages in a slowly moving pattern on the walls and perhaps on hung-from-ceiling panels.
Colourful, abstract paintings will also be hung in this area, perhaps six of mine and another six from Laser Eagle artists, featuring Felicia Galati. They will be unframed canvas boards, solidly attached to the wall and covered with a material like Plexiglas that can be easily cleaned off.
Six feet up…
The Marsha Forest Centre will collaborate to refurbish and/or redesign some of my PATH’s and other graphically designed depictions on newsprint, typically banners that are 8 by 3 ½ feet. The themes will indicate movement from early to later understandings of Inclusion. The newsprint will be “fixed” and can be mounted so as to be moved for the tour.
These will intermingle with the preserved drawings and messages from the Aquadoodles.
3 ½ feet to six
(Please note: exact dimensions of paintings will follow as soon as the basic design is agreed on.)
“Dead Space” of the South Wall:
“My Community” – acrylic on canvas, not framed, approx. 4 by 2 1/2 by 2 inches, accompanied by text about my being ejected from the organization that I started to flow individualized funding to coop members who need personal assistance;
photos of Irene Kagansky in the Book of Judith choir, text from my blog entry about her, and a display of one of her poems;
“Vulnerability” – acrylic on newsprint, framed and glazed, 29 in by 23 in by 1 in, on the South/West wall adjacent to exit, with text about being told I’m not an artist.
East Wall
This area will be used for an extensive exploration of the Laser Eagles Art Guild, including:
video on tracking and tracker training
about 4 framed paintings (dimensions to follow shortly)
photographs of artists at work
statements from the Etobicoke Art Gallery where our work has been displayed an exhibition of Felicia Galati’s work, pictures of her painting and an article that I wrote for the Centennial Flame project acknowledging her gifts (English, French, Text & Audio)
an area for me or other Laser Eagle artists to demonstrate how we paint. This area will not be continuously be used of course and so at other times paintings on easels can be left on display and cordoned off for security purposes.
North Wall – larger area
This will be the People area. It will be organized in sections relative to the important communities of my life.
The area for the Wisdom City Team will include a painting called “Boats”, which is acrylic on canvas, and needs to be framed. It will also include a video slide presentation of people assisting me to climb a rock wall on a cruise ship. The short article that I wrote about this called “Shoes” will be displayed in such a way that it can be read or listened to. Likely other artifacts, collages and text relative to participation will be displayed, (I’m making it up here guys!)
Similar displays will be created with a painting, text and video for other communities as mentioned in the beginning of this document.
In addition to being organized by communities, we will use a “path” that is painted on the wall to demonstrate how my art has progressed from 1984 to now. I will use 4 or 5 unframed paintings, (these may be framed by the ROM if this is their preference). I will also use quotes and text to demonstrate shifts in my thinking about Inclusion.
Following a progression, everything about the Book of Judith play will be around the doorway which is in the west side of the North Wall.
North Wall – smaller area, and West Wall
This area will be used to demonstrate Resources. I will work with Motion Specialties to have a puff and sip, and a touch plate system available for show, and video demonstrating how people drive their wheelchairs and type on computers with these systems. We will also provide video of artists painting using the lasers, and when a Laser Eagle artist is present we will provide lasers for people to attempt tracking themselves.
Central Display Panel
This will be used on both sides for video, text and perhaps 4 paintings (framed) to demonstrate the importance of dreaming.
I have a large 10” diameter Dreamcatcher made by a young aboriginal man with autism. I will display pictures of him creating the Dreamcatcher. This artefact needs to be repaired and cleaned, and hung high enough to not be vulnerable to passersby.
Questions…
Insurable value??? How does that get calculated?
How to represent “Place”??
I’m sure there are many others!
