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 tracker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tracker. 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.
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
January 26, 2011
Today was mainly exhaustion, pain, little accomplishment, with the exception of a marvellous clearing call with Shirl this morning and a great walk and a coffee with cake at Yalla’s – with Michel, Helen his wife and Helen (my handler according to Dad). At Helen’s suggestion I Skyped Martha. I am glad I did. Tim hasn’t been well and although he will be fine Martha is clearly tired, and lonely. We laughed, and, if Savannah falls through, I will go to Wisconsin and do a course with her in April.
I figured out that one of the struggles I have with M (BMX Model of Inclusion) is that it has no memory. One of the things I was frustrated with ACF about yesterday was that one of the reasons put forth for not yet implementing the recommendations of its Inclusive Task Force was that certain – we used to call them intersectionalities – crossovers between marginalized people, like racialization and disability, had not yet been addressed. A critical story had been forgotten and we reminded the Board of it. However, this event put into perspective for me that empowering stories cannot be remembered in the M world.
This makes alliance, forgiveness, learning and stable empowerment impossible. It’s like giving a community mass Alzheimer’s.
I notice what big words I use – not my own language.
I also realize that I am approaching this potential choice point as if it were black and white, go or no go. Likely this attitude will screw it all up, and there is no real need for me to fear this so much. What I must do is determine what it is that I really need to make this work.
Martha – God love her – reminded me of many leaders I know. She also nudged me to ask for more money. I remember now that for my very first grant, in 1977, from the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, I asked for a salary that was about $500/month smaller than the next person who took the job.
On another topic, on Monday I found out that the prison that is being assembled from the cubes piled just outside of my bedroom window is being put up not at the Don Jail site, but here in South Etobicoke, in what used to be called Mimico. This morning the penny dropped. Those buildings that are under construction that I can also see from my bed and that will be featured in the painting that Mike and I are working on now – that incipient complex of two towers and a lower connecting building – that is the prison!
I have been watching it rise since practically its Day 1 and my Day 1 in Cycle 3.
So many people in the world are being separated from one another - housed, cloistered or imprisoned in individual compartments – condos, apartments, cells – and served – rehabilitated, recreationalized, managed, supervised. The life of a prisoner soon to be living five blocks from my bedroom is little different from that of the nearly mad old Caribbean woman who lives in poverty and fear, by herself, two apartments from me.
Since we are in fact surrounded by and infiltrated with M it must be the perfect place to fulfill my “mission”. There is no leaving to somewhere else. The definition of freedom is not getting out of here to be somewhere else.
These thoughts and realizations are both calming and terrifying. Now is the time to be still and listen.
I figured out that one of the struggles I have with M (BMX Model of Inclusion) is that it has no memory. One of the things I was frustrated with ACF about yesterday was that one of the reasons put forth for not yet implementing the recommendations of its Inclusive Task Force was that certain – we used to call them intersectionalities – crossovers between marginalized people, like racialization and disability, had not yet been addressed. A critical story had been forgotten and we reminded the Board of it. However, this event put into perspective for me that empowering stories cannot be remembered in the M world.
This makes alliance, forgiveness, learning and stable empowerment impossible. It’s like giving a community mass Alzheimer’s.
I notice what big words I use – not my own language.
I also realize that I am approaching this potential choice point as if it were black and white, go or no go. Likely this attitude will screw it all up, and there is no real need for me to fear this so much. What I must do is determine what it is that I really need to make this work.
Martha – God love her – reminded me of many leaders I know. She also nudged me to ask for more money. I remember now that for my very first grant, in 1977, from the Atkinson Charitable Foundation, I asked for a salary that was about $500/month smaller than the next person who took the job.
On another topic, on Monday I found out that the prison that is being assembled from the cubes piled just outside of my bedroom window is being put up not at the Don Jail site, but here in South Etobicoke, in what used to be called Mimico. This morning the penny dropped. Those buildings that are under construction that I can also see from my bed and that will be featured in the painting that Mike and I are working on now – that incipient complex of two towers and a lower connecting building – that is the prison!
