Sad story this week of a young man, very creative, very kind who had volunteered in the art program I help run. Last week he died. Apparently it was a suicide. This young man had made an impression this summer and I'd been thinking about him. His application was on my desk and had I wanted to call him to see if he would help teachers and children and clean up the clay on the floor. I wanted to know if he'd applied to art schools. I wanted to find out if he was still wearing all black (it contrasted with his smile). I only really knew him for a two week period in which he came everyday, regular as can be, and habitually made the kids laugh. 17. Good kid. Smart kid. Creative kid. All the teachers liked him. The kids teased him. He teased back. He fit in our little world but something must have happened between then and last week that made him feel like there wasn't any other option. (There are always a million options.) Brain chemistry is a scary scary thing and I simply hate that this young man didn't make it out of his adolescence.

My palette is a little muted and my hope is that more kids won't confuse hurting themsleves (drinking, drugs, all sorts of self destructive behavior) with being an artist. Now, I don't really know what happened in this young man's life but so many people (many teens) I've known in creative contexts have had demons (depression, addiction, you name it). Making art really can help with that stuff. Or it can isolate, and frustrate, and aggrevate and saturate the maker with the thought that they are alone. Stink, I tell ya. And it isn't enough for me to feel sad. I want to help. So I remind you as I was abruptly and horribly reminded of the problem of teen suicide, of the problem of depression, of the need we all have for community. Now for a few weeks, I've been reading Diane Ackerman's A Slender Thread. She was a suicide prevention-line answer-erand writes in her clear, nature connected way about how she tried to help by answering the phone.

So, then, what can I tell you except to keep making art, keep listening (particularly for those who need a little extra help), look for signs and help when you can, and keep up the good fight for advocacy for mental illness, programs to mentor and connect teens, and peace...
I'll help.
goodnight,
Rachael

ps, New Orleans needs books as I discovered on nyfa...

Seeking Book Donations
The New Orleans Public Library
(New Orleans LA)


The New Orleans Public Library is asking for any and all hardcover and paperback books for people of all ages in an effort to restock the shelves after Katrina.  The staff will assess which titles will be designated for its collections.  The rest will be distributed to destitute famil! ies or sold for library fundraising.  Please send your books to:  

Rica A. Trigs, Public Relations
New Orleans Public Library
219 Loyola Avenue
New Orleans, LA 70112  

If you tell the post office that they are for the library in New Orleans, they will give you the library rate which is slightly less than the book rate.

Well I simply forgot to include theimage. And then I've forgoten to and gotten lazy with the links at the left there so I just fixed the links to Mark's,Anna's and added Katie'sblogs. I check them all the time but just haven't done much about sharing that.
I'm going up to my attic to paint. See ya...
Rachael

I have a dumb cold. But it's OK. I'll survive. I have my quills (day and night mind you), my kleenex, my juices (orange and grape mind you), my blankets and my books. I didn't go to work today and I missed the little kids, the big kids, the projects and the people but they'll be happier to not get sick and my apprentice no doubt did beautifully in making sure all things went well. I slept.
Now, the sleeping is done and I'm sitting here leafing through modern ceramics books and dreaming of Lucie Rie and Hans Coper and their tea and their forms and their lovely clay things.
It's fascinating to find them and revel in their forms and ideas. Calm things made by refugees from crazy wars, isn't that the telling truth of art in the 20s 30s 40s ...These transcripts are a treat, too. I love thinking about Lucy's dangerous pots!
Oh yes and I sent my application to go to Penland and now my fingers are so tightly crossed. And all is going great with the Starbucks show.

