It looks like Kimberly is back playing Farmville. Yay!
The crane was dancing this morning again. During the night sometime several more cubes arrived and all of them were rearranged. In the further distance one can now see that a whole new layer of cubes has been added to the prison, a little southwest of the rest of the building. Perhaps there is an entire new section going up. How big are sixteen hundred cubes when they are stacked up!?!
The bits and pieces for the Savannah trip are beginning to take shape. Mike and I are getting down to the wire, which means organizing things like travel insurance, lodging down and back, scheduling the nights that I will do workshops for Chatham Savannah Citizen Advocacy. On Tuesday I “acquired” two small painting kits with brushes and mini tubes of all the basic colours. These kits came inside of canvases that Laser Eagles had bought at a dollar store. They were going to be discarded because we use 2-litre size bottles of paint. I get a chuckle when I think about how often I have found significant resources by just such acquisition – from picking up garbaged furniture, to taking other people’s leftovers after a restaurant meal, to sorting through clothes that others are about to recycle. I wonder if I will post notices in the ROM exhibit of all the paintings that were created out of scrap materials. It might very well fit the theme!
Part of the kit that I was assembling today for Savannah is my medications for diabetes, pain support and nutrition (chewable vitamins and calcium). It’s kind of like gathering my armour for a battle. These create my sense of security and safety as much as knowing that there will be enough money. The last important $500 came in this morning with a commitment from Peter Block to hire me for one morning on the way down. It is like putting the last brick in the wall and I bless his generousity.
I believe this will be the sixth time that I have journeyed to Savannah. It forms a kind of rhythm in my life. Savannah is the place I go to to warm up, to eat well, to feel great with good friends, to see the Spanish moss and the pelicans and, perhaps most importantly, to become clear on what slavery does to human relationships and creativity. It was in Savannah that I learned that I am a slave. I learned this listening to a man present his book about how slavery has been recreated in the United States. The fundamental element of slavery is the buying and selling of a person’s body¸ especially without the permission of that person. Of course, people who are labelled with disability are bought and sold constantly and most often have very limited or no choice about their location. I myself cannot leave Ontario for more than five weeks in a year. This would not be considered a huge problem to most people who are labelled disabled, but since the majority of work I have been doing in my life has been outside of Canada, I have frequently been an outlaw. It used to be that people turned a blind eye on my behalf but that ended just before Gabor, Erin and I left for the Tour in 2008. Now I must be careful!
It is paradoxically refreshing to be in a place where people are polite but very explicit about the intention to keep racism and slavery alive and well. The clarity of the experience allows for genuine dialogue. It also allows for grounding reflection on the personal experience. This, of course, gives me a solid base to become more creative. The wishy washy soft talk of Canadians about economic imprisonment can leave me and others quite befuddled.
Anyway, it is almost time and I can feel so strongly the urge to leave!
Showing posts with label dance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label dance. Show all posts
Thursday, February 3, 2011
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 23, 2011
January 23, 2011
A picture of the crane and the cubes that I have been describing to you appeared in The Toronto Star today. Here it is:
They are indeed modular parts of a building. A prision. The night-time, secretive play of giants turns out to be the reconstruction of the infamous Don Jail in downtown Toronto. The cubes are manufactured in Texas, trained to Toronto, and trucked downtown. The cubes are sturdy enough to be stacked several stories high, yet each is self sufficient, down to the plumbing. The ultimate assembly will hold over 1600 prisoners.
When I was about eight my younger brother and I reveled in stuffing our kitten into a cardboard box and trapping it there for hours. It died of the stress.
Ivan Illich said the only authentic response to pure evil is silence, because any other response sets up a dynamic that lends the evil a defined presence in our culture. I am not sure I believe that, because, as Marsha used to quote: "They came for the Jews, and I wasn't a Jew, so I kept silent, ... , and when they came for me there was no one left to save me."
I am stunned that this intriquing, enormous, slow dance of the gigantic cubes that has been unfolding under my bedroom window since mid-October - this large nightly activity is the deliberately plotted internation activity with an intended outcome of increasing our local prison population and to do so in as cheaply managed, most inhumane way as possible. Rob Ford, our vigorously right-wing Mayor must be gleeful indeed!
Suddenly, the view from my bedroom window has a sinister cast. My dreams will not be so peaceful.