I have been watching it rise since practically its Day 1 and my Day 1 in Cycle 3.
So many people in the world are being separated from one another - housed, cloistered or imprisoned in individual compartments – condos, apartments, cells – and served – rehabilitated, recreationalized, managed, supervised. The life of a prisoner soon to be living five blocks from my bedroom is little different from that of the nearly mad old Caribbean woman who lives in poverty and fear, by herself, two apartments from me.
Since we are in fact surrounded by and infiltrated with M it must be the perfect place to fulfill my “mission”. There is no leaving to somewhere else. The definition of freedom is not getting out of here to be somewhere else.
These thoughts and realizations are both calming and terrifying. Now is the time to be still and listen.
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.
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, November 26, 2010
November 26, 2010
Moods can be annoying!
Of course with yesterday’s great news there are complications. What will this do to my ODSP income, if anything? How does this affect the people who are expecting me to be more available to WPIT? Already I have had an offer to purchase four paintings from a speculator. Another person wanted me to share the news NOW with a group I haven’t gotten to yet.
None of this changes anything substantial. It just leaves that mood – that unwelcome sense of a “bad moon rising” – that sense of distraction that comes with having multiple agendas to untangle. What of all this is me – my expression?
Perhaps that is the point anyway. What is my expression in the face of being recognized? It’s one thing to be “out” trying to get “in”. It’s quite another, I suppose, to have come home to find that home is no more interested in Inclusion than anywhere else was.
Not that I thought it was – I just got disoriented for a moment! Whoops - sorry.
Inclusion hasn’t happened in the world yet, except for those momentary, seductive occasions that give one both a sense of what’s possible and the necessity to not hope unrealistically. There is still much work to do. The question is what is the good work to do now?
I love the heady beginnings of fun things. The video game project, the ROM. I’m not so fond of the negotiation part – sorting out mine and other’s agendas, often in a competitive stance.
There is nothing wrong with either the competition nor the fact that I don’t like it. In fact this is precisely where I get to show that Inclusion can actually happen. If we/I can come to grips with all the needs and diversities and have it work out with no one left out then the world really will have something to pay attention to!
So can I like it, or at least cease to resist it? Can I be the perfect matador and simply not be there for the moment the bull passes through the cape?
It’s not a challenge I had anticipated but neither is one I am unfamiliar with. This is just taking a Rubik’s cube life to another level.
I wonder when and what I will paint next. My familiar tracker quit this week, and although Mike is a good tracker, if he tracks for me on the days he works as a personal assistant it limits his break time. It seems ironic indeed that at the moment when the world will want to see me paint, I am almost as unprepared to do so as in the beginning in 2004.
So perhaps the genuine question for me to address now, in the few months before the exhibit happens, is who will paint with me in this upcoming year of public scrutiny?
Of course with yesterday’s great news there are complications. What will this do to my ODSP income, if anything? How does this affect the people who are expecting me to be more available to WPIT? Already I have had an offer to purchase four paintings from a speculator. Another person wanted me to share the news NOW with a group I haven’t gotten to yet.
None of this changes anything substantial. It just leaves that mood – that unwelcome sense of a “bad moon rising” – that sense of distraction that comes with having multiple agendas to untangle. What of all this is me – my expression?
Perhaps that is the point anyway. What is my expression in the face of being recognized? It’s one thing to be “out” trying to get “in”. It’s quite another, I suppose, to have come home to find that home is no more interested in Inclusion than anywhere else was.
Not that I thought it was – I just got disoriented for a moment! Whoops - sorry.
Inclusion hasn’t happened in the world yet, except for those momentary, seductive occasions that give one both a sense of what’s possible and the necessity to not hope unrealistically. There is still much work to do. The question is what is the good work to do now?
I love the heady beginnings of fun things. The video game project, the ROM. I’m not so fond of the negotiation part – sorting out mine and other’s agendas, often in a competitive stance.