Conclusion
Once again, thank you for this opportunity and please provide extensive feedback so that I may quickly get to work on creating and finding the resources and artefacts that will make this exhibit extraordinary.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
December 14, 2010
I don’t feel much like writing. It’s been a busy day – a Laser Eagles fund raising planning meeting, Laser Eagles itself where I painted five small pieces, a little shopping and finally a Book of Judith debrief. Interspersed were the usual things that add up to hours and hours of time allocated – getting up, bedpan trips, getting to, in, out and away from the car (especially in winter where cleaning the wheelchair wheels becomes part of the process), e-mail, (Farmville!), eating and preparing for the next – meal, day, meeting, project, assistant, etc. There are days and parts of days where one more interruption, thought, task, whatever seems much, much too much. Today has been like that!
On top of this is the nagging question in my head – “Am I actually doing anything?” Someone today asked me, “What’s new?”, and I had no answer except, “The ROM”, which she already knew about. Why is it that so much energy and activity is expended on so little? Even more, what compels me either to be always “doing” or asking “Why”.
Anyway it seems like a chore to write tonight, yet important to keep on going. It’s a commitment now, and keeping it helps me continue to have faith in myself.
Part of it is to keep on capturing the edges of this fabulous moment in my life when inclusion is emerging at an entirely new level. Here are recent examples:
- real progress with letting go and having something that I created and care about be picked up and nurtured by others – Kimberley with Laser Eagles, Mike with WPIT
- inching patiently through the structures and processes of the ROM so that they may genuinely be partners in creating something inclusive
- living in my home and neighbourhood like I actually want to and do belong here
- sneaking up on writing another book
- designing with colleagues a touring version of the Book of Judith that is authentically vulnerable and will draw host communities into the inclusive experience
- staying in a role on the Toronto Wisdom City Team for more than a few months, confronting what hasn’t worked and taking on reaching new successes.
Now a real question is, “Can I make all of this packaged in the sort of profile that I will get paid enough money so that my living AND enhanced participation costs are paid, and my personal assistants’ wages are covered ongoingly - deep into the future?”
Can my art and my writing make money?
Can my ideas, dreams and experience make money?
Why not? Somehow it seems more likely that they can and always could except where I have been putting unnecessary barriers in the way.
I have a friend whose advice I am seeking regularly about money who says it is simply a matter of saying what I am going to do to make money, then doing it. No more hype, getting ready, anxiety, whatever – just choose to do something, then do it!
I have had considerable practice with just that and creating these daily writings.
Now I will copy the pattern over to making money!
On top of this is the nagging question in my head – “Am I actually doing anything?” Someone today asked me, “What’s new?”, and I had no answer except, “The ROM”, which she already knew about. Why is it that so much energy and activity is expended on so little? Even more, what compels me either to be always “doing” or asking “Why”.
Anyway it seems like a chore to write tonight, yet important to keep on going. It’s a commitment now, and keeping it helps me continue to have faith in myself.
Part of it is to keep on capturing the edges of this fabulous moment in my life when inclusion is emerging at an entirely new level. Here are recent examples:
- real progress with letting go and having something that I created and care about be picked up and nurtured by others – Kimberley with Laser Eagles, Mike with WPIT
- inching patiently through the structures and processes of the ROM so that they may genuinely be partners in creating something inclusive
- living in my home and neighbourhood like I actually want to and do belong here
- sneaking up on writing another book
- designing with colleagues a touring version of the Book of Judith that is authentically vulnerable and will draw host communities into the inclusive experience
- staying in a role on the Toronto Wisdom City Team for more than a few months, confronting what hasn’t worked and taking on reaching new successes.
Now a real question is, “Can I make all of this packaged in the sort of profile that I will get paid enough money so that my living AND enhanced participation costs are paid, and my personal assistants’ wages are covered ongoingly - deep into the future?”
Can my art and my writing make money?
Can my ideas, dreams and experience make money?
Why not? Somehow it seems more likely that they can and always could except where I have been putting unnecessary barriers in the way.
I have a friend whose advice I am seeking regularly about money who says it is simply a matter of saying what I am going to do to make money, then doing it. No more hype, getting ready, anxiety, whatever – just choose to do something, then do it!
I have had considerable practice with just that and creating these daily writings.