They are indeed modular parts of a building. A prision. The night-time, secretive play of giants turns out to be the reconstruction of the infamous Don Jail in downtown Toronto. The cubes are manufactured in Texas, trained to Toronto, and trucked downtown. The cubes are sturdy enough to be stacked several stories high, yet each is self sufficient, down to the plumbing. The ultimate assembly will hold over 1600 prisoners.
When I was about eight my younger brother and I reveled in stuffing our kitten into a cardboard box and trapping it there for hours. It died of the stress.
Ivan Illich said the only authentic response to pure evil is silence, because any other response sets up a dynamic that lends the evil a defined presence in our culture. I am not sure I believe that, because, as Marsha used to quote: "They came for the Jews, and I wasn't a Jew, so I kept silent, ... , and when they came for me there was no one left to save me."
I am stunned that this intriquing, enormous, slow dance of the gigantic cubes that has been unfolding under my bedroom window since mid-October - this large nightly activity is the deliberately plotted internation activity with an intended outcome of increasing our local prison population and to do so in as cheaply managed, most inhumane way as possible. Rob Ford, our vigorously right-wing Mayor must be gleeful indeed!
Suddenly, the view from my bedroom window has a sinister cast. My dreams will not be so peaceful.
Friday, January 7, 2011
January 7, 2011
Today I awoke to realize, in the barely beginning dawn, that the crane at the railway near the modular concrete boxes had disappeared out of view. I fell asleep again. Perhaps twenty minutes later I opened my eyes again and there was the crane. It had moved back into view. The sun was far from up and peering at the giant thing hurt my eyes. The many street lights, highway lamp posts and security systems on the local warehouses were mostly still on and intensely bright.
Perhaps three hours later the crane was rotating back and forth with such velocity that the hanging chain and clasps were bouncing around. Was it dancing?
Another hour and it was gliding almost imperceptively along and some twenty minutes later hovering above the larger grey boxes. Then I noticed a train of flatbeds, each with two grey cubes neatly placed. I thought for sure that the crane was unloading the flatbeds, but, no, another hour or so later when I visited my window again – this time the crane was harnessed to a cube, but looking like it was loading the train!
Which is it – loading or unloading? Who is playing this glacially slow game?
It was a beautifully sunny day and the new accountant had taken all the blank payroll cheques as well as miswriting one for this payroll. I urgently needed an alternative way to pay Mike. In my mailbox was a notice of a parcel to pick up. I was out of decaf coffee. In all this the invitation to take a walk and take frequent stops in my exceptionally accessible neighbourhood was strong. Helen and I went out.
Well –5 C (or -7 perhaps) is pretty cold, though I was doubly covered up. About a block before we reached the bank Helen was having to intermittently hold down my upper lip so I could make the speed changes necessary to get over bad curb cuts and avoid pedestrians.
I warmed up in the bank and the teller was efficiently helpful. I came away with a money order to fix the payroll problem after having ordered a new batch of cheques. The post office and decaf are only a block from the bank and we reached them without incident.
The package was not my new passport as I expected, but was from Second Story Press.
I longed for a coffee and snack at Yalla Café and to hear Michel’s stories of his New Year’s encounter with his son’s fiancée’s family at their year end party. So, thinking that I was now sufficiently warmed up, we set out to traverse the ten blocks.
Wrong! Not only did my lip get too cold but even the sip and puff pipe started to freeze up. We limped in to the café. Michel wasn’t there but his wife – Helene, warmly greeted us.
I opened my package. It contained three copies of an agenda published by Second Story Press. It features contemporary Canadian women who have made exceptional contributions. I am November!
I showed it to Helene. When she realized it was about me, she started to read it. Her English is weak and she called in another woman from the back – seemingly a cousin or friend.
The women shared one pair of reading glasses, and soon recruited the assistance of a man (the cousin’s husband it turned out) who used an I-Pod or Blackberry with a Lebanese/English translation application.
Both Helen and I, sitting quietly with our coffees, observed my story and words emerged in Lebanese. Inclusion took a leap into yet another culture. I was awe struck!
The cousins departed and Helene struggled to express her thoughts. She apologized and said she was fluent in French but not English. I still have a smattering of school French and I asked her to say it in that language. She said “fier” and I said “proud”. She clapped.
For me the connection was electric.
As we left Helene ducked into the basement and brought up a blanket to wrap me up. I rolled home a happy pink bundle.
Perhaps three hours later the crane was rotating back and forth with such velocity that the hanging chain and clasps were bouncing around. Was it dancing?