There is nothing wrong with either the competition nor the fact that I don’t like it. In fact this is precisely where I get to show that Inclusion can actually happen. If we/I can come to grips with all the needs and diversities and have it work out with no one left out then the world really will have something to pay attention to!
So can I like it, or at least cease to resist it? Can I be the perfect matador and simply not be there for the moment the bull passes through the cape?
It’s not a challenge I had anticipated but neither is one I am unfamiliar with. This is just taking a Rubik’s cube life to another level.
I wonder when and what I will paint next. My familiar tracker quit this week, and although Mike is a good tracker, if he tracks for me on the days he works as a personal assistant it limits his break time. It seems ironic indeed that at the moment when the world will want to see me paint, I am almost as unprepared to do so as in the beginning in 2004.
So perhaps the genuine question for me to address now, in the few months before the exhibit happens, is who will paint with me in this upcoming year of public scrutiny?
Thursday, November 25, 2010
November 25, 2010
It’s relatively early in the day. I usually write these near 11:30pm and it’s just past 11:30am. I have just heard momentous news, and I am going to be writing e-mails to friends and colleagues everywhere. I figure I may as well do it this way, and take parts of this and turn it into the e-mails later. It might save some Morse Code puffing!
I have just heard that my paintings and the play – The Book of Judith (http://bookofjudithplay.blogspot.com/) – are going to be exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). I am to be a guest curator. The theme will be my legacy of Inclusion and my growing understanding and message portrayed as art, video and other interactive elements. After a stationary instalment in the museum itself, we will tour both the play and art. This will be in partnership with the Trillium Foundation who are already backing a spring and fall tour of The Book of Judith.
In all it’s a year’s commitment to celebrating Inclusion and diversity.
Michael Rubenfeld and Sarah Garton Stanley are integral to the creation, development, production and presentation of the play. We will be in close collaboration for all of it!
Even the World Peace through Inclusive Transformation will get a leg up as this theme and initiative are very much part of my legacy. Will I finally be able to get research backing for the BMX Model of Inclusion?
Recognition and the opening of doors come in quiet and unassuming ways. Yesterday included a last minute rearrangement of my schedule so I could participate in a teleconference with the ROM. It was no big deal – I am always rearranging my schedule last minute. Staff needed on the spot support to put a last minute proposal in front of the museum’s exhibit selection committee. Today I was in bed, getting ready to get up so the technician could fix the electronics of my bed. The call came and my future shifted.
It’s such an ordinary moment that my emotions haven’t caught up. I get what Mike was saying about meeting with the video game producers on Monday. It’s such an ordinary day, unlike a special day that one has been preparing for - a wedding or graduation - that the obvious next step is to go have lunch. The overall mood is so ordinary, so: “Well, of course – what else would we do except say yes.” In the absence of a big high it nearly feels like a low.
Yet I have been preparing for this day in one way or another since I was four – 57 years. I am coming home to a rightful place in the world. I don’t need a big high right now. I need to place myself firmly in the passion for Inclusion that has carried me through these 57 years. I need to fully feel and express my gratitude for the opening, for the many hands – seen and unseen – that have carried me to this day, and for the vision, energy and courage I have been given to keep on working the path when there was no sign that this future was realizable. Hallelujah!
Michael and I will be at the ROM on Monday for the first production meeting, to find out really what we need to do to set up the contracts, partnerships, etc. Then we will go have a beer. By then I think I will be ready to celebrate!
I have just heard that my paintings and the play – The Book of Judith (http://bookofjudithplay.blogspot.com/) – are going to be exhibited at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM). I am to be a guest curator. The theme will be my legacy of Inclusion and my growing understanding and message portrayed as art, video and other interactive elements. After a stationary instalment in the museum itself, we will tour both the play and art. This will be in partnership with the Trillium Foundation who are already backing a spring and fall tour of The Book of Judith.
In all it’s a year’s commitment to celebrating Inclusion and diversity.
Michael Rubenfeld and Sarah Garton Stanley are integral to the creation, development, production and presentation of the play. We will be in close collaboration for all of it!
