With my projects such as Art for Peace and the Candid City Project, I've learned (or been reminded of) this one thing: that art really does have the power to create change and transform lives. I understand the idea of art for art's sake, but if, at the same time, it can do good for the world, why not bring it into that realm.
I wrote a story for New England Watershed magazine a couple years ago on an amazing Holyoke, Massachusetts-based art named Don Wilhelm. On the outside, Don was what you would imagine a painter to be: a wiry, white-haired, disheveled man who would break out into fits of artistic rage at any given moment. When he spoke about art, though, he spoke thoughtfully and quietly, as if he were traveling back in time to the minds of the great masters, such as Renoir or Michelangelo. He had lived as a sidewalk portrait painter in New York and New Orleans, but before that, oddly, he was a super-star football player for Arizona, drafted by the Dallas Cowboys before he was injured and forced to pursue another career. As a painter, he watched from the sidelines as the world took many hard hits. On his transistor radio, he heard the reports of the tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia, and shortly afterwards, word flooded in that Katrina had struck his beloved New Orleans. This time, he knew he had to use his talent to help the victims. For the next months, he doodled, sketched, and sculpted his ideas for a series of Katrina paintings, studying every detail--even having models stand in the river outside his studio to see how water dripped off their bodies. In the end, he created an eerie, haunting, and deeply moving series that he auctioned off to aid the people in need in Louisiana. This time, he knew that his paintbrush and easel could be as powerful as any hammer and nail.
Over the last five years, I've had the honor of meeting some incredibly talented people through Trinity and New England Watershed. But I've never seen anyone so dedicated to using the medium of art to create social change as filmmaker and boyfriend (full disclosure!) extraordinaire, Michael Burns. He has started full speed ahead with his latest film that follows three individuals struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as they engage in a transformative mental health therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Check out this film's site at www.emdrmovie.com/ or below at Indiegogo, and help make a film that really matters.
I wrote a story for New England Watershed magazine a couple years ago on an amazing Holyoke, Massachusetts-based art named Don Wilhelm. On the outside, Don was what you would imagine a painter to be: a wiry, white-haired, disheveled man who would break out into fits of artistic rage at any given moment. When he spoke about art, though, he spoke thoughtfully and quietly, as if he were traveling back in time to the minds of the great masters, such as Renoir or Michelangelo. He had lived as a sidewalk portrait painter in New York and New Orleans, but before that, oddly, he was a super-star football player for Arizona, drafted by the Dallas Cowboys before he was injured and forced to pursue another career. As a painter, he watched from the sidelines as the world took many hard hits. On his transistor radio, he heard the reports of the tsunami that devastated Southeast Asia, and shortly afterwards, word flooded in that Katrina had struck his beloved New Orleans. This time, he knew he had to use his talent to help the victims. For the next months, he doodled, sketched, and sculpted his ideas for a series of Katrina paintings, studying every detail--even having models stand in the river outside his studio to see how water dripped off their bodies. In the end, he created an eerie, haunting, and deeply moving series that he auctioned off to aid the people in need in Louisiana. This time, he knew that his paintbrush and easel could be as powerful as any hammer and nail.
Over the last five years, I've had the honor of meeting some incredibly talented people through Trinity and New England Watershed. But I've never seen anyone so dedicated to using the medium of art to create social change as filmmaker and boyfriend (full disclosure!) extraordinaire, Michael Burns. He has started full speed ahead with his latest film that follows three individuals struggling with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) as they engage in a transformative mental health therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing). Check out this film's site at www.emdrmovie.com/ or below at Indiegogo, and help make a film that really matters.
1 comment:
Good stuff you are doing, both of you, and cool that those kids are asking about Obama
...I tried to make a contribution to MPB film, but the website isn't working. Guess I'll try again later.
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