Another hour and it was gliding almost imperceptively along and some twenty minutes later hovering above the larger grey boxes. Then I noticed a train of flatbeds, each with two grey cubes neatly placed. I thought for sure that the crane was unloading the flatbeds, but, no, another hour or so later when I visited my window again – this time the crane was harnessed to a cube, but looking like it was loading the train!
Which is it – loading or unloading? Who is playing this glacially slow game?
It was a beautifully sunny day and the new accountant had taken all the blank payroll cheques as well as miswriting one for this payroll. I urgently needed an alternative way to pay Mike. In my mailbox was a notice of a parcel to pick up. I was out of decaf coffee. In all this the invitation to take a walk and take frequent stops in my exceptionally accessible neighbourhood was strong. Helen and I went out.
Well –5 C (or -7 perhaps) is pretty cold, though I was doubly covered up. About a block before we reached the bank Helen was having to intermittently hold down my upper lip so I could make the speed changes necessary to get over bad curb cuts and avoid pedestrians.
I warmed up in the bank and the teller was efficiently helpful. I came away with a money order to fix the payroll problem after having ordered a new batch of cheques. The post office and decaf are only a block from the bank and we reached them without incident.
The package was not my new passport as I expected, but was from Second Story Press.
I longed for a coffee and snack at Yalla Café and to hear Michel’s stories of his New Year’s encounter with his son’s fiancée’s family at their year end party. So, thinking that I was now sufficiently warmed up, we set out to traverse the ten blocks.
Wrong! Not only did my lip get too cold but even the sip and puff pipe started to freeze up. We limped in to the café. Michel wasn’t there but his wife – Helene, warmly greeted us.
I opened my package. It contained three copies of an agenda published by Second Story Press. It features contemporary Canadian women who have made exceptional contributions. I am November!
I showed it to Helene. When she realized it was about me, she started to read it. Her English is weak and she called in another woman from the back – seemingly a cousin or friend.
The women shared one pair of reading glasses, and soon recruited the assistance of a man (the cousin’s husband it turned out) who used an I-Pod or Blackberry with a Lebanese/English translation application.
Both Helen and I, sitting quietly with our coffees, observed my story and words emerged in Lebanese. Inclusion took a leap into yet another culture. I was awe struck!
The cousins departed and Helene struggled to express her thoughts. She apologized and said she was fluent in French but not English. I still have a smattering of school French and I asked her to say it in that language. She said “fier” and I said “proud”. She clapped.
For me the connection was electric.
As we left Helene ducked into the basement and brought up a blanket to wrap me up. I rolled home a happy pink bundle.
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.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
December 2, 2010
Gloria and I went to see Wasteland, (Wasteland.com), at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on King Street. There is SO much going on there that Gloria and I are considering getting memberships so to be able to see movies and exhibits for less. It would be a way to reinforce my taking off a day a week to sustain my own wellbeing – and a step up from Farmville!
The movie follows a Brazilian artist who transforms people’s lives as together they turn garbage into art that represents their lives, capacities and dreams.
Afterward, in the exceptionally well designed café that serves the Lightbox, Gloria recorded my words:
“What struck me was that after all the years, as the camera man said, the people who were the garbage pickers were able to lift themselves out from where they were when they saw themselves as artists.
When I became an artist it was that – it didn’t happen all at once, but it happened like that. The process of realizing ever so slowly that I am an artist has given me a place to be, to look at all the other stuff – I’m not trapped being an advocate, fighting to be an advocate. Do you remember how angry and frustrated I got saying over and over again that there is no disability? Saying I am not disabled over and over again created the being of disabled. You can’t ever get out of it.
What if God created art so we can have a place to be so that we can get out of our traps?
When I’m at Laser Eagles and see how the other artists improve in their lives – I realize it’s a wonderful moment when you discover you’re an artist.”
There is a powerful moment when one of the pickers teaches the significance of each moment, each bit of garbage, each person. He is teaching that it is important to recycle not just most cans but ALL cans. He says: “99 is not 100.”
I saw myself in the pickers. I saw the pride, the integrity and the trap. Even to this day I live in a world that sees different capacity as “trash”. I saw that art provided them with a different place to stand and a different perspective wherein they could exercise their natural power.
Can my exhibit provide such a transcendent place?
I am struggling within myself to find images and themes that will open such a powerful space that real life will be present and the rigid hierarchical structure of the ROM will not be able obliterate it. How can such a static, ephemeral moment as walking through an exhibition of my art on the way to the dinosaurs cause a transformative encounter with Inclusion?
