Generic (Photo credit: Kraemer Family Library)

 By Jennifer Nelson, Junior Doctor

“Evidence-based medicine” (EBM) is a term that is familiar to all junior doctors. But how often do we really consider EBM in our everyday practice? Are our decisions on how to treat patients made after careful consideration of the evidence, or do we simply follow trust protocols, or, more likely, go with a sort of “gut-feeling” about which treatment to offer?
 
Recently,  I was asked to review a patient with paranoid schizophrenia who is currently relapsing. He had been restarted on the antipsychotic Aripiprazole two weeks prior to me seeing him. He was starting to show signs of improvement; the voices were diminishing and he was gaining partial insight into the fact that the “pills” might be helping him. At the end of the interview, I decided to suggest an increase in the dose of Aripiprazole from 15mg to 20mg. 
 
I would be lying if I said that my decision was based on a review of the evidence for using Aripiprazole in schizophrenia. It was more based on the patient’s history of the use of the drug and his wife’s wishes to continue its use. I also had the safety net of knowing I would be seeing the patient again in 4 weeks time and would then be able to assess how effective it has been.
 
But what if I had taken the time during the clinic to actually consider the evidence behind my “gut-feeling”?
 
The Cochrane library is a resource that, again, most junior doctors will have accessed at some point during their training. The tag-line on their website “How do you know if one treatment will work better than another, or if it will do more harm than good?” sums up how we can use the library to support our practice. 

English: Abilify® 10mg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Using the keywords “Aripiprazole” and “schizophrenia”, the Cochrane website found a summary article entitled “Aripiprazole for Schizophrenia”, published on 28th March 2013. The authors had searched the Cochrane Schizophrenia Group’s register for all clinical randomised trials comparing Aripiprazole with placebo, typical or atypical antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia and schizophrenia-like psychoses since 2005. They found that, compared with placebo, Aripiprazole significantly reduced the chance of relapse in schizophrenia in both the short and medium term. Compared with other typical and atypical antipsychotics, Aripiprazole did not show any greater treatment response, efficacy or tolerability, although it may lower the risk of akathesia, high prolactin levels and a prolonged QTc.
 
So, in plain English, my simple search of the evidence informed me that my gut-feeling was partially correct; Aripiprazole is effective in treating schizophrenia and preventing relapses but there is no evidence-based reason to prescribe it rather than any other typical or atypical antipsychotic.
 
Using an EBM approach does not mean that we only look to the evidence to inform our practice. Often, we use a combination of our clinical experience and expertise, as well as the wishes of the individual patient to provide the best treatment for them. However, treating patients without any regard for the evidence puts us in a tricky position ethically and medico-legally. As this case highlights, the use of EBM can support us in our practice and give us the confidence to know that our “gut-feeling” is in line with current research.

Related articles

• Old side effects and old drugs; old side effects and new drugs (cszg.wordpress.com)
• FDA pins approval on once-monthly version of blockbuster Abilify (fiercebiotech.com)

In an article entitled “Outside the Citadel, Social Practice Art Is Intended to Nurture,” Kennedy examines the history and current exploration of social practice, whose “practitioners freely blur the lines among object making, performance, political activism, community organizing, environmentalism and investigative journalism, creating a deeply participatory art that often flourishes outside the gallery and museum system.”

“Leading museums have largely ignored it,” Kennedy writes, “But many smaller art institutions see it as a new frontier for a movement whose roots stretch back to the 1960s but has picked up fervor through Occupy Wall Street and the rise of social activism among young artists.” He highlighted museums such as the Hammer Museum, the Walker Art Center, and the Queens Museum of Art, all of which are working to extend their reach in the socially engaged practice sphere.

ASU Art Museum has been focused on socially engaged practice for more than 5 years, with the launch of our Social Studies initiative in 2007, which provides opportunities for artists working in various media to interact creatively and collaboratively with students, other artists, and faculty and community members. The social interaction of the museum-as-artist’s-studio setting encourages participants to explore new avenues of creativity and ultimately enhance their understanding of their world and each other.

The museum has hosted several social practice artists to date as part of the Social Studies initiative, including Jarbas Lopes, Anila Rubiku, Jillian MacDonald, Gregory Sale, Jennifer Nelson and Julianne Swartz, among others.  In 2012, the museum launched a new social practice speaker series as part of the Socially Engaged Practice Initiative at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, and welcomed artist and dancer Elizabeth Johnson as the new Coordinator for Socially Engaged Practice for the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Johnson is building a socially engaged practice certificate/focus at HIDA, and is housed at the ASU Art Museum  because of the museum’s work in this area.

Above: Elizabeth Johnson, second from left, takes part in the “Mother-Daughter Distance Dance” at the ASU Art Museum on April 2, 2011, as part of Gregory Sale’s exhibition It’s not just black and white.

If you’re curious about the history of the museum’s dedication to socially-engaged practice, take a look back at some of our blog posts showcasing the art and artists we’ve had the pleasure of working with: http://asuartmuseum.wordpress.com/category/social-studies-collaborative-projects/

For Kennedy’s full New York Times piece, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/24/arts/design/outside-the-citadel-social-practice-art-is-intended-to-nurture.html

–Juno Schaser, PR Intern

“I’m guilty of having crafted stories that were less transparent, ones written to fit the editor’s agenda.”

“I’m guilty of giving you, women readers, the same type of magazine content I take to task in the following pages as being misleading, undermining fear-mongering or fluffy.”

“…between the dredge and the dreck, and the airbrushed ideal, value can still be found between the glossy covers.”

