As a matter of fact, I liked it so much it made me start wondering how students could possibly help each other.
Is it possible that we could donate a book or books to the library that could be checked out overnight or loaned for the term. Those would be books that the book store refused to buy back (a little too "used") or an older version. I've bought expensive textbooks at Goodwill. Some have been an earlier version, but most instructors allowed the use of those books. It was just up to me to compare and copy pages if necessary.
You did a great job of identifying the problem and presenting precise solutions.
NOTE: All pictures/art used with permission of the artist, Rory White.
1. What lead you to skid row?
Felt called by God to do inner-city work. Was first drawn to doing AIDS
work, as i felt "religious folk" were turning their backs on those who were
marginalized and who God would have us help, Jesus touching and healing
the sick. Left my wilderness home of 15 years in Big Sur calif to go to L.A.
and worked with AIDS patients (had done this since around 1987, but MOVED
to do it in inner city in 94?), then worked with people with AIDS that were
homeless as the funds were coming in, and other PWA's were getting help,
but the homeless PWA's were getting neglected. they were often transgender
street prostitutes, commonly Af-Am or Latino/Latina, and many had mental
diagnoses, and many ended up in Skid Row. This brought my awareness to
Skid Row, the highest concentration of homeless persons in america, and
i went there to focus on the homeless, doing general advocacy work at first
(food, care, shelter, medical benefits, ) and then in 1998 got to combine
art (my other big passion) with helping the homeless of Skid Row.
2. What were you doing prior to making that decision?
I was doing art-historical art dealing (selling paintings to museums)
and large collectors. paintings from the past/art history. and working
on my own art work, oil painting, sculpture, photography, as well as writing
a large autobiographical novel focused on man's inhumanity to man, and
man's struggle with God...
3. Who most impacted your life while being on Skid Row?
The amazing people I met among the homeless, who blossomed as genius
artists and people rich in their personhoods. Darlene Altemeier Dobbs,
and Magdalena Astrid Dahlen, are two examples..... and the founder of Lamp
Community, Mollie Lowery, is another. She gave me free hand to design
implement and build the art project and run it for ten years. She is a truly
great human being.
4. Where did you live? How do you support yourself?
I found a tiny rent control apartment in santa monica near the ocean, where
i had to cook in the tiny bathroom, but it was a nice tiny haven from the world.
I was paid a very very modest salary for my work building the Lamp Art Project.
5. What were the dangers of living/working there?
Not as high of danger from the street people as some believe, mostly are totally
peaceful, with exceptions that get news attention. but they do less violence
than lawyers do, or others doing unethical business practices, mistreating the poor.
I did have a few "close calls" as i worked late at night, walked to the bus stop
when i didn't have a car (half of the ten years i worked there) including very
late at night.
THE BIGGEST DANGER IS ALLOWING YOUR HEART TO GROW HARD TO THE POOR.
I averted this danger by refusing to do so, and then was so blessed and impressed
by the poor, it became easy.
i avoided this danger.
What are you doing now?
Had moved to Washington State to live simpler and in the country, like Big Sur,
but my heart longed to continue my work in Skid Row so i just moved back
a few weeks ago. Am focusing on doing my own art work OF Skid Row, writing
for grants, and seeking the right opportunity to re-continue my art teaching/advocacy
with the marginalized people of Skid Row.
What happened to the project?
The art project continues to flourish under a new , wonderful, coordinator,
Hayk Makhmuryan (check spelling?) and Darlene Altemeier Dobbs, Studio
assistant, who began at the art project while living in a homeless shelter.
The Lamp Art Project is "a child and integral part of Skid Row's Lamp Community" which was founded by Mollie Lowery and was Directed by Casey Horan, executive Director and Shannon Murray, Deputy Director.
Rory White designed and built the project
and ran it for 10 years for Lamp Community. The Lamp Community works with persons
who are challenged with homelessness and mental illness in downtown
Los Angeles. "I am very grateful that they gave me the opportunity to serve
the wonderful and highly gifted people of Skid Row."