Even the World Peace through Inclusive Transformation will get a leg up as this theme and initiative are very much part of my legacy. Will I finally be able to get research backing for the BMX Model of Inclusion?
Recognition and the opening of doors come in quiet and unassuming ways. Yesterday included a last minute rearrangement of my schedule so I could participate in a teleconference with the ROM. It was no big deal – I am always rearranging my schedule last minute. Staff needed on the spot support to put a last minute proposal in front of the museum’s exhibit selection committee. Today I was in bed, getting ready to get up so the technician could fix the electronics of my bed. The call came and my future shifted.
It’s such an ordinary moment that my emotions haven’t caught up. I get what Mike was saying about meeting with the video game producers on Monday. It’s such an ordinary day, unlike a special day that one has been preparing for - a wedding or graduation - that the obvious next step is to go have lunch. The overall mood is so ordinary, so: “Well, of course – what else would we do except say yes.” In the absence of a big high it nearly feels like a low.
Yet I have been preparing for this day in one way or another since I was four – 57 years. I am coming home to a rightful place in the world. I don’t need a big high right now. I need to place myself firmly in the passion for Inclusion that has carried me through these 57 years. I need to fully feel and express my gratitude for the opening, for the many hands – seen and unseen – that have carried me to this day, and for the vision, energy and courage I have been given to keep on working the path when there was no sign that this future was realizable. Hallelujah!
Michael and I will be at the ROM on Monday for the first production meeting, to find out really what we need to do to set up the contracts, partnerships, etc. Then we will go have a beer. By then I think I will be ready to celebrate!
Thursday, November 18, 2010
November 18, 2010
Another banner day – poo wise! And that’s enough said about that.
The pain is ridiculous today. Enough said about that too!
I had lunch today in my tiny studio that I set up by my south facing window. I call it “Beach”. I made a room by lining up two stand alone closets and putting storage bins on top to give a wall that permits light and air into the rest of the main space. Beach is where my personal assistants sleep and surf the internet. It is also where I occasionally paint and where guests sometimes stay.
I call this space Beach because the view faces Lake Ontario. One can see easily to the Niagara escarpment and occasionally one of those strange refractions occur that gives the illusion that Rochester, New York, is only a few kilometres away. Rochester is on the southern coast of the lake and certainly is two hundred kilometres or more due south of Toronto.
There are about four by six city blocks of neighbourhood between my eighth floor window and the lake. This neighbourhood includes six other high rise coops and condos, three parks with various amenities such as a basket ball court, swimming pool, toddlers’ play ground, walking and bike lanes and dog exercising facilities. There are two rows of small business establishments on either side of the main route, a street car track and two bus routes, two or three evangelistic style churches, two schools and multitudes of townhouses, duplexes and single houses. Even though we are a twenty minute drive from downtown Toronto or Canada’s biggest international airport (depending on which direction you take) I essentially live in a low key small town – a trick of geography.
My neighbourhood also includes flocks of Canada geese, swans, ducks, gulls, starlings, black and grey squirrels, beavers and at least one muskrat. There are oak, maple, chestnut, walnut, elm, willow and several varieties of evergreen trees in every yard and public area. Homeowners grow roses, coop residents plant marigolds and corn flowers, and an enormous variety of beautiful plants – names unknown to me – flourish in the parks.
At this time of year the deciduous trees have dropped their leaves, which turned from green to a riot of yellow through orange to red, then from pale to golden brown before being blown off their branches in the early winter wind storms of ten days ago.
As a watcher this is my favourite time of year to be looking out my Beach window. The dropping of leaves gives me a clear view of the lake, the neighbourhood between and the rocky shoreline, including the spit at the end of the park that is part of Humber College’s campus. When the weather is friendly I can stroll to the end of this spit (and along three or four other pathways) to be close to the water, birds, weeds, rocks and clouds.
I have travelled on cruise ships and to parts of eleven other countries as well as across Canada. There are many breathtakingly beautiful places in the world. South Etobicoke is one of them.