“With each decade, it seemed, the once fairly innocuous content found in women’s glossies had gotten increasingly more destructive, dumbed down, and airbrushed to surreal perfection.”

“Suddenly, I wanted every woman to take a closer look at what they were actually reading, especially now that I had a daughter who was reading these very glossies herself.”

“…if the image …if the dieting and weight loss, dating and sex advice, and information on health, well-being, and beauty should be challenged rather than accepted at face value.”

“But while we can’t change the way members of the media think or portray reality, we can change the way we think. We can learn to use our critical minds to distinguish what’s real from what’s false within the pages, and we can choose to support more realistic ideals. We can choose to denounce the images or content that makes us feel that we don’t measure up. We can shun subject matter that makes us feel inadequate.”

“And there are still women bold and brazen enough to put their truth on the page for us to read and benefit from.”

– Jennifer Nelson, Airbrush Nation (published by Seal Press)

Just two months ago, I was sharing with my girlfriends how I had changed my mind about beauty and fashion. I used to think that makeup and clothes were brainless drudgery that some women had simply nothing to do but obsess over. Boy, was I wrong. My life hasn’t been the same since the day I knew Michelle Phan. I realized how much makeup and dressing up CAN be fun. In fact, there is a lot to learn about beauty and fashion. Prior to the “conversion”, I was not much unlike the “before” version of Andy Sachs (Anne Hathaway’s character) from “The Devil Wears Prada”.

Sure I was already a big fan of makeup in my teens. I was an avid reader of Teen People magazine since 2001 because of the glamorous glossies about celebrity news, latest makeup trends and the useful how-to DIY tutorials until it discontinued in September 2006. But I didn’t believe in the lifestyle that these magazines were selling. This hard fact hidden in my subconscious came to me during an interview I had with the senior manager of the human resource department of a particularly well-known media company just three weeks ago. After grilling me with your typical run-of-the-mill interview questions, the veteran asked how often I read magazines. This was a question that I was completely unprepared for (even though it shouldn’t have come as a surprise considering that this was a magazine company). So I gave everything to her uncut.

To cut the long story short, I lost my shot at being a magazine writer for the most prominent print media company in Singapore because of my answer. On hindsight, I realized that even though I passed the writing test, my heart is not in the magazine biz. Don’t get me wrong. I still love beauty and fashion. They are still very much a big part of my life. But I just cannot convince my heart to sell itself to the plastic and artificial world of glossies. I’m pretty much on the same page as Jennifer Nelson. I don’t want to be writing fake and pretentious articles just so I can help my company sell magazines. I know I sound like a self-righteous idealist but truth is that I just don’t want to lie to hundreds and thousands of women every month. Real women of different shapes and sizes. Real women who have real issues, who have real needs, who have real families. What they need is not another glossy magazine that tells them they are not pretty enough, slim enough, or even smart enough. What they need is the truth about real world issues, helpful information, genuine encouragement and sincere opinions.

I haven’t exactly finished reading this book but it’s got my eyes peeled to its pages. Judging from its introduction, I think I have a rough idea of where the author’s headed and I support and applaud her stance. Check in again for a possible Part 2 about this book later this week.

A stark graphic meme dubbed “Barbie Without Makeup” made the rounds online last week, depicting the blond bombshell in the manner of before and after “gotcha!” images, the Photoshop-gone-too-far celebrity exposés that tabloids love to post. Without lipstick, eye shadow and black eyeliner tracing her simulated lashes, the Mattel pin-up is as haggard as Middle Management Barbie after a week of all-nighters, spreadsheets and daycare pick-ups. In other words — from the neck up at least — she looks like the rest of us.

Were the meme (or Barbie) real, the sleight might have been done by Pascal Dangin, the fashion photography retouch artist profiled by the New Yorker who is on retainer with a number of major corporate advertisers and, as author Jennifer Nelson reminds us in Airbrushed Nation: The Lure and Loathing of Women’s Magazines, about 30 celebrities.

The book is one of two new tomes that explore today’s complex beauty industrial machine, though Nelson’s contains as many mixed messages as the world she attempts to expose. She starts by offering a brief history of women’s magazines and the fine line between advertising and editorial. She’s a recovering women’s magazine writer herself, fully aware of Rimmel ads that digitally enhance Kate Moss’s eyelashes juxtaposed with articles about how men like women with little to no makeup. Look no further, Nelson suggests, than the genre’s early 20th-century origins as “browse books” — catalogues of products wrapped in stories about how to use said products to improve one’s life.

An early quandary about concealing a zit for her cousin’s wedding lays bare the inherent dishonesty of makeup, which is about putting a best face forward — “positive and triumphant news,” instead of the “plain or the uncertainty” of personal turmoil

In her introduction, Nelson attempts to atone for her editorial sins. “I’m guilty of giving you, women readers, the same type of magazine content I take to task in the following pages as being misleading, undermining, fear-mongering, or fluffy.” But beyond awareness and healthy cynicism, Airbrushed Nation offers no remedy, and little hope. For all its exhaustive research and topical examples, it’s also somewhat contradictory — Nelson continues to write for women’s magazines and teaches Mediabistro’s Stiletto Boo Camp, a course on women’s magazine writing.

A more affecting example of the genre can be found in The Beauty Experiment, in which author Phoebe Baker Hyde chooses to explore the personal rather than institutional effects of the“female body as advertising medium.”

