How Art Heals Adversity - Wonderful performers - Wonderful audience

Just came home from Scott's, my next-door BF, to tell him our program was a success!

Folks were so appreciative of Dorothy Rudolph's candid talk about incest (her late father) and her remarkable art work that sprang from her unconscious and then her conscious mind.

 Om - above. She drew a perfect circle. Read about it here. It's also a mantra used in meditation or chanting.

Female sexuality above. Click all photos to enlarge.

Photograph of a mask she had made. Recently Dorothy threw out all her originals, on her computer, but hasn't emptied her "recyclables."

David Kime was really interested in her mask as he's made many of them.

My childhood friend Nancy, who was 'groomed' by her father since age two, as was Dorothy, made this mask which is at my mom's house. Nancy believes something happened to her dad's brain during WWII.

Dorothy said at the start of her presentation she was feeling a bit anxious but the more she spoke, the stronger she got, so it was almost like a lecture of how to recover from incest. She'll offer members of New Directions a workshop in the near future.

My house is filled w my art work - who else would want it - the American flag I painted over a fuse box I had replaced - the mobile is made of PVC pipes.

An artist says, "How can I use this? What can I do with it?"

Don't you think that's why people paint their nails or tattoo their skin?

Donna Krause in our Coffeeshop Writers' Group has the most gorgeous nails I've ever seen. She does them herself.  She and fiance Denny will leave for Wildwood after our program.

 The poet's job is to tell the truth. Not to sugarcoat it.

Donna has had an inordinate amount of tragedy in her life, which she told us about in her poems, three of them are: Mangled Mess (her mind) - The Fight to Live - Carry My Heart.


As she was reading, I thought to myself, there are many people in the audience - and in the world - who have never experienced the highs and lows of bipolar disorder.

You can read about our illness in books and online but by reading Donna's poems you have the EXPERIENCE of having the illness.  Her metaphors are phenomenal - a dumbwaiter plunging her downward into hell. She was fearless in her portray of her deceased husband and her deceased daughter Mariel who died at 15 from meningitis.

Imagine the mother's sorrow.

Martha is another superb poet in our Coffeeshop Writers' Group. She looked smashing in a comfy loose-fitting jacket she bought at the thrift shop - which one? do they have any left?

The way we dress helps us with a reading. I'll never forget the words of the co-chairman of the Hahnemann program I took to become a psychotherapist:  Women who don't wanna compete with other women make themselves look unattractive.

That's why I didn't appear in my striped PJs.

Martha's poems are also brutally honest. She has an amazing facility to write quickly and to write wherever she is. The Muse seems to dwell within her.



Okay, Linda Barrett where are you hiding?

Linda and her mom, Jane, arrived early. Our friend Judy sits next to them.

 In our theater-in-the-round like the original Globe Theatre

 

 Out! Out! Brief Candle

Linda moves around so everyone can hear CATS - CHICKEN AND THE BEAR (names of two cats) - and SUMMER STORM.

"Good job, Linda," I said on the phone just now. "Did you like your BarkThins?"

"I'm eating it right now," she said.

This Jewish mother has one package left in her fridge, next to Vita Creamed Herring, a Jewish fave from childhood.

As a person w diabetes, I will NOT eat the BarkThins. Stop over if you want them.

Big Jim McCauley started off the show with his comedy act. I just left him a message on his Facebook Fan Page. 

You can, too!

Oh, you're not on FB? You think it's a waste of time. You think people will steal your ideas or stalk you?

You're right. Just a minute, I'll figure out how to get off.

Ten minutes later.

You can't.

Jimbo joked about taking a couple of cabs to get to the entrance of the Giant. Yes, the Giant is ALWAYS crowded.

He also told us to focus on him, all six-foot-ten of him, EYE CANDY.

His comedy act takes him to various places. Sometimes he might imbibe a little too much, esp. in a dull place like Scranton or one of the Dakotas.

So what does our Jimmy do? He goes to a toll booth, goes into one of the "closed" booths and thinks he's stopped at a red light.

He starts hollering and honking his horn. The State Trooper wasn't pleased.

When you're Jimmy's size, you can barely fit on an airplane seat or go down the water slide at an amusement park.

He lets nothing stop him.

In fact, as his act went on, I wondered if he was gaining weight during his performance.

 In addition to being a funny guy, Jim is also very thoughtful. He brought me this T-shirt. If you're feeling tired, instead of drinking caffeine, just stare at this!

The married couple David and Elsie found us through the Uptight Suburbanite. I wrote the editor Linda to thank her.

Chris readies himself to show us his art work.

 Chris just graduated from Penn State Abington in Early Childhood Education. He brought in a few of his assignments. One was to show him flying. Very cool. Kids would certainly love to draw dat.

David Kime and I hadn't seen one another in five years. He put on his jester's hat that he sewed with tiny scraps of people's shirts.

From Morristown, PA, he runs a Recovery Art Group at Reach-Out Foundation. They make all sorts of creative projects often with 'found objects.'

He's perfected working with papier mache - also with wallpaper paste - to fill his creations, which have been shown at Coalition Ingenue, which just moved to Florida.

Take a look at some of his creations. One, pre-hysteric, is made with melted crayons. 

Read this 1998 story about him in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

David publishes his own zine - small magazine - called Transcendent Visions.

He brought a stack of old copies.

Over the phone David told me he bring me A Frog. It took five hours to make. Like me, he likes to talk on the phone when he's making art.

Here's Froggy's temporary home, atop Richard Parker, who I bought for five dollars at a neighborhood garage sale.

I love pets!

 Teresa Binder showed us some of her art work.  She mails out crocheted Xmas cards.

 She almost forgot about our program today but had set her phone, so it went off to remind her.

The temperature read slightly under 80 degrees. These upstairs rooms are usually chilly.

I was so delighted to see my friend Teresita Pointer, from my Abington Adult Evening Program Acrylic Painting.

  Here's Terry with her son Nicky. They stopped over. She's an ER nurse at Temple University Hospital. I asked her after the show if she saw Stalin Campos who stopped off at the program.

Stalin Campos, MD, originally from El Salvador, was named after





Stalin was considered a hero of the Russian Revolution, until everyone realized he led a reign of terror.

Our audience was very appreciative.

 Bob (Maggie's fiance), Maggie - a peer specialist - and Lorraine. Hello Teresita!

What a great dinner I had.... leftovers from Ooka Japanese Restaurant in Willow Grove. My bro/law Dave Deming is in town for the funeral of his sister Kay Deming Graham. She died of emphysema.

Cough cough cough. Don't you dare start smoking.

I read three poems:  The Pope Comes to Visit - Danielle's Dog Tags - At the Foot of the Master (about poet Chris Bursk).



Christopher Bursk.  Read a couple poems off his website.

Now, go do something unusual... something you ordinarily wouldn't do, but you've been so inspired you must do it!