There were other pleasures in the experience today. Most of the Lightbox spaces, and also the café within it, are simple and welcoming and also use light and sound to create intimate, comfortable and welcoming ambiance. At the end of the movie I was dancing – for the second time this week!
On another note I added Advil back into my pain management mix today and I have sat up for ten hours! I am hopeful that I have found another clue.
The movie follows a Brazilian artist who transforms people’s lives as together they turn garbage into art that represents their lives, capacities and dreams.
Afterward, in the exceptionally well designed café that serves the Lightbox, Gloria recorded my words:
“What struck me was that after all the years, as the camera man said, the people who were the garbage pickers were able to lift themselves out from where they were when they saw themselves as artists.
When I became an artist it was that – it didn’t happen all at once, but it happened like that. The process of realizing ever so slowly that I am an artist has given me a place to be, to look at all the other stuff – I’m not trapped being an advocate, fighting to be an advocate. Do you remember how angry and frustrated I got saying over and over again that there is no disability? Saying I am not disabled over and over again created the being of disabled. You can’t ever get out of it.
What if God created art so we can have a place to be so that we can get out of our traps?
When I’m at Laser Eagles and see how the other artists improve in their lives – I realize it’s a wonderful moment when you discover you’re an artist.”
There is a powerful moment when one of the pickers teaches the significance of each moment, each bit of garbage, each person. He is teaching that it is important to recycle not just most cans but ALL cans. He says: “99 is not 100.”
I saw myself in the pickers. I saw the pride, the integrity and the trap. Even to this day I live in a world that sees different capacity as “trash”. I saw that art provided them with a different place to stand and a different perspective wherein they could exercise their natural power.
Can my exhibit provide such a transcendent place?
I am struggling within myself to find images and themes that will open such a powerful space that real life will be present and the rigid hierarchical structure of the ROM will not be able obliterate it. How can such a static, ephemeral moment as walking through an exhibition of my art on the way to the dinosaurs cause a transformative encounter with Inclusion?
There were other pleasures in the experience today. Most of the Lightbox spaces, and also the café within it, are simple and welcoming and also use light and sound to create intimate, comfortable and welcoming ambiance. At the end of the movie I was dancing – for the second time this week!
On another note I added Advil back into my pain management mix today and I have sat up for ten hours! I am hopeful that I have found another clue.
Monday, November 29, 2010
November 29, 2010
Today brought the first meeting with the ROM.
Mike Skubic, Michael Rubenfeld and I with Sarah Garton Stanley on a speaker phone met six officials of the museum in a huge board room after passing through two sets of secured entrances. It left me feeling a little like Bambi meeting Godzilla, but not too much. The gathering was still very much about me, my art, the play and my legacy and I was very much being listened to and taken seriously.
A few moments were nearly incomprehensible to me – like when I was asked what the insurable value of my art would be. So many of my pieces are on dollar store canvas boards. Most have been produced in less than two hours. The largest price I have ever earned was $500. Insurable value?
The meeting was useful for us to get our bearings. Godzilla has traditions, policies, internal politics, union reinforced job descriptions, rigid time schedules and really bad coffee. We have to learn the ropes. Inclusion isn’t about “doing our own thing” – it is about seemingly incompatible entities finding ways to authentically express their essences while being mutually supportive and, in so doing, creating space for the unimagined to emerge.
It was good to see the space within which the 3 to 6 month exhibit will take place. It is a relatively small but well lit and not to noisy room. It really is an anteroom, along the pathway to the dinosaurs. This means that there will always be lots of traffic through the room but that many “visitors” will not initially have the inclination to stop.
At this juncture, because of this pathway, I am imaging designing a “highway” where signs will be posted that there is to be no stopping due to dangerous circumstances. At the same time there can also be more subtle invitations to stop and stay awhile, to discover something magical about life and yourself!
I don’t feel that this exhibit will be as much about my art as about the various stages I have been through in developing my own ideas about Inclusion. My art will be one vehicle of several used to get the ideas across. We will be using the play, video and I hope something interactive that pulls people into the exploration. I also hope that the exhibit can appeal to children and teenagers. Currently the ROM officials mainly talked about children as if the main concerns about them are their safety and that they might destroy stuff!
There is no sense at all of what, if any, financial opportunity there is in this. I attempted to express that to do this well I, and others, would have to give up other opportunities to make money. The process does not reveal anything about money at this point. First things first in the ROM’s way of doing things is to produce a document – a proposal with a creative theme – that gives them a sense of what they will be committing to. They get to say back if it’s doable. They say back what they are willing to do and not do. To me it’s like negotiating in the dark, but at least after today, it’s a little less dark.