Today I was struck again by the strangely vertical and linear pattern that is visually embedded in my Beach view. There are mast heads on the sail boats in the marina south of Humber, myriads of lamp posts and hydro poles, hundreds of tall and naked trees, and blocks of tall, skinny townhouses with their steeply peaked roofs, built one against the other like European tenements. This afternoon even the clouds cooperated in the illusion of linearity. A lower bank of dark rain clouds scudded in a diagonal direction to a higher array of white fluffies creating patches of rain and sun light falling on the grey water in those straight piercing lines one sees sometimes on religious greeting cards.
Last winter I attempted to paint this strangely linear pattern of my neighbourhood. I worked on the canvas for months. The trackers who supported me teased me by telling stories to anyone who listened of how I tortured them with rulers and masking tape, trying to reproduce the pattern. I felt my result was inadequate. The painting hangs on my wall but it rarely draws comments from visitors.
This afternoon I felt the urge to try again. It is intimidating to think of both the trackers’ dismay and my inadequacies at replicating what my imagination so simply perceives. This aspect of my physical limitations – that my trackers must struggle on my behalf – leaves me with a wish that I could privately struggle on my own. Then I could have the space to learn what I don’t know now.
Perhaps it’s time to look at a MAC based drawing program again. Previously I couldn’t find anything that I could make work with my Morse Code interface. But who knows!
The pain is ridiculous today. Enough said about that too!
I had lunch today in my tiny studio that I set up by my south facing window. I call it “Beach”. I made a room by lining up two stand alone closets and putting storage bins on top to give a wall that permits light and air into the rest of the main space. Beach is where my personal assistants sleep and surf the internet. It is also where I occasionally paint and where guests sometimes stay.
I call this space Beach because the view faces Lake Ontario. One can see easily to the Niagara escarpment and occasionally one of those strange refractions occur that gives the illusion that Rochester, New York, is only a few kilometres away. Rochester is on the southern coast of the lake and certainly is two hundred kilometres or more due south of Toronto.
There are about four by six city blocks of neighbourhood between my eighth floor window and the lake. This neighbourhood includes six other high rise coops and condos, three parks with various amenities such as a basket ball court, swimming pool, toddlers’ play ground, walking and bike lanes and dog exercising facilities. There are two rows of small business establishments on either side of the main route, a street car track and two bus routes, two or three evangelistic style churches, two schools and multitudes of townhouses, duplexes and single houses. Even though we are a twenty minute drive from downtown Toronto or Canada’s biggest international airport (depending on which direction you take) I essentially live in a low key small town – a trick of geography.
My neighbourhood also includes flocks of Canada geese, swans, ducks, gulls, starlings, black and grey squirrels, beavers and at least one muskrat. There are oak, maple, chestnut, walnut, elm, willow and several varieties of evergreen trees in every yard and public area. Homeowners grow roses, coop residents plant marigolds and corn flowers, and an enormous variety of beautiful plants – names unknown to me – flourish in the parks.
At this time of year the deciduous trees have dropped their leaves, which turned from green to a riot of yellow through orange to red, then from pale to golden brown before being blown off their branches in the early winter wind storms of ten days ago.
As a watcher this is my favourite time of year to be looking out my Beach window. The dropping of leaves gives me a clear view of the lake, the neighbourhood between and the rocky shoreline, including the spit at the end of the park that is part of Humber College’s campus. When the weather is friendly I can stroll to the end of this spit (and along three or four other pathways) to be close to the water, birds, weeds, rocks and clouds.
I have travelled on cruise ships and to parts of eleven other countries as well as across Canada. There are many breathtakingly beautiful places in the world. South Etobicoke is one of them.
Today I was struck again by the strangely vertical and linear pattern that is visually embedded in my Beach view. There are mast heads on the sail boats in the marina south of Humber, myriads of lamp posts and hydro poles, hundreds of tall and naked trees, and blocks of tall, skinny townhouses with their steeply peaked roofs, built one against the other like European tenements. This afternoon even the clouds cooperated in the illusion of linearity. A lower bank of dark rain clouds scudded in a diagonal direction to a higher array of white fluffies creating patches of rain and sun light falling on the grey water in those straight piercing lines one sees sometimes on religious greeting cards.
