#happy hands fondation

[pikselis]

Oresha Family Dining - "makeover"

"Food is just fuel, but when you’re sharing it with friends and family, it becomes something fun. So, bring your friends and family to fill up with food and fun at Oresha Family Dining."

Little old factory turned into bingo house with some fancy dining and a stage for different kind of happenings~ . Will spawn two waitresses.

This is a 2 click foundation lot!! So if you want your large dogs to be able to use the house you need Simler90’s Stair Modular Pets Fix. Also if you want to change the stairs in the fondation level you need to use moveobjects to place them.

It’s CC free!! no IKEA

You will need CEP.

Some defaults that I have (not required, but pictured):

The road deafult that I’m using ~

The grass default that I’m using ~

BG Hedge texture default (the jodeliejodelie‘s version)

Clear class default

I also have resources page that I edit quite frequently. 

DOWNLOAD - MediaFire - Sim File Share

(I think I went really overboard with this downtown makeover. I liked the nurshing home + bingo house vibe the og lot had, yet none of those survied in the end. This lot was pain in the ass, because I kept making stypid mistakes and argggg… Anyway, happy to finally get this off my hands…)

More pictures under the cut ~

[nat-20s]

Hey I just rewatched Journey’s End and now I’m sad about Donna again, could you hit me with some of those happy-ending Donna AUs/headcanons or something?

Some Happy Post Journey’s End Headcanons That Can Be Pried From My Cold Dead Hands

-after taking sick leave and realizing that doesn’t have a current job, she starts doing entry level work for non-profits- she has a weird urge to do GOOD and a whole LOT of it so she decides that if she’s doing work it’s going to be for charities

-she doesn’t technically need to work due to the payout settlement, and her and shaun definitely get a nicer place, but she still goes part time because she gets bored easily 

-while she’s there, she starts getting all of these IDEAS about her own fondation but she doesn’t know where to start

-after reading into a few pamphlets and browsing some websites she decides fuck it, i have money and time now, I want to go back to school

-she ends up attending St. Luke’s University for several years, eventually getting her PhD in social work

-She thinks Dr. Donna has a better ring to it than Dr. Noble, so she goes by her first name but also emphasizes the “doctor”

-While she’s still a TA and working on her degree, she befriends this weird older scottish professor Dr. John Smith

-they go to lunch and bitch about the business department a lot

-he straight up CRIES with pride when she gets her degree and gives her the world’s BIGGEST” hug which is a little weird cause he’s not always an overly affectionate person and she’s like :)? okay? but not in a bad way 

-she ends up running a halfway house that has a particular talent for turning around people that were thought to be lost causes. it feels right to her

- for a couple years she has a delightful assistant named Jenny who she defintiely does NOT view as a daughter, shut up

-one time John visits her at work and Jenny is like “oh hey dad” and Donna is like WH-

-during her undergrad courses she double majored in astronomy and she was?? way better at math?? than she thought she should be???

-she lives a good life and DOES a lot of good for people, even if she sometimes has an inexplicable longing for the stars (hence the astronomy degree) and a feeling like she’s missing someone

- when she meets john, the missing someone feeling eases quite a bit, though she couldn’t explain WHY

- she has a very good therapist

[wingedartisanstuff-blog]

This is a presentation in which we studied about a craft concerned NGO, which protects the authenticity of Indian handicrafts and promote it. For this project our group chose the Happy Hands Foundation.

A document for the same has been submitted in soft copy to the mentor.

[eyeforgold]

Prompt #17: Wilt

"A few more steps. You're nearly there, boss. He's very close and then, it won't hurt anymore, think of Phiros."

"It hurts... Phi, I wanna see my Phi." Come the words from the struggling Miqo'te, her limbs burning with every step she takes. I won't falter. I won't fail you, my love.

A heavy sigh is released as her foot finally touches the upper floor of their mansion, Moriarty smiling at her as she keeps close to the Miqo'te, her dark hands hovering over the Miqo'te shoulders, ready to catch her should she fall.

"Phiros?" Ruby calls out as she slowly approaches their large canopy bed. Unable to see in such darkness, she is loathe to awaken her husband so abruptly but they have very little time to spare as the aether burns her from the inside.

The older hyur woman turns on the light, familiar with her employer's house and only notices a neatly made bed, clearly lacking one Au'ra man. Ruby can only blink at the empty bed, surprised and unable to comprehend what is happening. Where could Phiros have gone so late into the night?