The book focuses on Baker Hyde’s frank and personal journey that takes the reader into her home, heart and mind as she absorbs the effects of pressures from women’s magazines, with their “must-have” lists and hot tips for cool looks. As an exhausted young wife and mother fed up with the tyranny of makeup, fashionable outfit-assembly, Spanx and acne breakouts, Baker Hyde goes on a beauty fast, a 13-month time-out from any makeup, new purchases, jewellery, even tweezing — anything that would enhance her appearance.

It is a shopping abstinence grounded in feminism, as well as economic and principled ideals (at the end of the year she will make a commensurate donation to charity). She is aware of statistics that cite the beauty industry’s $10-billion annual revenue, but at the same time is concerned her daughter Hattie will “be taught, by me probably, that the world’s rules about clothing were more important than her own taste.”

Her hope is to spend the year focusing on the contours of her life, not her body, yet she finds herself obsessing about the absent trappings. Early on, Baker Hyde coins the self-deprecating descriptor of her new un-styled style “momnisexual.” It’s a look, she writes, that screams, “I’m not trying to be pretty, yo, look where that got me — strapped to this kid 24/7 and trying to stay sane.”

The experiment dovetails with the preoccupations of a new mother searching to find, then reaffirm, her own identity, but its lessons can be taken more broadly. Baker Hyde is also living in Hong Kong, a city where “shopping talk was something of a national sport, earning its own newspaper sections like traffic or the weather.”

Baker Hyde rolls through the now-obligatory stats on fast fashion and the effects of the textile industry, too, observing how much more responsibility for consumption and upcycling is now passed on to the individual consumer, “and not enough on a textile and garment industry that could stand improvement.”

She also develops a “price chart” and “beauty wealth calculator” (both of which are terrifyingly revealing tools and freely available on her website) for calculating the tangible aspects of what passes for beauty and the “catalog ideal” of oneself.

Jennifer Nelson is a recovering women’s magazine writer herself, fully aware of Rimmel ads that digitally enhance Kate Moss’s eyelashes juxtaposed with articles about how men like women with little to no makeup

An early quandary about concealing a zit for her cousin’s wedding lays bare the inherent dishonesty of makeup, which is about putting a best face forward — “positive and triumphant news,” instead of the “plain or the uncertainty” of personal turmoil. More than any other beauty tool, though, concealer is Baker Hyde’s Kryptonite as it hides the fact that women aren’t getting much sleep, yet are are still expected to look fresh and cheerful. “You can see my mortgage in my forehead and professional insecurity at the corners of my eyes,” she writes.

Baker Hyde comes dangerously close to sounding like a mere beauty-scold but the memoir benefits from time, and the digestion of lessons she learned after the year elapsed (the experiment took place in 2007, while the book was written later and published this month). There is little of the naive evangelical zeal of the newly converted because of the insight from hindsight. She offers reasoned, measured and manageable changes rather than reactionary ones, allowing the book to reasonably dissect the airbrushed nation Nelson tries so hard to blemish.

Airbrushed Nation by Jennifer Nelson is published by Seal Press ($18.95); The Beauty Experiment by Phoebe Baker Hyde is published by Da Capo Lifelong Books ($18.50). Illustration above by Steve Murray/National Post

Her first big project: an upcoming exhibition of work by Steve McQueen, opening in October.

We’re impressed, but we’re not surprised.

Soon after arriving at ASU in the fall of 2008 to pursue an MA in art history in the School of Art, Lekha sought out opportunities at the ASU Art Museum and started as curatorial assistant. She worked closely with Senior Curator and Associate Director Heather Sealy Lineberry on a number of exhibition projects, large and small, from the collection and featuring international artist residencies and loans, exploring a range of disciplines and community programs and partnerships. In 2009, she curated the exhibition I Never Saw So Clearly, from the Museum’s permanent collection. The lively, smart exhibition focused on issues of identity and hybridity in contemporary art, informed by the research for her Master’s thesis on the work of Lorna Simpson and Steven Yazzie.

Then Lekha stepped in as interim curator in the fall of 2011. Her first big project was artist Jennifer Nelson’s Social Studies exhibition, Securing a free state: The Second Amendment Project.

Lekha handled the project’s challenging content and ambitious scope (both hallmarks of our Social Studies exhibitions) with her usual aplomb, demonstrating grace under pressure whether she was helping lead a tour of a sniper school in the desert or facilitating a series of intense, and intensely moving, workshops involving people whose lives have been radically altered by a violent encounter.

The Museum also benefited from Lekha’s curatorial vision and organizational abilities when we revamped the Americas Gallery, on the second floor, which showcases pieces from the permanent collection.

We look forward to seeing what Lekha does in Chicago — the Art Institute is lucky to have her!

Years ago, I dated a mentally ill man. He wrote hours on end without breaks for food or sleep, roared loudly at the slightest joke, and later suffered a complete breakdown that required hospitalization. At first, I brushed off concerns about his mental state. I was going out with an eccentric artist who was so generous that I could never give him up. One day he confessed he was bipolar, but his illness was managed through medication and counseling. In my heart, I knew he wasn’t the right one to wed, but had he been, could I have lived with a man who could be manic one day and depressed the next?

Tom Davis, the author of A Legacy of Madness, lucked out in marrying a woman who helped him overcome his mental health disorder. Together, they took their son, who became sick after crying and anxious over any stress, to a psychiatrist. They aimed to break the cycle of madness that had plagued generations in his family. In fact, Tom’s great-great grandmother, Lydia Winans, and her sons, Frederick and Edward, all committed suicide by gas asphyxiation, and his mother and grandfather exhibited bizarre behavior. Davis painstakingly researched his family’s history, and in the process, he discovered more about his own mental instability.