Last winter I attempted to paint this strangely linear pattern of my neighbourhood. I worked on the canvas for months. The trackers who supported me teased me by telling stories to anyone who listened of how I tortured them with rulers and masking tape, trying to reproduce the pattern. I felt my result was inadequate. The painting hangs on my wall but it rarely draws comments from visitors.
This afternoon I felt the urge to try again. It is intimidating to think of both the trackers’ dismay and my inadequacies at replicating what my imagination so simply perceives. This aspect of my physical limitations – that my trackers must struggle on my behalf – leaves me with a wish that I could privately struggle on my own. Then I could have the space to learn what I don’t know now.
Perhaps it’s time to look at a MAC based drawing program again. Previously I couldn’t find anything that I could make work with my Morse Code interface. But who knows!
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
November 16, 2010
It was a good Laser Eagles day today. Of course, just about every Laser Eagles day is a good day. I enjoy being with the other artists. I enjoy working with a tracker – today my tracker was Mike Skubic. I enjoy the process of painting even when I don’t like the result that much. I don’t really like my last two paintings, but I’m not sure that I’m finished with either one of them anyways.
I thought I would start painting anger today. It ended up being a whole lot more yellow than I thought it would be, and a very bright yellow indeed. Paintings have a way of doing that – I mean turning out very differently than I thought they would be in the beginning. I have never really painted with yellow before, so maybe that is an angry colour for me. Just the same, it’s not what I thought anger would look like.
The other reason that it has been a good Laser Eagles day is that we had an organizational meeting and I was pleasantly surprised, perhaps even a little overwhelmed, at how it went. For one thing, I am learning to keep my mouth shut around Kimberly Fu who has an amazing capacity to say things quite differently than I would say them and yet end up with a similar or better result than I could have. In the last few weeks, the CAVE Board, particularly Paul and Bill, have gone from being kind of distracted and even a little resigned about the future of Laser Eagles to being very solid around the possibility of building and expanding. Paul in particular expressed a solid vision for having Laser Eagles be an organization that can sustain itself and be true to its mission. It was very easy to have him see that Kimberly should be the person who will stickhandle the next few months of shifting the organizational foundation.
I see where I have let some important aspects slip. In particular, it is much clearer now why it is important for the artists to sometimes use a way of showing to others that they are directing their trackers. Our familiarity with our trackers and, I believe, a certain laziness has caused us all to use methods of painting where it is easy to imagine that the tracker is choosing how the painting will go. Paul made it clear that others cannot actually see how the artists are making their paintings, and this is detrimental to the potential for fundraising.
Beyond that, the artists have never risen to the challenge of raising money or selling their art and giving the money to the program. I have sold a good number of paintings over the years, but have considered my volunteer efforts to be compensation for the supplies I use. Other artists have stacks of paintings sitting around in their bedrooms or have given some away as gifts. A few have sold paintings but kept all of the money. I don’t begrudge them the money but it is clear that they have not developed a sense of what it takes to sustain a consistent support system for themselves.
We have a real opportunity to show that we are capable of contributing to the organizational aspects of the world. I hope that we are able to actually grasp this opportunity at this time. It would be a big shift in the culture that we call inclusion.
Today I also had an insight into how I keep chaos happening in my financial life. At some point in the meeting I offered to do radio shows to promote Laser Eagles during the Christmas season. One of the CAVE Board members owns a radio station. Paul turned my offer down.
He pointed out that, without the organizational foundation in place, promoting Laser Eagles was detrimental to its long term stability. This is simply because anyone who might want to donate or get involved would not see accountability at this point but would see only our appearance of instability and – I guess what you would call “flying by the seat of our pants”.
How many times in my life have I gotten publicly enthusiastic about a possibility or a project and had nothing concrete to back up my enthusiasm! It is one thing for me to be a blue hat visionary. But visionaries cannot get very far on their own. And so, I have pushed away the very resources that my own life and my creations depend on.