Now I will copy the pattern over to making money!
Saturday, December 11, 2010
December 11, 2010
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas!
Peter has been living in my “spare” room since early September. He gets to stay in return for giving me pro bono one shift a week of personal assistance, and for doing some inclusive community development around this housing cooperative, Robert Cooke.
The other day Peter brought home a “Christmas tree” constructed from 111 Coke cans coated in silver paint which has partly worn away, and a string of Christmas lights so old that Peter is having trouble finding replacement bulbs and sockets. This artefact was constructed by his mother – likely 50 years ago or so. Yesterday he brought home a “wreath” made almost entirely from twigs with barely a speck of green.
It’s funny how something can occur that makes one realize that one – I – actually care about something. The Coke can sculpture is a memento and a sort of heirloom for Peter and so even though in my view it doesn’t qualify as something that has a genre, like kitsch or retro, I recognize that it’s going to have a place in my household. But when it showed up, and especially when the round pile of twigs arrived, I realized that if we’re going to decorate around here for Christmas it better look LIKE Christmas to me.
Now, what does Christmas look like – to me! Well – green for starters. Secondly, not like Good Friday where utter bareness makes sense. My intellect “knows” these thoughts are not relative to any fixed reality, but the rest of me feels that Christmas is about new life, regeneration, hope reborn, and that the symbols of this ought to reflect new growth.
So we nailed the twigs to Peter’s bedroom door and I bought a Santa to sit on top of the pile of silvered cans along with some bows and beads to drape and paste so as to soften the severity of the piece. I also placed a small woven red and green decoration on the front door of our place. Now it’s time to do a little cleaning and to dig out the ornaments that have been in storage bins for over two years and give the pad a festive look.
Possibly one of the strongest effects of my Mother’s Alzeimers was that Christmas became an uncertain experience. There was a point when I was in my mid 20’s that I actively resisted celebrating Christmas. But from the time I was 29 until the year that Mom and Dad first moved into a retirement residence, Christmas varied little.
Mother always insisted that all four of her children be with her for this celebration. I imagine that there were a few years when my elder brother Ian was unable to attend because he was somewhere out of the country with the Canadian Armed Services. Otherwise we all showed up and generally speaking our spouses – permanent or temporary – showed up as well.
Mother always had a fabulously decorated tree. On Christmas Day itself she did not relinquish the kitchen to anyone. The meal was invariably rich, festive and abundant.
There were other invariant aspects as well. For example, my mother (and later my siblings) always took care to place me in exactly the spot where I was to remain for the entire occasion. The sole exception to this was when I moved to and from my assigned spot beside Dad at the dinner table.
In later years, we adopted a different pattern for present giving. At my sister, Rosemary’s, encouragement we put a price limit on the presents and reduced the number that were given. Later, but after Mom and Dad were in the retirement home, Christmas was held in one or other of the siblings homes and we used a Secret Santa strategy which was not only less expensive but a whole lot more fun for all of us.
But mother passed away two and a half years ago and suddenly there was no longer a clear sense that we would all gather in the same place. I do not believe that I have been to a family Christmas dinner since that time and I won’t be this year either.
So I find myself attracted to the idea that Peter would want to decorate our apartment with his mother’s Christmas tree even though, and at the very same moment, I am repelled by its tackiness. My own mother would never have let such a thing exist in her space.
For myself, at this time, I am merely reflecting on how intensely I am experiencing a need to do something that counterbalances both my own mother’s rigidity and Peter’s (and his mother’s) different sense of value. December 25th at 20 Garnett Janes Road Apartment 812 will be a very different day indeed!
Peter has been living in my “spare” room since early September. He gets to stay in return for giving me pro bono one shift a week of personal assistance, and for doing some inclusive community development around this housing cooperative, Robert Cooke.
The other day Peter brought home a “Christmas tree” constructed from 111 Coke cans coated in silver paint which has partly worn away, and a string of Christmas lights so old that Peter is having trouble finding replacement bulbs and sockets. This artefact was constructed by his mother – likely 50 years ago or so. Yesterday he brought home a “wreath” made almost entirely from twigs with barely a speck of green.