In the early twentieth century, Tom’s grandfather, Dick, suppressed symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder through drinking vodka and beer; ironically, he headed personnel at the famous Greystone Park Psychiatric Hospital in Morris Plains, N.J. There, Tom’s mother, Dede, witnessed lunatics running wildly outside and gazing through bars on the windows of dark stone buildings. Her father wandered patients’ wings that reeked of urine. Certainly, growing up in such a place impacted a young girl’s perception. “At Christmas, they didn’t look out and see kids throwing snowballs at each other and decorated houses lining the streets,” Davis wrote. “They didn’t look out in July and see fireworks or kids jumping into pools and playing baseball in the street. They saw only what my mother would call ‘the nuthouse,’ one of the largest psychiatric facilities in the country, staring them down every day.”

In this ambitious book, Tom digs into his relatives’ past, jumping from Hightstown in the 1930s, where his grandfather grew up, to Point Pleasant in the 1970s, where his parents and siblings lived. He talks about the trials of living with a mother who obsessively washed her hands, constantly asked her husband if he loved her, and hit her children. His father escaped to the New Jersey shore to relieve the stress of living with his unbalanced wife. Tom recounts how as a young adult, he suffered through eating disorders, tightness in his chest, and feelings of despair. One day, he contemplates driving his car into a river. “Once again, I thought of my mother and my grandfather, how they could be self-destructive, how they didn’t seem to care what came next,” Tom wrote. “Was I self-destructing too?” He calls his wife, who orders him to visit a doctor. His doctor prescribes Lexapro, which keeps Tom mentally balanced. He severs the cycle of madness that had plagued his family, and, in the process, provides hope for others whose thoughts darken even on the brightest days.

—

Jennifer Nelson is currently pursuing an MFA in creative nonfiction at Vermont College of Fine Arts after spending years teaching French and writing for several newspapers and magazines. She lives in Hopewell, New Jersey, with her three teenagers.

THERE’S STILL TIME!  Tomorrow night at So. Whidbey High School!  Monday – Jan 30 @ 7pm

I’ve sat down to type this with a racing heart, ears tuned to the recording I captured today, and excitement to get this written and posted fast, in the hope you’ll CHANGE YOUR PLANS, and be at South Whidbey High School tomorrow night at 6:45!

Where artistic director and conductor Legh W. Burns and the musicians of the Saratoga Chamber Orchestra,

have something very special for you!

From Russia With Love

What could be more perfect, in the dead of winter, than to be transported to Russia with the exultingly moody, brightly traversed, and powerfully portrayed music of Russian masters like Tchaikovsky, Prokoviev, Rachmaninov and Rimsky-Korskov?  Not much, by the response of the packed house at today’s concert of From Russia With Love.

Joined by accomplished violinist Lara Lewison, a 13 year old pianist, violinist and singer, this concert is, all at once, an amazement, and a tour de force of excitement!

On the stage you’ll see friends, neighbors and that familiar island face, performing some of the most fantastic music Whidbey can offer, leaving you inspired with what is possible during our winter months.

This concert left me invigorated on a slightly chilly drizzly winter day.

~

Tomorrow – Monday – January 30th – at 7pm – at South Whidbey High School 

you’ll have the chance to brighten your horizons, in the dead of winter, all the way from Russia – with love. 

~

Photo: Kim Tinuviel

~ CHEERS AROUND THE EARS – OF CONDUCTOR LEGH W. BURNS ~

~ the SARATOGA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA and LARA LEWISON ~

~

Tchaikovsky – Cossack Dance from “Mazeppa”

Prokoviev – Violin Concerto #2, Op. 63
Lara Lewison, violin

Intermission

Rachmaninov – Vocalise Op 34, No. 14 

Rimsky-Korsakov – Capriccio Espagnol, Op. 34

CONDUCTOR: Legh W. Burns has been the music director and conductor of THE SARATOGA CHAMBER ORCHESTRA since its inception. He is Professor Emeritus of the University of Oklahoma School of Music and former first trumpet with the United States Air Force Band in Washington D.C. where he founded and conducted the Washington Chamber Ensemble. Additionally, Mr. Burns has taught at Springfield (IL) Junior College and the University of Denver, where he founded the National Trumpet Symposium and was founder and conductor of the Festival Chamber Orchestra of Denver.

Mr Burns is a graduate of The University of Miami (FL) earning a Master of Music degree in Trumpet Performance. He lists Pierre Monteux, Herbert Blomstedt, Richard Lert and Renee Longy as conductors and musicians with whom he has studied.

He is also very interested in the development of young musicians, having founded and conducted the Oklahoma Youth Orchestra and the Oklahoma Youth Symphonies and founding The Guy Fraser Harrison Academy for the Performing Arts. Youth orchestras under his direction have successfully undertaken performance tours in thirteen foreign countries, including a concert tour of The People’s Republic of China in 1981. For this, he was awarded the Music in Education Award by the Governor of Oklahoma.

THE ENSEMBLE is comprised of musicians from all corners of Whidbey Island and individual members of the SCO have held or currently hold positions in the Seattle Symphony, Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Diego Symphony, Metropolitan Opera Orchestra, Boulder (CO) Philharmonic, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Everett Symphony, Seattle Philharmonic as well as other regional and community orchestras and musical ensembles.  The unique multi-generational membership of the SCO, allows talented youth of the community to perform alongside adult members in a professional-educational setting.

MONDAY JANUARY 30, 2012
7 pm
SOUTH WHIDBEY High School

PERFORMANCE WILL BE RECORDED BY WHIDBEY AIR KWPA 

Whidbey’s only community radio station – for airing in the following weeks. 