Her confusion turns to anger as she notices a thin white square on Phiros' pillow and limps up to it, her control on the overwhelming aether fraying as her anger swells. Before she even begins reading the note in her hand, she snaps at her employee, her whip like voice echoing in the bedroom, the wooden feet creaking and breaking off the bed along with the crack of her words.

"Find him! FIND HIM!"

Sizzling hot tears run down her cheeks as she reads her husband's letter, wishing her to find another love and to remember him. The mansion shakes in her fondations as Ruby clenches her bloodied fist to hold on to the slippery aether. Her body was not made to host such a quantity of aether, not even the previous Padjals she murdered had as strong an aether as Kan-E-Senna. Narrowed eyes look down at her hand, still covered in the blood of Gridania's beloved leader.

It had taken months of intense stalking and constant reports to find this one occasion for Ruby to syphon her aether and Phiros wished to be remembered?! After she had succeeded twice at mending his broken aether slightly, pushing back the time of his death! He wishes for her to move on?!

"Stupid idiot big dumb lizard husband! Where did you go?! What do you expect me to do without you?"

As her words echo into the empty bedroom, Ruby feels more in control over the Padjal's aether, her palms no longer burning at the aether leak though the pain is ever present. A glance down at her hands shows unblemished skin, belying her fifty-two years of age and resembling more her thirty year old's body, the aether hurting and healing her body at the same time, causing her to revert to a more youthful appearance as long as the aether remained within her. Once she has used it on Phiros however...

Bah, no use thinking about that when her love could be dead in a goddamn ditch somewhere. It has now been an hour since she has sent Moriarty to track down her husband, her missing heart, as she reads and rereads his farewell note. It is disgustingly Phiros like in every way, wishing her happiness, leaving her hidden presents, getting people to watch over her. And yet, he had all but forgotten one thing: she could not and would never give up on him. No matter the cost.

Perhaps if she had told him how she had managed to draw in such quantities of aether twice over the past eight years, he would have understood. Nevertheless, she had chosen to keep silent as to the blood on her hands, the blood she has willingly shed in his name.

After another hour of painful ruminating over the now crinkled letter, her ears catch the sound of incoming footsteps, a fast pace that was barely short of a run. Heavy and careless. Adler.

Though he tries to hide it, her retainer cannot cover quickly enough his wide eyes at seeing her look much younger. The man takes a second to compose himself before resuming as if nothing of note had happened, which his next word would confirm.

"Phiros went to Coerthas. We don't know where exactly yet but there's an airship waiting for you in Limsa."

Her pink slit eyes flash white then hot pink as she follows the younger Raen outside, her constantly aching body forgotten at the thought that she might have a chance to find him before he did himself in.

Bloody Coerthas of all places. What the hell are you thinking, Phi? Are you planning to turn into ice? I'll set this world on fire if it's what it takes to warm you up.

A twisted smile takes over her face as the fingers of her right hand snap together, dried blood flaking off at the gesture, and the broken bed feet, the split open couch and the overturned bookshelf right themselves, the wood and fabric as good as new as she exits the house. It would not do to have Phiros witness the remnants of her temper tanttum.

I'm gonna heal you, bring your stupid butt home and kiss you until you die in my arms ten years from now.

__________

The Vault?! The highest floor of The Vault?! Where she'd lost 'Chefant and nearly lost Phiros twenty years ago. Her husband is apparently the biggest moron that has ever inhabited Hydaelyn.

Insults and vehement thoughts run on repeat through her mind as Ruby climbs up the many steps of this Ishgardian hell, her skin crawling as the cold morning wind hits her feverish skin, the aether enhancing every pain, twinge and itch in her body.

Her raspy voice faintly echoes through the high walls of the former Ishgardian seat of power, the shimmery white sheen encompassing her body lighting her path as the sun's morning ray were barely reaching the high windows.

"I will find your stupidly big scaly old man butt and I will kiss you first, because I love you, and then I will slap you until you learn to never run away from me again... Making me waste so much time trying to find you! Keeping this aether inside me is no easy feat you big dummy!"

Breathless, her legs trembling, she stops for a moment, hand clenching the railing to keep standing. Her eyes look pleadingly towards the rotunda one stairwell up as she screams.

"YOU BETTER BE ALIVE AND LISTENING TO ME UP THERE!"

You better be alive... Her anger fades as she continues her painful trek up, fear and worry clogging up her throat as she tries to push out of her mind the idea of Phiros' corpse welcoming her. What would she do if he was gone? What wouldn't she do, was the bigger question. Could she bring someone back to life with such quantities of aether? More importantly... Would Phiros want to be brought back? He had left to die on his own terms, and to rob that from him only to inflict him a painful death...