It’s funny how something can occur that makes one realize that one – I – actually care about something. The Coke can sculpture is a memento and a sort of heirloom for Peter and so even though in my view it doesn’t qualify as something that has a genre, like kitsch or retro, I recognize that it’s going to have a place in my household. But when it showed up, and especially when the round pile of twigs arrived, I realized that if we’re going to decorate around here for Christmas it better look LIKE Christmas to me.
Now, what does Christmas look like – to me! Well – green for starters. Secondly, not like Good Friday where utter bareness makes sense. My intellect “knows” these thoughts are not relative to any fixed reality, but the rest of me feels that Christmas is about new life, regeneration, hope reborn, and that the symbols of this ought to reflect new growth.
So we nailed the twigs to Peter’s bedroom door and I bought a Santa to sit on top of the pile of silvered cans along with some bows and beads to drape and paste so as to soften the severity of the piece. I also placed a small woven red and green decoration on the front door of our place. Now it’s time to do a little cleaning and to dig out the ornaments that have been in storage bins for over two years and give the pad a festive look.
Possibly one of the strongest effects of my Mother’s Alzeimers was that Christmas became an uncertain experience. There was a point when I was in my mid 20’s that I actively resisted celebrating Christmas. But from the time I was 29 until the year that Mom and Dad first moved into a retirement residence, Christmas varied little.
Mother always insisted that all four of her children be with her for this celebration. I imagine that there were a few years when my elder brother Ian was unable to attend because he was somewhere out of the country with the Canadian Armed Services. Otherwise we all showed up and generally speaking our spouses – permanent or temporary – showed up as well.
Mother always had a fabulously decorated tree. On Christmas Day itself she did not relinquish the kitchen to anyone. The meal was invariably rich, festive and abundant.
There were other invariant aspects as well. For example, my mother (and later my siblings) always took care to place me in exactly the spot where I was to remain for the entire occasion. The sole exception to this was when I moved to and from my assigned spot beside Dad at the dinner table.
In later years, we adopted a different pattern for present giving. At my sister, Rosemary’s, encouragement we put a price limit on the presents and reduced the number that were given. Later, but after Mom and Dad were in the retirement home, Christmas was held in one or other of the siblings homes and we used a Secret Santa strategy which was not only less expensive but a whole lot more fun for all of us.
But mother passed away two and a half years ago and suddenly there was no longer a clear sense that we would all gather in the same place. I do not believe that I have been to a family Christmas dinner since that time and I won’t be this year either.
So I find myself attracted to the idea that Peter would want to decorate our apartment with his mother’s Christmas tree even though, and at the very same moment, I am repelled by its tackiness. My own mother would never have let such a thing exist in her space.
For myself, at this time, I am merely reflecting on how intensely I am experiencing a need to do something that counterbalances both my own mother’s rigidity and Peter’s (and his mother’s) different sense of value. December 25th at 20 Garnett Janes Road Apartment 812 will be a very different day indeed!
Friday, December 10, 2010
December 10, 2010
It’s very late and I am just getting down to the writing. It’s so tempting to simply dig up another old article. If I can’t find one I can feel good about, then there are so many old e-mails. It would take much more digging and editing to reuse them. I have promised myself for years that “someday” I will do just that – dig and edit – pan for gold?!?
But I don’t want to lose the discipline of writing to bring forth expression over communication. Reusing what I have done before is not the same as newly writing. I am not saying I was “bad” to post articles for three nights. It was a sort of expression for sure – an expression of me accommodating to a “waiting” time within myself. But posting old articles is not the process that encourages me to dig in and reach for as yet uncreated words that are true for me right now.
It is a new discipline for me to not be trying to prove something to someone. When I have written before this blog I was either trying to find my own voice within a space where many other voices were tempting me or insisting that I say something else, or I was trying to push back another – usually hegemonic – voice, or I was trying to explain something. It is not that those impulses are not present now – they are! Rather this writing is intended to be more like painting. It is more about seeing differently who I am for no other reason than seeing it.