Kerry Fitzsimons from Commack and Eva Block from Woodbridge, Conn., both attended Marist. Kevin Johnson of New Canaan, Conn., was a former Marist student. They were all 21 years old.

For a college of 4,000 undergrads, the mourners lined up to file into the gymnasium in remarkable numbers.

“As you can see the line to get in here is just so long, everybody is touched by this tragedy,” senior Michael Prada told CBS 2′s Lou Young.

According to the school’s website, Block was a senior fashion design student who well liked by her classmates and teachers and called her “a young designer with tremendous potential.”

Fitzsimons was a senior biomedical science major with a minor in chemistry and worked as a laboratory assistant for Christopher Bowser on environmental projects along the Hudson River.

“When I think of Kerry I think about her knee-deep in a river, with a smile on her face and a fish in her hands. That’s what I think about when I think of Kerry,” Bowser said.

Eva Block and Kerry Fitzsimons (credit: CBS 2)

The school said Johnson went to Marist’s Summer Business Institute when he was in high school before being enrolled in the college from 2008 to 2010.

A philosophy instructor remembered Johnson, who grew from a skateboard riding teen into a young man at the Poughkeepsie campus. Their last conversation was about a life just beginning.

“Hey Kevin hangin loose? Thumbs up, big smile thumbs up. Hey Kevin, you got a girl friend yet? Thumbs up, bigger smile!” Dr. Gregory Sand said.

The three deaths have hit hard at Marist. Students wearing red ribbons gathered for Wednesday’s memorial service for a chance to come together as a community and mourn.

“We saw the fire that night and didn’t even know it was a house fire, so when we woke up the next morning and started hearing more and more about it, we were shocked,” Marist student Michael Budda told CBS 2′s Young.

Student Jennifer Nelson said she was in the same program as Eva Block.

“She was the smartest, most beautiful, talented fashion designer we had here and it’s really upsetting,” said Nelson. “But to see this kind of crowd for these three students is incredible.”

[worldnow id=6674114 width=500 height=332 type=video]

There were seven people asleep in the off campus house when the fire broke out around 1:30 Saturday morning.

Officials believe all three died of smoke inhalation. Police said one victim was found on the second floor of the house, one was downstairs and the third was under “considerable collapsed debris.”

Four others in the house managed to escape without serious injuries.

Investigators are still trying to determine the cause of the fire. On Tuesday, authorities said they were looking at the design of the nearly century-old home where the students were living to see if it contributed to the speed at which the fire spread.

Please share your thoughts below…

Artwork provided by artists readying the "Miracle Report" exhibition at the ASU Art Museum

Five religions. Fifty-plus examples. More than 1500 years. That’s what you’ll experience during an exhibition titled “Sacred Word and Image: Five World Religions” coming to the Phoenix Art Museum Wed., Jan 4, 2012. Folks who find their way to the museum at noon that day can enjoy a 30-minute gallery talk by Janet Baker, Ph.D., the musuem’s curator of Asian art.

The exhibition features items from the museum’s collection as well as several private collections in Arizona – and “explores themes of sacred space, language, otherwordly visions and miraculous events, symbols of power and divine beauty in Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Islamic and Christian works of art.”

Featured objects will include manuscripts, textiles, prayer rugs, gilded shrines, icons, jeweled reliquaries and painted altarpieces. The Phoenix Art Museum has documented the exhibition by creating its first electronic catalogue — featuring short essays by Arizona experts on five world religions and detailed digital photographs. The exhibition runs through Mar. 25, 2012.

The film “Kundun,” which explores the life of Tibet’s 14th Dalai Lama, will be screened at the Phoenix Art Museum at 1pm on Mar. 4, 2012. The film, directed by Martin Scorsese, examines issues faced by the young Buddhist leader — including Chinese oppression and other social obstacles — and considers how the Dalai Lama’s faith guided his politics. It’s being presented by the ASU Center for Film, Media and Popular Culture.

The Phoenix Art Museum presents another religion-related exhibition through Jan. 22, 2012. “Seeing is Believing: Rebecca Campbell and Angela Ellsworth” features artwork by L.A. artist Campbell and Phoenix artist Ellsworh, both of whom “spent their childhoods in Utah and within the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.”

The “Seeing isBelieving” exhibition features painting, sculpture and installations that “touch on memory and nostalgia but are grounded in the present and the reinterpretation of their experiences as well as Mormon traditions and practices.” Ellsworth’s great-great grandfather was the fifth prophet of the Mormon church.

The ASU Art Museum at Arizona State University in Tempe presents an exhibition titled “Miracle Report: Juliane Swartz and Ken Landauer, Social Studies 8″ from Jan. 21-June 2, 2012. The opening reception takes place Tues., Jan. 20 from 5-7pm. “Social Studies” is an artist-in-residence program at the museum.

Artists Swartz and Landauer will “explore the miraculous through people’s perceptions of it in their lives, interviewing students, school children and community members of all ages and backgrounds” — then combine their findings into “an installation of fleeting vignettes.” The artists envision a final product that blends beauty, hocus-pocus and unexplainable magic.

This project is supported by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts as part of the Social Studies series. Initiated by John D. Spiak, the “Miracle Report” exhibition is curated by Heather Sealy Lineberry with Nicole Herden.

“The idea is that miracles come in all flavors, shapes and sizes,” according to Deborah Sussman Susser with the ASU Art Museum. “So religion will play a role for some, and not for others.” Folks interested in retelling their own miracles — or inviting an artist to record miracles recounted by members of a community group — can contact Herden at nicole.herden@asu.edu.