"Our art project serves artists, from advanced to beginners, (the child and the maestro), who've been challenged with homelessness and mental diagnoses in Skid Row. On the regular web our fantastic sponsoring agency, Lamp Community, can be found at WWW.LAMPCOMMUNITY.ORG and our own art project website is WWW.LAMPARTPROJECT.ORG
I'M AN ARTIST....
(oil painting, etching, relief sculpture, photography)
and writer (expository, surreal prose, epic blank verse poetry)
SOCIAL ACTIVISST
THE LAMP ART PROJECT is, most specifically, a community of working artists,
all having diagnoses of mental illness.
Lamp Art Project is an outsider art project in Los Angeles Skid Row,
a sector containing the highest concentration of homeless persons
and the homeless mentally ill in America. The art project is, first, a
high level fine arts project, a studio environment comparable to a graduate
school MFA program in structure. It is unique, however in that it accepts
artists from "absolute
beginner" to "highly advanced" levels in
experience. Furthermore all its member-artists have been challenged
with homelessness and mental diagnoses.
It operates on the simple premise that the persons challenged with homelessness
challenged with homelessness
in Skid Row have, at minimum, an equal level of artistic
genius as any other segment of the population.
Ironically, due to a higher percentage of persons having
artistic genius, simultaneously having higher percentage of diagnoses of mental illness,
(for example Vincent Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, etc., see the book
"Touched with Fire" by Dr. Kay Jamison, Ph.D., among others),
there is, therefore, a higher level of artistic genius found upon the streets of Skid Row
with its large percentage of homeless mentally ill. (Perhaps 50% or
more of the homeless persons in Skid Row have diagnoses of mental illness).
Furthermore, other dynamics common to the person touched with artistic genius
create a greater tendency for financial vulnerability and, in many cases,
ultimate homelessness. Our society does not provide a broad secure
basis for employment in the fine arts. Those choosing to pursue this
discipline, sometimes quite knowingly, are chosing to risk ultimate homelessness.
This level of existential fear inherent to the artist's life is forgotten
when we applaud the small percentage of artists, who have achieved success.
"Artists" includes classical musicians, composers, choreographers,
dancers, writers, screenwriters, actors, directors, cinemaphotographers,
and still photographers, among other disciplines,
as well as those in the visual arts).
The Lamp Art Project, an integral part, and visual epitomization,
of the highly successful cutting edge human service agency, Lamp Community
has received many serious awards including grants from
the Frederick Weisman Philanthropic Foundation
Founding project manager Rory White has received two Eli Lilly Welcome Back Awards: Outstanding Community Service in the field of Depression and mental illness, (2004) and Person of the Decade, (2008)
The Lamp Art Project website, which he designed and built, has been designated a "Virtual Treasure"
by the University of British Colombia's Archival and Library Science's
Virtual Museum Project.
Again, the art project is an extreme epitomization of the amazing genius,
often hidden, but herein made visible, of the homeless people of Skid Row,
and those now no longer homeless, through the work of Lamp Community.
LAMP ART PROJECT.
Compared to the massive amount of services, food, shelter, and advocacy for medical
and psychiatric care, which Lamp offers to the people it serves, the Lamp Art Project is,
admittedly, a small component.
Nevertheless, the Art Project is a particularly, and poignantly, CRITICAL and VISIBLE component of Lamp.
This is because, although one can show photographs of meals being offered and shelter
provided, it is difficult to show photographs of the internal healing of human self-esteem,
the strengthening of mental health, and the self-actualization achieved
in this atmosphere.
Yet art is the mirror of society.
Art provides a visible manifestation of human worth and meaning and healing.
Art is healing in itself. Creativity is essential, not superfluous, to human life.
Yet, furthermore, art provides a picture, almost like an X-ray, Cat-Scan, or MRI,
of the invisible things of the human soul or psyche.