It is not a pure motivation. It is all jumbled together. I do, however, get real, seemingly accidental, glimpses of created point of view – me simply perceiving.
It’s worth writing at 11:30pm to get those glimpses and I don’t want to get too lazy to keep the space within which they occur.
Jen, the masseuse, was here today. She has begun to focus some of her time on my head – cranial-sacral work. Working near my eyes brought a new vision. I saw two divergent rows of crystal butterflies, still and hard, translucent and shining, and yet vibrantly alive.
I believe that I have great capacity for creativity and for dreaming. In this vision I had the impression that I have much greater capacity for creativity and for dreaming than I have been aware of – in the sense that I did not realize that such a capacity was available to a human being – not just not available before to me.
I had (have?) a deeper sense of the value of dreaming. I dream powerfully. In this world the time given to dream is greatly truncated. In this vision I felt grateful and centred in acknowledging my role and gift as a dreamer. I could clearly see that, although dreaming isn’t all there is to creating reality, it IS fundamental, and not just at the beginning of things, but all the way through.
My odd body includes a vast projection room where dreaming goes on continuously. My oversized head includes a brain within which unlimited “holographic” designs of potential futures are easily constructed and shifted. Apparently my capacity is exceptional and even largely untapped by ME.
When Sarah, Michael and I were talking to ROM people today I was very strengthened by my awareness that I can continuously dream in spaces where people are saying “No” to parts of the picture. It simply requires a shift, not an end. By the end of our hour together, there was a clear sense that everyone was in “Yes” space!
But I don’t want to lose the discipline of writing to bring forth expression over communication. Reusing what I have done before is not the same as newly writing. I am not saying I was “bad” to post articles for three nights. It was a sort of expression for sure – an expression of me accommodating to a “waiting” time within myself. But posting old articles is not the process that encourages me to dig in and reach for as yet uncreated words that are true for me right now.
It is a new discipline for me to not be trying to prove something to someone. When I have written before this blog I was either trying to find my own voice within a space where many other voices were tempting me or insisting that I say something else, or I was trying to push back another – usually hegemonic – voice, or I was trying to explain something. It is not that those impulses are not present now – they are! Rather this writing is intended to be more like painting. It is more about seeing differently who I am for no other reason than seeing it.
It is not a pure motivation. It is all jumbled together. I do, however, get real, seemingly accidental, glimpses of created point of view – me simply perceiving.
It’s worth writing at 11:30pm to get those glimpses and I don’t want to get too lazy to keep the space within which they occur.
Jen, the masseuse, was here today. She has begun to focus some of her time on my head – cranial-sacral work. Working near my eyes brought a new vision. I saw two divergent rows of crystal butterflies, still and hard, translucent and shining, and yet vibrantly alive.
I believe that I have great capacity for creativity and for dreaming. In this vision I had the impression that I have much greater capacity for creativity and for dreaming than I have been aware of – in the sense that I did not realize that such a capacity was available to a human being – not just not available before to me.
I had (have?) a deeper sense of the value of dreaming. I dream powerfully. In this world the time given to dream is greatly truncated. In this vision I felt grateful and centred in acknowledging my role and gift as a dreamer. I could clearly see that, although dreaming isn’t all there is to creating reality, it IS fundamental, and not just at the beginning of things, but all the way through.
My odd body includes a vast projection room where dreaming goes on continuously. My oversized head includes a brain within which unlimited “holographic” designs of potential futures are easily constructed and shifted. Apparently my capacity is exceptional and even largely untapped by ME.
When Sarah, Michael and I were talking to ROM people today I was very strengthened by my awareness that I can continuously dream in spaces where people are saying “No” to parts of the picture. It simply requires a shift, not an end. By the end of our hour together, there was a clear sense that everyone was in “Yes” space!
Sunday, December 5, 2010
December 5, 2010
Tonight I will write some about how I am designing the exhibit - in my head.