Here's another one (What Remains , a small subtle guy) that's on the walls there and I highly encourage anyone reading within driving range of Rochester to join us next Sunday Feb 19 for a light reception from 1 to 3. I promise I'll be healthier...
take good care of yourself,
Rachael

The show is up. Today is a day off and I'm sitting in a university library listening to smarty kids saying dumb things (oh who am I to judge?). My to do list is daunting. There's some homework to be done for my education class. I have to finish an application so I can escape for 2 weeks and make art in a different world I've been watching for a while. I shoulda gone to visit Shelly and new baby and maybe I ought to have spent my morning painting and while I'm busy regretting, I guess I should confess some guilt that this is the first glimmer of thinking here in a good bit. I've been mulling over a couple of entries for awhile but have posted none of it. I sit down at the computer and my thoughts disappear. My sketchbook gets thicker and denser and messier but this forum has been quiet. So I guess that means I don't like you. No. It means I am more concerned with what I'm saying where and why.

Case in point. The other day as I waited for my bus I was leafing through my sketchbook looking for a phone number. A woman (Marshay? Marshe? Marcia?) who I'd never met was looking over my shoulder. She complimented me and we struck up a conversation about art. I shared how I draw, some of why I draw, and some drawing tips. I listened to her ideas and questions and I completely enjoyed the opportunity to talk art to a civilian (i.e. someone not actively making or profiting from art, i.e. someone doing honest work). But then I looked up and noticed that the bus was watching me. I'd been outed as an artist and now had to show my drawings and be on view. It's good, it's bad, it's wacky at 8am to do an unscheduled show-and-tell.

Oh, well. I'm a talker. I'm an art maker and art thinker and so here goes with some more:
And the museum I work for just opened a really great show, Extreme Materials. I had no part in the organizing of it and I simply am pleased to see it and be around a show that kids respond so well to.
It's not just smog plates and drug bag quilts that I'm excited about though...I love the idea of Danny and the gang Drawing Together and hope to get to one of these someday.

I'm fascinated again with artist/printmaker/troublemakers from the 1920s and 30s and that has led me back to visit Wanda Gag's house (I'm only visiting virtually, not physically)

And I've been lucky to find an old friend from art school living and working in the area. Jeff and I went to the same small art school that Aaron Igler and Lisa Catalone went to, and we spent two years in a small communty of goofy art students. We were friends then and are friends now, even though we went our own ways a dozen years ago. So now Jeff and I are painting every tuesday in the same advanced painting class. We bring in the stuff from our studios and we listen to the thoughts of a good painter, good teacher who also used to teach in that little school (though he predated us). It's a comfort to know that we are all still making, to find an old friend, and to know that the core of our work habits, our need to make art, and our ability to form a creative community...all that is still there.

In other news, I saw the project below on nyfaand am impressed and happy to share the word. Let me know if you've been involved before, I'm curious and probably will get involved in some way.

GATES Project - National Call for Artists
IGIVEUP.ORG
(Phoenix AZ)

GATES Project - Final Call
You may have heard about the GATES Project, the national project turning symbols of life's challenges into art. A national press announcement is going out very soon. If you're interested please get your application in ASAP so we can list you prior to the announcement.

ARTIST'S BENEFITS
...You set the low bid price
...All artists will receive 20% of the bid sale
...Primary showing galleries will also receive 20% of the bid sale
...Award winners will get an additional 20%
...plus exposure and more

Brief project definition:
This is a charity project with the theme of life’s challenges
...The general public will donate objects to us (symbols of personal challenges)
...Professional artists will then incorporate one or many of these objects into an art work
...Art work will be exhibited in galleries across the USA in Summer 2006
...Work will be juried and then auctioned in the Fall with cash benefits

More about the project here

Answers to your questions are here.
This same link will take you to the Artist's Prospectus and Application
Application deadline: 2-28-06
email: info@igiveup.org
OK, so take care, make art, make trouble, make mine purple (that's for John's Larry King impersonation, mind you),
I'm back to my to do list...
Rachael

Among the dumb things I've done today:
sleep late
leave the house without my keys
read the bus schedule backwards
read my watch wrong and thus be an hour early

Among the smart things I've done today:
give myself permission to sleep
give myself permission to wander
draw and write
eat a healthy lunch
learn a little more about the busses and the streets around here
relax
and create an invite for the show (it's going to be hung tonight)



take care and try not to do dumb things but relax when you do...
Rachael