For this reason, your visual tour through the Lamp Art Project Website gives you
a unique inside view into the life of Lamp Community and, notably, the psycho-social
healing dynamic at work within that community.
Thus we encourage you to continue this tour of our website.
Who: LBCCs Chamber Choir, Re-Choired Element What: State Champions When: 2009 Where: South Santiam Hall (SSH) Contact Information: Instructor James Reddan, 541-917-4550 Entrance Requirements: By audition only, as vacancies occur Other choirs: Women's, Men's, Concert--open to all
South Santiam Hall is hiding a treasure.
While the work of individuals with a variety of artistic talents is clearly displayed in several parts of the building, tucked away out of the view of the campus in general, another group of artists perfects its craft.
If you were to continue walking through SSH between 11 a.m. and 12:20 p.m. on Tuesdays and Thursdays-- after enjoying the glass-enclosed displays-- you would soon discover LBCCs hidden treasure, a treasure guarded by James Reddan.
If you opened the doors to Room 213, the harmonies of the 20 voices of LBCCs chamber choir, Re-Choired Element, winner of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Gold Award would flow over the campus. In fact, if you walk past those doors around that time most days of the week, you will hear music from the 75-voice Concert Choir, 15-voice Men's Choir or 15-voice Women's Choir.
After representing LBCC in Heritage Music Festivals on the West Coast last year, with the Concert and Men's Choirs, Re-Choired Element won the Oregon Small Ensemble Festival to become the top community college choir in the state and the only one to receive a superior rating.
The Road to Victory
LBCC's choir is probably the most active of all of Oregon's community college music programs. In fact, Reddan says, "LBCC is fortunate to have one of the state's thriving choir, music, theater and dance programs. Most were cut back or totally deleted due to economic budgetary constraints. We are fortunate that LB's program is thriving and growing."
Each year choir festivals are held all across the country. Last year, LBCC chose to perform at the Heritage Music Festivals held in Seattle and San Francisco.
According to Reddan, "At the festival, competing choirs are evaluated by all they have done over the course of the year--not just their performances during the festival. Each choir must attend and perform at an on-stage clinic adjudicated by one of appointed adjudicators. Depending on that rating, the choir is invited to the Festival of Gold."
The choir also receives a CD of the performance and a plaque displaying their final rating as Gold, Silver, Bronze or Festival.
Both four-year and two-year colleges compete together for the title. While there are 17 community college programs in the state, only three competed this past year," Reddan says.
Because the festivals are sanctioned Oregon ACDA events, the participating ensembles are eligible for the Oregon ACDA Gold Award Recognition and can choose a location for the upcoming year.
The Festival of Gold location choices for this year were Chicago, Los Angeles and New York City. Reddan says he chose NYC for the LBCC choir program because of the city's thriving arts culture.
About the Director
Prior to teaching at LBCC, Reddan taught in high school and middle school programs in Las Vegas, Nev. When he joined the LBCC music program, Reddan's plans were to get the choirs growing, to not just increase in size but to grow musically--to have good, high--quality musical experiences. He has toured and directed domestically and internationally and says he is looking forward to the possibility of taking the Re-Choired Element on an international tour, at some point. (The choir went on its first performing tour all over the West Coast last year.)
Re-Choired Element This Year
According to a recent LBCC newsletter the 2010 Oregon ACDA Small Ensemble Festival will take place on Saturday, April 24th, 2010 from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Russell Tripp Performance Center.
Who: US Airways What: Commercial Airline Where: United States
Having an emergency that requires making flight reservations on short notice is one of the worst things that can happen to a student on a fixed budget--especially on holiday or major playoff or bowl game weekends. The going price for a flight that normally would cost $300 or less can be as much as $1500 on those days.
I had that experience last week, and it was not a good experience until I Googled "cheap flights to Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW)" and came across a website that featured US Airways.
Suddenly, there were flights between $516 and $586. Since it said there was only one ticket left at that price, I quickly made the economical choice .
Then the nerves set in.