To reiterate, I want people to be exposed to and potentially fall in love with the understanding that Inclusion is a multi-dimensional approach to building a vibrant society where social and economic benefits accrue from garnering the gifts of diversity.
The room lends itself neatly to the paradigm of structuring inclusive support that I used to call Harmonizing the Four Things Worth Doing – the paradigm that formed much of the basis of the 1991 book: “What’s Really Worth Doing and How to Do It”, still available through Inclusion Press. It looks like this:
Harmonizing the Four Things Worth Doing
The regular path that visitors who are merely going through the room with no intention of staying will be clearly marked as “The Normal Path – Do Not Stop or Look Around”. All along it will be enticements to step aside and stay awhile, learn something and stay awhile.
In addition, the room will be conceptually divided into three layers. The middle layer will be for language, including talking videos, text and more realistic paintings. The floor to about 3 ½ feet up will be for playful, interactive and colourful objects and paintings. Six feet up will be for projections, both colourful and those statements and photographs captured and recorded by visitors.
The groupings of videos, pictures and photographs on the central panel will focus on dreaming. The rest of the display space will focus on place, people and resources, indicating how different communities in my life have shaped my expressions of inclusion. Finally the “dead” space between the “Normal Road” and the fourth wall will be reserved for statements about barriers, such as hanging my first framed painting where my tracker was an art therapist who claimed that my work wasn’t art.
I will find ways to include other artists such as Felicia G. and Irena K. The intention is to show, first, that I am not unique among artists as a person who does not sit easily with being labelled disabled, and secondly, that I have influenced such artists.
Preliminary thoughts! More soon!
To reiterate, I want people to be exposed to and potentially fall in love with the understanding that Inclusion is a multi-dimensional approach to building a vibrant society where social and economic benefits accrue from garnering the gifts of diversity.
The room lends itself neatly to the paradigm of structuring inclusive support that I used to call Harmonizing the Four Things Worth Doing – the paradigm that formed much of the basis of the 1991 book: “What’s Really Worth Doing and How to Do It”, still available through Inclusion Press. It looks like this:
Harmonizing the Four Things Worth Doing
The regular path that visitors who are merely going through the room with no intention of staying will be clearly marked as “The Normal Path – Do Not Stop or Look Around”. All along it will be enticements to step aside and stay awhile, learn something and stay awhile.
In addition, the room will be conceptually divided into three layers. The middle layer will be for language, including talking videos, text and more realistic paintings. The floor to about 3 ½ feet up will be for playful, interactive and colourful objects and paintings. Six feet up will be for projections, both colourful and those statements and photographs captured and recorded by visitors.
The groupings of videos, pictures and photographs on the central panel will focus on dreaming. The rest of the display space will focus on place, people and resources, indicating how different communities in my life have shaped my expressions of inclusion. Finally the “dead” space between the “Normal Road” and the fourth wall will be reserved for statements about barriers, such as hanging my first framed painting where my tracker was an art therapist who claimed that my work wasn’t art.
I will find ways to include other artists such as Felicia G. and Irena K. The intention is to show, first, that I am not unique among artists as a person who does not sit easily with being labelled disabled, and secondly, that I have influenced such artists.
Preliminary thoughts! More soon!
Friday, December 3, 2010
December 3, 2010
The Advil/Morphine combo worked well for me today, on top of another massage. I have been sitting up and pain free for 11 hours.
I am resisting writing. It is getting late and I have no burning topic, nor even a: “Well I meant to write about this a few days ago!” My entire focus is on rest, or getting ready for writing on Monday, or the Wisdom Weekend 5 – where I was most of today, or the MFC Board meeting tomorrow, or supporting BW for a month (a bit of cash there), or how to eat right this weekend on very little money. Busy, busy, busy mind.
But writing this blog is for my expression. What is there to express?