– Lynn

Note: For some, the debate over guns takes on near religious fervor. Folks interested in second amendment related-issues can experience “Securing a Free State: The Second Amendment Project – Jennifer Nelson, Social Studies 7″ curated by Lekha Hileman Waitoller at the ASU Art Museum through Dec. 31, 2011. Susser notes that the museum is open 11am-5pm on Sat., Dec. 31.

Coming up: How low can you go?, Library meets love affair

 CALENDAR OF PUBLIC EVENTS

Open gallery sessions with the artist

Saturday, October 8 – noon-1:30 p.m.

Saturday, October 15 – noon-1:30 p.m.
Participants are encouraged to attend for the full 90 minutes.

Public panel on the topic of how people find security,
individually and collectively.

Tuesday, November 1 – noon-1:30 p.m.

Panelists include:

Kim Hedrick, Trauma Survivor

Nick Katkevich, Co-Director of the Phoenix
Nonviolence Truthforce

John Kleinheinz , Captain/Commander of the Maricopa
County Sheriff’s Office Special Weapons and Tactics
(SWAT) Division

Scout McNamara, Counselor specializing in trauma
resolution, mood disorders, addiction and relationships

Jim Neff, Firearm Instructor, Generations Firearm
Training

Moylan Ryan, Somatic Coach

Field trips

We recommend that you attend more than one field trip to better understand the
full scope of the project.

To sign up, call Lekha Hileman Waitoller at 480-965-0497 or email at Lekha.Waitoller@asu.edu

Thursday, October 13 – 6:30 p.m.

Artificial Limb Specialists, 2916 N. 3rd Street, Phoenix, AZ 85012

Sunday, October 23 – 11 a.m.

GPS Defense Sniper School

Saturday, October 29 – noon-2:00 p.m.

St. Luke’s Behavioral Health, 1800 E. Van Buren
Street, Phoenix, AZ 85006

Enter through the main entrance, signage will direct you to the
Behavioral Health Auditorium

Artist reception

Friday, November 4 – 5:00-7:00 p.m. Closing remarks by Jennifer Nelson at 5:45 p.m.

Gallery events

Friday, October 21 – 2:30-4:30 p.m.

Performance by visiting dance artist Tim O’Donnell

Thursday, November 3, noon-2:00 p.m.

Nick Katkevich of the Phoenix Nonviolence
Truthforce, will provide an introduction to Kingian

Nonviolence focusing on the fundamental strategies and
aspects of nonviolence based on the philosophy and movements led by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

For more information, updates and further opportunities to engage in the project,
please check the ASU Art Museum blog: asuartmuseum.wordpress.com or contact
Lekha Hileman Waitoller at 480-965-0497.

When this project was percolating last year, thinking choreographically I
initially approached it with a dumb pun about the right to bear arms. I was
thinking about the way the mind fills the fire-”arm” with its
intention, and the way this intention penetrates social space with its
imperative to stop an attack (I’m taking a good-faith approach that those who
are armed for self-defense do not wish to do harm beyond stopping an attacker).
On the other side, I was thinking about the body’s integrity being violated by
violence, and the psychic and social consequences of that. I imagined a person
missing an arm to violence. I was wondering about phantom sensations in
the missing limb, and about the experiences of someone trying to heal by making
the body whole again through the use of a prosthetic limb. Can mind inhabit the
inanimate? What relationship can a person claim to the now public place where
his or her limb should have been?

But as I thought further, it became clear that the project would go deeper. I
would shift away from “the right of the people to keep and bear arms”
to the heart of the Amendment: “the security of a free state.” What
is a securely free state? What does that mean intimately? How do we carry this
in our bodies? We live with mortal vulnerability, and with the possibility,
however statistically slight, of facing violent conflict. We look for ways to
live with this terror, particularly if we have already been wounded and our
trust has already been broken. The evolving project sets out on this deeper
quest. So when we approached Michael Pack, owner of Artificial Limb
Specialists, about a field trip to his site, I carried both my first intention
and the evolving question.

Michael’s work, as a designer of custom prosthetic devices, is that of a
life-changer. He works with clients, most of whom have suffered a traumatic
injury from war or accident (rather than the #1 cause for limb loss: diabetes)
for months or even years to get the right prosthetic fit. It truly makes the
difference of whether a person can live a full and free life or not. Danny
Lujan, a client of many years who was present on our Thursday night field trip,
said that his psychological recovery from the loss of his lower leg only began
when the limb fit perfectly and he didn’t need to think about it anymore. We
spent the evening learning what it takes to design prosthesis to fit perfectly –
to become an extension of the body – and speaking with Danny about his emotional
relationship with both his lost leg and his prosthetic one. We also got a tour
of the workshop — a sculptor’s delight — for casting and shaping these amazing
devices. Michael’s clients compete in triathlons, scuba dive, rock climb, and
play with grandchildren. Danny was able to move forward literally and figuratively
after his accident. He got a degree, found his wife, and has a rewarding job.
But he says the first several years were really hard. His sense of personal
security changed. He feels more vulnerable. He still feels the lost leg,
sometimes it still hurts. Michael explains that a patient needs to bond with
their prosthetic leg to move forward, and for some people, life events make it
so difficult to take a forward-looking view of  loss: This terrible thing
has happened, I will never the be same.  How will this cause me to grow?

We’ll be examining that question in more detail on the field trip on Saturday,
October 29th to St. Luke’s Behavioral Health. Check it out – there are
participatory events for post-traumatic growth.