I am in a very strange space indeed. On the one hand my creative juices are being called on like never before. On the other I am dollars away from bankruptcy, only weeks away from serious illness and suddenly playing with the “big boys” – people who have the capacity to take my legacy very far indeed but also who have very different agendas than mine.
Mike Skubic, Michael Rubenfeld and I with Sarah Garton Stanley on a speaker phone met six officials of the museum in a huge board room after passing through two sets of secured entrances. It left me feeling a little like Bambi meeting Godzilla, but not too much. The gathering was still very much about me, my art, the play and my legacy and I was very much being listened to and taken seriously.
A few moments were nearly incomprehensible to me – like when I was asked what the insurable value of my art would be. So many of my pieces are on dollar store canvas boards. Most have been produced in less than two hours. The largest price I have ever earned was $500. Insurable value?
The meeting was useful for us to get our bearings. Godzilla has traditions, policies, internal politics, union reinforced job descriptions, rigid time schedules and really bad coffee. We have to learn the ropes. Inclusion isn’t about “doing our own thing” – it is about seemingly incompatible entities finding ways to authentically express their essences while being mutually supportive and, in so doing, creating space for the unimagined to emerge.
It was good to see the space within which the 3 to 6 month exhibit will take place. It is a relatively small but well lit and not to noisy room. It really is an anteroom, along the pathway to the dinosaurs. This means that there will always be lots of traffic through the room but that many “visitors” will not initially have the inclination to stop.
At this juncture, because of this pathway, I am imaging designing a “highway” where signs will be posted that there is to be no stopping due to dangerous circumstances. At the same time there can also be more subtle invitations to stop and stay awhile, to discover something magical about life and yourself!
I don’t feel that this exhibit will be as much about my art as about the various stages I have been through in developing my own ideas about Inclusion. My art will be one vehicle of several used to get the ideas across. We will be using the play, video and I hope something interactive that pulls people into the exploration. I also hope that the exhibit can appeal to children and teenagers. Currently the ROM officials mainly talked about children as if the main concerns about them are their safety and that they might destroy stuff!
There is no sense at all of what, if any, financial opportunity there is in this. I attempted to express that to do this well I, and others, would have to give up other opportunities to make money. The process does not reveal anything about money at this point. First things first in the ROM’s way of doing things is to produce a document – a proposal with a creative theme – that gives them a sense of what they will be committing to. They get to say back if it’s doable. They say back what they are willing to do and not do. To me it’s like negotiating in the dark, but at least after today, it’s a little less dark.
I am in a very strange space indeed. On the one hand my creative juices are being called on like never before. On the other I am dollars away from bankruptcy, only weeks away from serious illness and suddenly playing with the “big boys” – people who have the capacity to take my legacy very far indeed but also who have very different agendas than mine.
Saturday, November 27, 2010
November 27, 2010
Once upon a time according to the calendar above my bed this was going to be a “do nothing” day. Ha, ha. I am busy dealing with contractual and fundraising issues that have already arisen days before my first official meeting with the ROM, and the shock to some of this sudden apparent change of plans.
I am not blaming anyone who thinks I am unreliable due to this sudden shift. I COULD have said “No” to the ROM. I could have said: “Sorry, I have been busy creating a very different spring, and I won’t have time for you.” I didn’t.
Anyway, enough of that. Nothing is “real” until contracts are signed and until then the emotional energy is best directed elsewhere, in my opinion.
So I went dancing.
There is an annual party put on by and for caregivers who are mostly women and mainly Philippino domestics who are intent on getting landed immigrant status in Canada while sending as much money home as possible to bring family members here. Another typical scenario is that they are saving to buy a home in the Philippines. I got to know several such people through a long term friendship with a man – Tim (now pronounced “Teem” since he married such a caregiver) who has a lifetime commitment to providing good support to vulnerable people.
I am aware that the situation surrounding “imported” caregivers is fraught with abuses and fundamentally is established to put these people at an economic disadvantage. However I have never met such a person who wasn’t enthusiastic about the arrangement. Those I have met seem to have been planning since early teenage to become either nurses or caregivers, to marry a man who will follow a similar path but in Saudia Arabia or Hong Kong, to meet up with him for six weeks every two years, and otherwise work six days a week and go to evangelistic church then party on the seventh. Five nights a week caregivers sleep at the “employer’s”, and on the other two nights they sleep two women to a bed in a two bedroom, eight person apartment.