What was the last plane to crash and what was the name of the airline that landed in the Hudson River? Was US Airways a "good" airline?
I was about to find out.
As instructed, I arrived at the airport two hours early, and made my way through the security checkpoint--twice. That's what happens when you buy beverages on the wrong side of the checkpoint.
Food goes through security checks, beverages do not. And no, you can't stand there in the line and drink it; you have to go through the line again or throw it away.
They said it very nicely.
When I finally arrived at the gate, I realized again that something had changed since the days I thought I wanted to be a stewardess--all flight attendants and ground hostesses are no longer perky 18 to 21-year-old females, 5'6" and less than 120 pounds.
Actually, according to a 2009 Newsweek article on the aging of flight attendants, the days of selection by age and physical characteristics (young, slim, attractive, etc.) are gone.
There was something rather comforting about people caring for your need having smile lines around their mouths and crinkles around their eyes.
But what was up with all of the "fees"? One would think that at $1500 for a seat, luggage could travel for free, and the passenger could have a blanket, a pillow, and a meal or at least a snack.
Well, that was yesterday, and I found myself longing for yesterday.
Today there's the checked bag fee, the curbside-helper fee, the earphone fee, the beverage fee, the snack fee, the meal fee, and a pillow and blanket fee on some flights (although they call some of those "fees" prices rather than fees).
Before Aug. 26, 2009, one carry-on piece of luggage was $15 to $20. After Aug. 26, 2009, prices went up to $20 to $25. In January there was another price increase. (International flights do allow more free luggage than domestic flights.)
There is also a small savings when tickets are purchased online and baggage fees are paid online.
Inflight Cafe offers chef-prepared meals and snacks, if you want to pay the price. Interestingly, the price for most of the food and comfort items in the in-flight catalog was around $7.
Although the airlines hate to admit it, all of these fees are having an affect on the numbers of people who fly. The Travel Insider says it is the number two cause of passenger decline. "All of the nasty fees discourage people." Their research indicates "It is now possible to pay more to an airline to transport your luggage than you pay to travel yourself.
Most of us passengers/customers think it outrageous that it is cheaper to fly a 240-pound passenger, complete with amenities and frequent flier miles, than it is to place 120 pounds of luggage in the hold."
So, here's a piece of advice.If you are taking a short trip, pack a smaller bag to carry on, pay the curbside helper (that's just a nice thing to do), and pack your favorite snack and beverage in the piece of carry-on luggage that will go under the seat in front of you. Because flights are generally chilly, take your own small blanket and take a small pillow if it is a long flight.
Suddenly, I was brought back to the reality of my flight. Forget the price of anything and whether or not I had good service. The pilot's voice was saying there would be turbulence as we entered the airspace near Phoenix.Oh boy. I was already looking out of the cabin windows for birds, praying that the Canada geese were somewhere far from the airport.
Was US Airways the airline that ended in the Hudson?
Who: Me What: Commenting on Stephen Kings book "On Writing--A Memoir of the Craft"
One thing is certain. Stephen King's book on writing teaches you "stuff." And, you learn very quickly that some of the "stuff" is not what you are wanting to read or to learn, necessarily. That's my conclusion, anyway.
Why?
Although I have not always lived a God-centered life, I have never liked to hear language that I was taught was "vile", "filthy", "gutter language" or just plain old "profanity," and it is hard to read with a filter.
Therefore, reading and trying to actually learn from Stephen King has been difficult.
Yet, there are gems about the craft of writing scattered in the mire.
(I am not certain that Shrunk and White would consider King's words that I would have omitted as "needless words" that should be omitted, though.)
Still, that is the first point about the writing craft that King drives home: Rule 17. It is still important to do that. It is so easy to just "write"--get it on paper--and that is usually with all of the words one would say when talking.
That is not necessary to do when writing. In other words, tighten it up.
Continuing through the pages, I quickly concluded, if this guy is considered a great writer, then there is hope for me. The writing craft is there and needs to be honed. So, I am on the right track.