This Sunday at 11:00 a.m. we’ll eat pastries at a sniper training range while
discussing letting one’s guard down with sniper training instructor William
Graves. Please contact Lekha Hileman Waitoller if you would like to join us
(480-965-0497; lwaitoll@mainex1.asu.edu)

–Jennifer Nelson, Social Studies artist

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All images by Sean Deckert.

Mark Leidner is the author of The Angel in the Dream of Our Hangover (Sator Press, 2011), a book of aphorisms, and Beauty Was the Case that They Gave Me (Factory Hollow, 2011), a book of poetry. He grew up in Georgia and now lives in Northampton, MA.

Jennifer Nelson is an art historian and the poetry editor of Epiphany magazine (www.epiphanyzine.com).  Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Volt, 6×6, Forget Magazine, RealPoetik, Fence, the Denver Quarterly, and elsewhere.

Eric Amling is a writer and artist living on the east coast. His work can be found or forthcoming in the publications Maggy, Barrelhouse and The Rattling Wall, among others. He runs the small press design firm Human Hair & Co.

Ashleigh Allen was born in Toronto, Canada, holds a BA Honors in Art History from Queen’s University (Kingston, Canada) and an MFA in Poetry from The New School. She lives in New York City.

Thursday, October 13 marks the first field trip for Securing a free state: The Second Amendment Project, currently underway at ASU Art Museum. Jennifer Nelson’s Social Studies project, which focuses on security, takes us to two sites that will force us to contemplate security from very different perspectives.

On Thursday, we will visit Artificial Limb Specialists (2916 N. 3rd Street, Phoenix, AZ 85012) at 6:30 p.m. for a tour of the design facilities where custom prosthetics are made.

An individual who lost a limb  and uses a prosthetic will speak with us about how he inhabits his limb, what the prosthetic means for him emotionally, and his feelings of security or vulnerability with the limb.

On Sunday, October 23 at 11 a.m. we will visit a sniper training school that provides realistic training opportunities for individuals in law enforcement, military as well as civilians. We will observe a group of students as they go through their final exercises in sniper training and will discuss the topic of security from the perspective of someone who is prepared to encounter and deflect threats. The address for this field trip will be provided only to those who sign up to attend the tour. Car pools to the facility can be arranged.

Space for both fieldtrips is limited—for questions, or to sign up for either, please contact the project’s curator, Lekha Hileman Waitoller at lwaitoll@mainex1.asu.eduor 480-965-0497. Attendance to both field trips is suggested in order to more
fully understand the dialogue unfolding in Securing a free state.

–Lekha Hileman Waitoller, Interim Curator

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Photos by Jennifer Nelson.

Photograph courtesy of Sean Deckert.

Jennifer Nelson’s Social Studies residency at the ASU Art Museum has been going for about two weeks and we’ve already been to two shooting ranges, a sniper training school and a prosthetics design facility. As if this weren’t enough firsts for me, I also, in a trust-building exercise, allowed a SWAT team commander to lead me around a gallery with my eyes closed (although I cheated when I noted that I was being led into a dark corner). This project is shaping up to be a huge learning experience with nary a dull moment, and we have barely begun.

Securing a free state: The Second Amendment Project is the second in a nonconsecutive series of projects by Jennifer Nelson on the Bill of Rights. While the Second Amendment is commonly thought about only as “the right to bear arms,” Jennifer selected another clause as her starting point for the project: “the security of a free state.”

Throughout the residency, group conversations, field trips and a public panel will engender a dialogue about security—how individuals find it and how we, collectively, think of it. Contemplating private and public security gives rise to a host of complexities, which and can at times seem incompatible. This dynamic negotiation of rights between the public and the private is what this project considers; in fact, it is what Jennifer’s body of work usually considers. (Read about her collaborative project Limerick Cookbook for an example.)

Jennifer, her husband and collaborator, Dimitri, and I have been laying the ground work for this project, which has taken us to the sites mentioned above. This past Saturday and then again next Saturday (October 8 and 15) are the first public opportunities for community members to come to the Museum and take part in the project. From noon-1:30 next Saturday, as we did this past Saturday, we will think about security through activities and conversations that are facilitated by two martial artists, an NRA certified firearms instructor and a trauma therapist.

Check out the full calendar of events below, which will continue to grow as the project develops. (We’ll be updating this blog with new opportunities and events as they arise.)

–Lekha Hileman Waitoller, Interim Curator

CALENDAR OF EVENTS:

SATURDAYS IN THE GALLERY: On Saturday, October 8 and 15, members of the public have the opportunity to work with Jennifer from noon-1:30 p.m. These times provide a chance to explore martial practices and therapeutic exercises as we examine strategies for achieving personal security, and ponder what that means in a collective context. Visitors will work in a small group with a martial artist, a shooter and a trauma therapist specializing in somatic treatments to develop choreographies of self-defense and recovery.

Please wear loose-fitting clothes and athletic shoes, and because the gallery is chilly, some may want to bring an extra layer. Please arrive on time and plan to stay for 90 minutes.

PANEL DISCUSSION:
On Saturday, October 22 at 1:00 p.m. we will have a public panel with rotating moderators in the gallery for a discussion of the question: How do people find security? Come prepared to participate in what promises to be a lively discussion.

FIELD TRIPS:

A series of field trips will consider the link between the mind and its extension beyond the body. These include a visit to a prosthetics maker and fitter, which will be thought of as sites where sculpture is made and where one is driven by the need to feel physically whole after a violent interruption of their bodily integrity. The other is a trip to a sniper training facility, which will be considered a performative space where defensive security is practiced.

