Mother And Child

This painting is based on a black and white photograph by the photographer Mary Ellen Mark in her book A Cry For Help: Stories of Homelessness and Hope. And I'm back to my old problem of trying to find subject matter to paint. Of course, I'm drawn to the compositions of really good photographers be they professionals, semi-professionals or amateurs. I probably should go back to sites like Flickr and look for photographs of people. I guess it's all right to practice painting using professional photographs like those of Mark and Sturges. Working from really good photographs teaches me about good subject matter and compositions, like painting from the masters. I have to remember that I'm still putting myself into the process, especially when I turn a black and white photograph into a color painting. Even just which photograph I choose is putting myself into it. Ideally, I would like to use my own photographs, but I have never been much of a people photographer. I did get a new camera, but I haven't learned how to use it properly yet, which I must. I used to be a good photographer, but it's been quite a while since I tried. I wish I could be a traditional painter and hire models to paint. Or make studies and then create an original composition. I should, at least, do a few self portraits. I think I'm making excuses. The main thing is to keep drawing and painting.

I've been spending a certain amount of time online trying to connect/help other people who suffer from mental illness. I've done a little bit at Health Central's Schizophrenia Connection where Chris Bruni works as a schizophrenia expert. There are some really nice people at that site and it's set up so that you can have a profile and a journal called a Share Post. I've only written two entries so far, but I'm also trying to contribute by answering some questions either posed by Christina in her Question of the Week or posed by other people on the site. I'll post the link to it in my Favorite Links section, so check it out.
I've also answered a few questions on Yahoo Answers. Yahoo Answers is where anyone can post a question and anyone can answer it. So I've been focusing on Mental Health questions. But the place where I've been spending more of my time has been on LiveJournal. It's a great place to meet other people suffering from mental illness, especially young people, some of whom really need help. I find there's more of a community feeling on LiveJournal than on Blogger. Here, we're each in our own pretty self contained world, but on LiveJournal everyone visits other communities and participates and gets to know other people. You can choose to "friend" other people and you have a "Friend's Page" that helps you to follow other people's journals more immediately. It's just a different feel to it. I like Blogger because it is more formal, but I like LiveJournal because it's more informal and in some ways more creative. There's a community called Crazy Poems where anyone with a mental illness can post poems about their illness. I've tentatively created a community called Crazy Artists hoping that all kinds of artists will post some of their work and connect with each other. I haven't gotten too far with that yet because I'm not sure what I'm doing, but, hopefully, I'll figure it out.

I haven't yet approached anyone in my town about starting a support group. I still feel insecure. I have to make myself go to the NAMI meeting on Wednesday even though I'm nervous about the driving because there's a couple who suffer from BiPolar Disorder who want to start a support group one town over from where I live, which would be much more accessible to me. They've set a date for a meeting on September 2nd, which I also must go to. I hope they have success and I want to support their efforts. I'm proud of anyone who suffers from mental illness who can start a support group. It takes courage and determination and it's so important.

LiveJournal

Before I write about LiveJournal, I just wanted to say that I made contact with a NAMI (National Alliance On Mental Illness) representative from a town about a half an hour away from me. Unfortunately, she had just come back from vacation and was swamped with work (she also works full time as well as being the president of NAMI in her county) and couldn't write much, but she said she would get back to me when she had more time. This is very exciting news for me because the only NAMI organization nearby was just a bit too far away, but this new organization is within familiar territory for me. I still don't know if there is a support group, but I'm keeping my finger's crossed. I'm hoping that I can get involved locally finally. I think I would like to join the In Our Own Voice (IOOU) group, if I can get up the courage for it. As far as I know IOOU has people with mental illness tell their story publicly to interested listeners thereby reducing the stigma that surround mental illness. I would like to speak out in my town at the local university and/or college. Maybe I could even inspire some students to organize a NAMI On Campus. It has been a dream of mine for a couple of years now to have a support group in my town, not only because it would make it easy for me to stay involved (especially in winter when the roads are bad), but because I believe it is in an ideal location between two towns and with two schools.

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I found out about LiveJournal from a fellow schizophrenia sufferer in a SharePost at Schizophrenia Connection (where Chris Bruni has her professional blog). I went to the journaling/social networking site hoping to find her there. I thought maybe I needed to join in order to find her, so I joined and set up a journal, but I couldn't find her. So in the interest category I looked under schizophrenia thinking that maybe she would be there, but I still couldn't find her. What I did find was a bunch of mental illness/health groups. I began checking them out and what struck me was that most of the people posting were young people who were suffering. I decided that keeping a journal there with links to this blog and to my online artwork galleries at Artid might serve to help young people who are just starting out in life gain a little more perspective and maybe even some hope that they can begin to recover from the devastation of mental illness. So I posted an entry there telling some of my story and included the two links. I also joined three groups (though one has yet to check me out and approve my membership). I figure that by joining some groups and posting there and in my journal I might make some good contacts, even friends, and do some good in the process. If you're interested, I've added my LiveJournal page to my Favorite Links. My username is blueartist7.

As I read through some posts, I noticed that some of the people were like me in that they had a therapist, but didn't have many offline friends. And I thought, not for the first time, that the internet is revolutionizing things for people with mental illness by letting them connect with others, thereby lessening the sense of isolation. The internet is giving even the most socially awkward person places to fit in, opportunities to share their story and struggles and the healing gift of being able to help others through knowledge and friendship and all sorts of creativity. One thing I know talk/writing therapy works, which probably accounts for why social networks are flourishing. People need people, but people with mental illness and who isolate themselves out of a sense of shame (as I do I think), need people even more.