I like the way he re-emphasized the way ideas come for stories, recognizing ideas that come to mind, and the nugget "Loose pages plus paperclip equal correct way to submit copy." As I said, gems in the mire.
He confirmed something that I believe to be true: part of writing is having someone believe that you can--just believe in you.
I also am still learning that everything doesn't get written in a day. As he said in writing about "Carrie", some stories have to sit and simmer a bit.
However, the most important thing I have learned from King at this moment is found on page 69. I say it is the most important thing because of its impact on my life.
Several years ago I began a book.
I had the opportunity to present the initial pages and concept to a publisher's agent who was seeking a book on the the subject I was writing about. She was in tears as she read. "I want this book to be the ONE book we publish on this subject," she said as she fumbled through her purse for a Kleenex.
Well, it got hard. Hard because it was emotionally hard. And that is exactly when King says that "stopping a piece of work just because it is hard...is a bad idea."
So, maybe I will continue reading King's book and pull my unfinished book off of the shelf.
Who knows, there may be more valuable gems in the mire I need to mine. I am quite positive there are.
Who: LaVernon Hooks What: Look at his life When: January 22, 2010
In the summer of 1916, Sandy and Georgia Hooks were awaiting the birth of their fourth child. And so it was, on the 22nd day of the month of July, the door of time opened and LaVernon steppd into his place on the stage of life.
Having lost two sons before him, no one knew how long he would stay, but it pleased the Creator to measure his life in millions of minutes.
As the minutes ticked by, his mama's tender care shaped teh character of the boy who, in a few short moments, would begin to answer life's calls of duty.
The first call came when the doctors told teh family that Mama was ill. He saw his duty clear and began helping her take care of his two baby sisters, Ethel and Marvice. Before 8 million of those minutes had passed, his mama was gone. Remembering that day he said, "I grew up the day Mama passed."
What his mama taught him in those early years was reinforced by the guidance of her brother, Dan, who raised him and his brother, Sandy, from that point onward. In his uncle's home, he formed a lifelong relationship with his uncle's stepson, John, who would later become his brother-in-law--when John married his sister, Ethel.
When his country called him to service, 12 million minutes had passed. La Vernon answered by enlisting in the United States Army Air Corps. He performed his assigned duties until he retired.
The minutes continued ticking by on his life's clock and when it reached 14 million, God called.
LaVernon heard and answered that call to serve his God and joined Starlight Baptist Church. After another 2 million minutes passed, he joined St. Rest Baptist Church where he remained a faithful member until his death.
He spent 28 million of his allotted minutes as the loving, devoted husband of Ruth, his chosen bride. When her health began to fail, he tenderly cared for her until he laid her to rest.
As he began the last 2 million minutes, he sensed life's door was beginning to close. Once again the concerned older brother, he traveled to spend time with his sister and brother. He drew friends and loved ones closer, once again sharing teh gentle tenderness instilled in him by his mama--and reminding each one that we have a duty to fulfill in our allotted itme.
In those last minutes, when people called to see how he was doing, his usual reply was, "I am just lovely." And each "I love you" the said to him was met with a voice that smiled and eyes that twinkled his reply, "Right back atcha."
Slowly, the love his mama poured into him so long ago began to flow back in the hugs and in each "I love you" he learned it was so important to say, even to the youngest ones.
On January 17, the clock stopped. He exited the state, the door closed--to be opened again on resurrecton morning.
Once again we'll say "I love you" and hear him say his smiling, "Right back atcha" followed by his precious "I love you."
I am a nontrad student returning to change careers. Currently, I am a work-from-home medical transcriptionist who chose that career and work location in order to "have time" to parent four special needs children I am raising, as well as to provide activity for a brain that craves stimulation. The reality of being glued to a computer for long hours, however, dimmed the work-from-home glow and created an unhealthy level of inactivity. Therefore, I plan to combine my love for writing, photography and travel to become a travel journalist/photojournalist in the near future.
Magdalena Astrid's picture from the myspace page.