Well, a new part of my history has begun. Cycle 3 has a genuine potential of being a time when I and others realize our wonderful ideas!
I thought I would start painting anger today. It ended up being a whole lot more yellow than I thought it would be, and a very bright yellow indeed. Paintings have a way of doing that – I mean turning out very differently than I thought they would be in the beginning. I have never really painted with yellow before, so maybe that is an angry colour for me. Just the same, it’s not what I thought anger would look like.
The other reason that it has been a good Laser Eagles day is that we had an organizational meeting and I was pleasantly surprised, perhaps even a little overwhelmed, at how it went. For one thing, I am learning to keep my mouth shut around Kimberly Fu who has an amazing capacity to say things quite differently than I would say them and yet end up with a similar or better result than I could have. In the last few weeks, the CAVE Board, particularly Paul and Bill, have gone from being kind of distracted and even a little resigned about the future of Laser Eagles to being very solid around the possibility of building and expanding. Paul in particular expressed a solid vision for having Laser Eagles be an organization that can sustain itself and be true to its mission. It was very easy to have him see that Kimberly should be the person who will stickhandle the next few months of shifting the organizational foundation.
I see where I have let some important aspects slip. In particular, it is much clearer now why it is important for the artists to sometimes use a way of showing to others that they are directing their trackers. Our familiarity with our trackers and, I believe, a certain laziness has caused us all to use methods of painting where it is easy to imagine that the tracker is choosing how the painting will go. Paul made it clear that others cannot actually see how the artists are making their paintings, and this is detrimental to the potential for fundraising.
Beyond that, the artists have never risen to the challenge of raising money or selling their art and giving the money to the program. I have sold a good number of paintings over the years, but have considered my volunteer efforts to be compensation for the supplies I use. Other artists have stacks of paintings sitting around in their bedrooms or have given some away as gifts. A few have sold paintings but kept all of the money. I don’t begrudge them the money but it is clear that they have not developed a sense of what it takes to sustain a consistent support system for themselves.
We have a real opportunity to show that we are capable of contributing to the organizational aspects of the world. I hope that we are able to actually grasp this opportunity at this time. It would be a big shift in the culture that we call inclusion.
Today I also had an insight into how I keep chaos happening in my financial life. At some point in the meeting I offered to do radio shows to promote Laser Eagles during the Christmas season. One of the CAVE Board members owns a radio station. Paul turned my offer down.
He pointed out that, without the organizational foundation in place, promoting Laser Eagles was detrimental to its long term stability. This is simply because anyone who might want to donate or get involved would not see accountability at this point but would see only our appearance of instability and – I guess what you would call “flying by the seat of our pants”.
How many times in my life have I gotten publicly enthusiastic about a possibility or a project and had nothing concrete to back up my enthusiasm! It is one thing for me to be a blue hat visionary. But visionaries cannot get very far on their own. And so, I have pushed away the very resources that my own life and my creations depend on.
Well, a new part of my history has begun. Cycle 3 has a genuine potential of being a time when I and others realize our wonderful ideas!
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
November 9, 2010
I have been in my chair since 11:15am. It is 9:00pm. I am typing this myself. I have taken Morphine twice. I went for a walk to the lake with Aki. I went to Laser Eagles and finished 1 ½ paintings. I have pooped – an important daily milestone these days. I ate three times and drank plenty of fluids. I cheated on my diet only once with about 2 ounces of cherry cheesecake. Mike Skubic and I reserved the domain name WPIT.ca. I discussed doing some development and admin work with the play – the Book of Judith.
Is this recovery or recovered?
Life seems pretty normal except for pain and the continuous reference – out loud and self talk – to when I can get out of and return to bed.
Likely I “should” return to bed NOW and let Eva finish typing this. My body is tired and sore; my thoughts jumbled by fatigue and intoxication. I am stubborn. I will finish and post this if I can. The reader will certainly recognize the compromise with my body in that the writing will be jerkier with more truncated sentences.