It’s not an arrangement that many Canadians can fathom as a choice. Since running across this sub-culture I have marvelled.
One clear aspect of this lifestyle is that the women are very close to each other, hugging and kissing openly and frequently, dressing for each other – tonight they held a beauty pageant reminiscent of the “meat market” shows long out of favour in Canadian Caucasian culture – and paying much less attention to “eligible” men than I would expect in my familiar circles.
When they party they bring home cooked food and eat extravagantly, they sing and they dance – mostly with each other although men are not obviously excluded.
I love to dance when people are not coupling. When people are dancing in pairs moving a wheelchair on the dance floor can be an awkward and lonely effort. When it’s more free form, my presence seems to give people permission to strut their stuff in any way they can and to have a good time. People will try me out in ones or twos, doing their personal gyration for a short while, then move on. In the general moving on I get to go from person to person too, which is way easier to do in a wheelchair and more fun anyway to me.
Three times I have successfully done the couple thing on the dance floor, twice with a man. One guy and the woman are trained dancers, and all moulded their dance steps to the movements a wheelchair can actually do. I was able to keep up the dance in close “formation” for more than an hour – a feat of tremendous stamina and exhilaration for me and my partners.
I rarely get to dance. It’s something I love to do. Occasionally I remember and take steps to find an accessible place. Typically it’s too expensive or fixated on couple style dancing and I “forget” to pursue this pleasure.
But tonight I danced with Philippino women (and Teem). I had a great time. It is good to move my sore body again and to lose myself in the beat. It is a way to feel that I am “me”.
I am not blaming anyone who thinks I am unreliable due to this sudden shift. I COULD have said “No” to the ROM. I could have said: “Sorry, I have been busy creating a very different spring, and I won’t have time for you.” I didn’t.
Anyway, enough of that. Nothing is “real” until contracts are signed and until then the emotional energy is best directed elsewhere, in my opinion.
So I went dancing.
There is an annual party put on by and for caregivers who are mostly women and mainly Philippino domestics who are intent on getting landed immigrant status in Canada while sending as much money home as possible to bring family members here. Another typical scenario is that they are saving to buy a home in the Philippines. I got to know several such people through a long term friendship with a man – Tim (now pronounced “Teem” since he married such a caregiver) who has a lifetime commitment to providing good support to vulnerable people.
I am aware that the situation surrounding “imported” caregivers is fraught with abuses and fundamentally is established to put these people at an economic disadvantage. However I have never met such a person who wasn’t enthusiastic about the arrangement. Those I have met seem to have been planning since early teenage to become either nurses or caregivers, to marry a man who will follow a similar path but in Saudia Arabia or Hong Kong, to meet up with him for six weeks every two years, and otherwise work six days a week and go to evangelistic church then party on the seventh. Five nights a week caregivers sleep at the “employer’s”, and on the other two nights they sleep two women to a bed in a two bedroom, eight person apartment.
It’s not an arrangement that many Canadians can fathom as a choice. Since running across this sub-culture I have marvelled.
One clear aspect of this lifestyle is that the women are very close to each other, hugging and kissing openly and frequently, dressing for each other – tonight they held a beauty pageant reminiscent of the “meat market” shows long out of favour in Canadian Caucasian culture – and paying much less attention to “eligible” men than I would expect in my familiar circles.
When they party they bring home cooked food and eat extravagantly, they sing and they dance – mostly with each other although men are not obviously excluded.
I love to dance when people are not coupling. When people are dancing in pairs moving a wheelchair on the dance floor can be an awkward and lonely effort. When it’s more free form, my presence seems to give people permission to strut their stuff in any way they can and to have a good time. People will try me out in ones or twos, doing their personal gyration for a short while, then move on. In the general moving on I get to go from person to person too, which is way easier to do in a wheelchair and more fun anyway to me.
Three times I have successfully done the couple thing on the dance floor, twice with a man. One guy and the woman are trained dancers, and all moulded their dance steps to the movements a wheelchair can actually do. I was able to keep up the dance in close “formation” for more than an hour – a feat of tremendous stamina and exhilaration for me and my partners.
I rarely get to dance. It’s something I love to do. Occasionally I remember and take steps to find an accessible place. Typically it’s too expensive or fixated on couple style dancing and I “forget” to pursue this pleasure.
But tonight I danced with Philippino women (and Teem). I had a great time. It is good to move my sore body again and to lose myself in the beat. It is a way to feel that I am “me”.
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