To sign up for the field trips, please contact Lekha Waitoller at 480-965-0497 or lwaitoll@mainex1.asu.edu

• Thursday, October 13, 6:30 p.m.: a visit to Artificial Limb Specialists in Phoenix, where we will tour the prosthetics design facility and speak with an amputee who will share his experience about the physical transformation he has been through.
• Sunday, October 23, 11:00 a.m.: a tour of GPS Defense Sniper School to understand the physical and psychological training for snipers.

This exhibition is supported by a grant from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.

The project was initiated by John D. Spiak and is curated by Lekha Hileman Waitoller.

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Frank Czarnecki (center) is congratulated by Volunteer Center Executive Director Christine Danielson (left) and Literacy Green Bay Executive Director Jennifer Nelson (right)

Congratulations to Frank Czarnecki, Winner of the Georgia-Pacific Adult Volunteer Award given out at the WPS Volunteer Awards.

U.S. Rep. Michael McMahon, of Staten Island, dismissed campaign spokeswoman Jennifer Nelson Thursday after she gave the New York Observer a list of people with Jewish-sounding names who had given money to Republican candidate Mike Grimm.

The document was entitled, “Grimm Jewish Money Q2.”

Nelson also told the paper Grimm was financing his campaign with “a lot of Jewish money.”

Nelson told the Staten Island Advance in an e-mail Friday that anti-Semitism “has zero to do with why that list exists.”

McMahon called Nelson’s actions unauthorized and “entirely inappropriate.”

Her dismissal was praised by groups including the Anti-Defamation League.

I linked to this yesterday, but it really deserves a post of its own. In a spectacular case of self-immolation, the campaign of Congressman Mike McMahon (D-NY) released a report detailing all the money his opponent was receiving from Jews:

Mike Grimm, a G.O.P challenger for Mike McMahon’s Congressional seat, took in over $200,000 in his last filing.

But in an effort to show that Grimm lacks support among voters in the district, which covers Staten Island and parts of Brooklyn, the McMahon campaign compiled a list of Jewish donors to Grimm and provided it to The Politicker.

The file, labeled “Grimm Jewish Money Q2,” for the second quarter fundraising period, shows a list of over 80 names, a half-dozen of which in fact do hail from Staten Island, and a handful of others that list Brooklyn as home.

“Where is Grimm’s money coming from,” said Jennifer Nelson, McMahon’s campaign spokeman. “There is a lot of Jewish money, a lot of money from people in Florida and Manhattan, retirees.”

Asked how the McMahon aide who compiled the report knew which donors were Jewish and which weren’t, Nelson replied:

“She herself is Jewish so she knows a lot of people in that community…”

I can picture it now, late at night at the McMahon campaign bunker HQ, the aide looking over the list and saying “Jew, Jew, Goy, Jew…”

After the firestorm broke, McMahon tried to salvage the situation by the time-honored “apologize and blame the staff” ploy, but somehow I don’t think it’s going to work. In fact, the real question is probably whether McMahon loses by 50 points or is forced by his Democratic colleagues, who are already terrified of November, to drop out of the race so they can field a replacement.

Just amazing.

LINKS: More from Moe Lane and Little Miss Attila.

AFTERTHOUGHT: And wouldn’t this be a nice opportunity to strike a blow against dirty politics by donating to McMahon’s opponent, Mike Grimm?

(Crossposted at Sister Toldjah)

Danielle A. Drakes portraying Elizabeth Keckly

Sorry-not Michelle Obama. Elizabeth Keckly was a modiste to President Abraham Lincoln’s wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. She kept the First Lady dressed in the most fashionable attire of the day as her personal seamstress. Ms. Keckly was born into slavery, obtained her freedom, and went on to become a successful business woman and a dressmaker for not only the First Lady, but for other notables in Washington, D.C. high society as well. She earned an outstanding reputation for her talent and hard work. More importantly, she was Mary Todd Lincoln’s confidant and trusted friend.

Ms. Keckly believed that with her success came a responsibility to help other African-Americans that were less fortunate. Therefore, she founded the Contraband Relief Association to raise funds for slaves who had escaped to Washington and were living in poverty as they tried to transition into their new life as freed persons but with no resources. The President, First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln and Frederick Douglass were initial contributors to the fund because of both the cause itself and their great affection for Ms. Keckly.  Later Ms. Keckly would document her remarkable story in a book entitled: Behind the Scenes Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House.

Did I learn of Ms. Keckly in the history books at school?  Nooooo! Of course not. I made her acquaintance when I recently attended a 90 minute tour produced by the Ford’s Theatre in Washington, D.C. and written by playwright Jennifer Nelson.   During this tour, you follow a route in D.C. that weaves together Ms. Keckly’s life through several blocks totaling 1.5 miles, starting and ending at Ford’s Theatre, the theatre where Lincoln was assassinated. I participated in the tour with a group of friends and we were thoroughly enriched by it. We had the pleasure of being led by actress Danielle A. Drakes, who was dressed in the full garb of the mid-1800’s and remained in character as Ms. Keckly the entire time. She eagerly answered all of our questions and provided us with interesting facts that really brought Ms. Keckly’s spirit to life.

I highly recommend  that you go on this tour. You will not regret it. You get to learn the herstory of this extraordinary African-American woman and get some excellent exercise to boot. Wear comfortable shoes and bring water. Then afterwards, go to the restaurant Rosa Mexicana and have some pomegranate margaritas and discuss how we can make sure untold stories like this get told.

To learn more about the tour:

http://www.fordstheatre.org/event/history-foot-elizabeth-keckly