Laser Eagles. Currently there are five artists – at our peak we were twenty. Currently we paint at a community drop in centre funded for adults who live with mental health concerns. In the beginning we painted at an arts and cultural centre. Today I rounded up a “warm body” because we were going to be short a tracker. At our best there were ample volunteers – sometimes even two trackers for one or two of the artists. (Tracking is described at www.lasereagles.org.)
At one time we trained the trackers to sustain the quality of our work - to be certain that every artist guided his or her own work. Today at least three artists passively let their trackers dictate the process. Six weeks ago we nearly shut down. At our peak we had three locations running. This is all a sort of shake down, yet I feel that we are at our strongest in some fundamental ways.
Today the five of us experience each other as colleagues. To a certain degree this is also true of the people who support us to paint. It is clear that we come to paint AND to be together. Laser Eagles has lost the flavour of being “a good deed” and is, at least for the artists, truly a time of expression.
I and one other artist speak as a regular way to communicate. The other three are largely silent. On three or four occasions one of us has started laughing or humming and soon we are all giggling. When we had more space I would dance among the other four.
Today, most of us weren’t really into painting that much. The trackers carried on and we mostly just quietly sat enjoying each other.
I have a small art studio in my apartment and I paint there when Laser Eagles is closed. I could do so much more often. However I want to be with my fellows. This weekly moment gives my life a balance. In this context I am like my colleagues in a way that is not so in any other part of my life. It is a time when I get as close to being a “quiet” person as I ever can be. And I am accepted by my peers in a way that is unavailable to me in any other “regular” part of daily life.
Laser Eagles was and remains among the first three things that I knew I wanted to live for in Cycle 3.
Last week, “out of the blue” as they say, we received a $10,000 grant. I am taking it as a sign that now is the moment to fulfill on the unique collegiality that we, the five quiet artists, have.
Is this recovery or recovered?
Life seems pretty normal except for pain and the continuous reference – out loud and self talk – to when I can get out of and return to bed.
Likely I “should” return to bed NOW and let Eva finish typing this. My body is tired and sore; my thoughts jumbled by fatigue and intoxication. I am stubborn. I will finish and post this if I can. The reader will certainly recognize the compromise with my body in that the writing will be jerkier with more truncated sentences.
Laser Eagles. Currently there are five artists – at our peak we were twenty. Currently we paint at a community drop in centre funded for adults who live with mental health concerns. In the beginning we painted at an arts and cultural centre. Today I rounded up a “warm body” because we were going to be short a tracker. At our best there were ample volunteers – sometimes even two trackers for one or two of the artists. (Tracking is described at www.lasereagles.org.)
At one time we trained the trackers to sustain the quality of our work - to be certain that every artist guided his or her own work. Today at least three artists passively let their trackers dictate the process. Six weeks ago we nearly shut down. At our peak we had three locations running. This is all a sort of shake down, yet I feel that we are at our strongest in some fundamental ways.
Today the five of us experience each other as colleagues. To a certain degree this is also true of the people who support us to paint. It is clear that we come to paint AND to be together. Laser Eagles has lost the flavour of being “a good deed” and is, at least for the artists, truly a time of expression.
I and one other artist speak as a regular way to communicate. The other three are largely silent. On three or four occasions one of us has started laughing or humming and soon we are all giggling. When we had more space I would dance among the other four.
Today, most of us weren’t really into painting that much. The trackers carried on and we mostly just quietly sat enjoying each other.
I have a small art studio in my apartment and I paint there when Laser Eagles is closed. I could do so much more often. However I want to be with my fellows. This weekly moment gives my life a balance. In this context I am like my colleagues in a way that is not so in any other part of my life. It is a time when I get as close to being a “quiet” person as I ever can be. And I am accepted by my peers in a way that is unavailable to me in any other “regular” part of daily life.
Laser Eagles was and remains among the first three things that I knew I wanted to live for in Cycle 3.
Last week, “out of the blue” as they say, we received a $10,000 grant. I am taking it as a sign that now is the moment to fulfill on the unique collegiality that we, the five quiet artists, have.
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