I was impressed and disappointed this morning on how badly I wanted to just get on with my day and not bother with my acupuncture. When Jen was working on me I could barely pay any attention to her. I regretted this and told her so, but my mind was and is FULL of what I want to do NOW and where I want to go NEXT. When I showed up for the City Team meeting at 1:00pm most of the thirty plus people there weren’t expecting me even though I had sent in the official notice that I would be. The general impression was that I was too sick to get well so fast. My circle has the same impression.
Why am I supposed to be sick for that long?
Maybe my body isn’t big enough to stay sick for a long time. Two days ago I could sit up for five hours. Yesterday it was for ten. Today it was for eleven. Somehow in others’ minds I MUST be heading for a disaster. Perhaps I am, but to me it seems more like I am heading for my chosen future.
Clearly I am not “normal”. I believe that these past eight weeks have left me with a great deal of comfort and there are several dimensions of this fact. Literally I have (at least some of the time) much more comfort in my body. I can laugh at my moodiness and be OK with how much I irritate others. In fact, in the space of that comfort more people are confronting me with whatever is annoying to them. This has opened a space for clearing up misunderstandings and for building stronger agreements.
I realized today that the ROM wants me because, in their “eyes”, I am disabled and I fit very powerfully into their mandate to be accessible. However, in my own understanding I am not disabled. I am an artist who is committed to building peace and inclusion in the world. Before now I would have wanted to turn them around or turn them down - to struggle to convince them that I have nothing to do with “disability”.
Now I see that it doesn’t matter. Naturally they see me as disabled. It is the perfect place to start our relationship because the reality is - that is what they see.
Something will occur for the staff of the ROM and for many others simply because I do this. I don’t have to make any particular outcome happen. There will be some level of transformation and inclusion simply because I am openly engaging the process.
How can I be sick when I am having such a great life – today and tomorrow?
I am resisting writing. It is getting late and I have no burning topic, nor even a: “Well I meant to write about this a few days ago!” My entire focus is on rest, or getting ready for writing on Monday, or the Wisdom Weekend 5 – where I was most of today, or the MFC Board meeting tomorrow, or supporting BW for a month (a bit of cash there), or how to eat right this weekend on very little money. Busy, busy, busy mind.
But writing this blog is for my expression. What is there to express?
I was impressed and disappointed this morning on how badly I wanted to just get on with my day and not bother with my acupuncture. When Jen was working on me I could barely pay any attention to her. I regretted this and told her so, but my mind was and is FULL of what I want to do NOW and where I want to go NEXT. When I showed up for the City Team meeting at 1:00pm most of the thirty plus people there weren’t expecting me even though I had sent in the official notice that I would be. The general impression was that I was too sick to get well so fast. My circle has the same impression.
Why am I supposed to be sick for that long?
Maybe my body isn’t big enough to stay sick for a long time. Two days ago I could sit up for five hours. Yesterday it was for ten. Today it was for eleven. Somehow in others’ minds I MUST be heading for a disaster. Perhaps I am, but to me it seems more like I am heading for my chosen future.
Clearly I am not “normal”. I believe that these past eight weeks have left me with a great deal of comfort and there are several dimensions of this fact. Literally I have (at least some of the time) much more comfort in my body. I can laugh at my moodiness and be OK with how much I irritate others. In fact, in the space of that comfort more people are confronting me with whatever is annoying to them. This has opened a space for clearing up misunderstandings and for building stronger agreements.
I realized today that the ROM wants me because, in their “eyes”, I am disabled and I fit very powerfully into their mandate to be accessible. However, in my own understanding I am not disabled. I am an artist who is committed to building peace and inclusion in the world. Before now I would have wanted to turn them around or turn them down - to struggle to convince them that I have nothing to do with “disability”.
Now I see that it doesn’t matter. Naturally they see me as disabled. It is the perfect place to start our relationship because the reality is - that is what they see.
Something will occur for the staff of the ROM and for many others simply because I do this. I don’t have to make any particular outcome happen. There will be some level of transformation and inclusion simply because I am openly engaging the process.
How can I be sick when I am having such a great life – today and tomorrow?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)