Stop, stop! He's alive, I know it. He's too strong to die from a little hypothermia. He's Phiros, he's unbreakable.

"In sickness and health we vowed, and you don't get to decide when sickness gets to much for me." Ruby pants out as she finally reaches the Rotunda, the sun now high and lighting the exterior walkway. Immediately, she spots Phiros' slumped body against a marble wall. Unmoving.

"Phiros!" Her cry tears through the air, her body appearing next to her lover in the blink of an eye. Now kneeling over him, his paleness is all too obvious against his dark armor, accentuated by his white hair, tied in their usual ponytail. A sob escapes her as she notes this silly detail, his ever rebellious lock of hair framing his cheek, the tip resting over his blue lips.

"Oh my love, what have you done."

As she falls to her knees, her magic seems to have a will of its own, tendrils of aether reaching out to Phiros, curling around his throat, wrists and chest. Her mouth seeks his cold blue lips, hoping for any sort of reaction as her fingers attempt to feel a pulse in his veins. His body is too cold and stiff for her fingers to feel his pulse, yet her magic brings her the assure that his heart is indeed still beating, though very slowly.

The tears run down her face, milky and aglow with churning aether, the Padjal's life force attempting to leak out of her every time she uses her magic, testing her control and threatening to hurt Phiros instead of heal him. By now, her youthful appearance is beginning to fade proportionately to the lost aether, pain shooting from her knees as they carry her weight on the marble floor.

"What should I do?" She asks her dying lover, her tear stained lips never parting from his long as she cups his face, brushing the stray lock of hair behind his horn in a bittersweet motion. "Should I fix your aether first and then warm you up? Will you be able to hold on? What if you don't wake up? What if I fail? ...Phiros, you stupid idiot! How could you expect me to live without you when I never even felt alive before I met you."

A wet choked laugh turns into a disgusted sigh as she notices the dry blood on her hands dirtying Phiros' face, her hands glow a yellow light and the blood burns off her hands before she gently brushes it off Phiros' face with her shirt sleeve. "I have to succeed, darling, I have to. If you knew the things I've done for you, would you judge me?" She shakes the maudlin thoughts out of her mind, she has a job to do. I've gone too far to stop now.

One last kiss, I need it. She stifles back a sob as she feels his cold unloving lips against hers and carefully tilts Phiros off the wall until his head now laid on her lap, one hand curled around his throat while the other rests over his heart. Controlling her raging aether in order to mend Phiros' broken aether pathway requires minutiae and focus, as well as something to ground her, to force her to forget the sizzling pain in her body, or to anticipate the painful consequences of releasing this healing aether. Thus she begins to speak, hopeful that her husband could somehow hear her through his comatose state.

"Remember that night in the Royal Menagerie? When we looked at the stars and you told me stories about Hingashi. I remember the legend of the firebird you told me. At first I thought I could find it, y'know, I thought: I'll catch myself a phoenix and my husband will be fine." A bitter chuckle escapes her as more milky white tears roll down her face onto Phiros' chest and neck. "Turns out it's not as easy as you'd think to find a phoenix... But I thought, it's okay, I have access to endless aether, I'll be even better than the firebird, I'll figure out a way to save you."

Around them the landscape changes, a meadow of green tall grass and white and red flowers grow in circles around the couple, growing through the splintering marble floor as the loose aether she cannot fully control conjures an idyllic vision of the Royal Menagerie, pulled right out of her memory.

"I nearly failed you, my love... Yes, yes, I know you'll say you gained a few years thanks to me but I want more, so much more. One more hour. One more day. One more anniversary spent in each other's arms. I've always been greedy, haven't I? Your greedy kitten."

Ruby holds back a scream as she directs the flow of aether, slowing the relentless wave into a slow trickle meant to seeking the network of his aether to mend the damage made to him when he was younger. Each time she had syphoned the aether off a Padjal, she had managed to improve his flow of aether, granting him a longer lifespan. She had however never told him how she had done it, but Phiros had looked at her worriedly every time before giving in once he realized it was working.

Perhaps if she had been more forthcoming about her plans, if she'd told him about her hunt for Kan-E-Senna. No, he would have tried to stop her, deeming it too dangerous. Her beloved hero. Her personal voice of reason. Her spell sturtters to a halt, the aether rebelling against her. Gritting her teeth, she hisses.

"Listen to me you bitch, I did not rip your heart out of your chest and hold on to your self righteous aether for you to let my husband die!"

Perhaps due to the experience of having done such intense and unconventional healing before, the aether bends to her will, painful and fighting her back as always, but her will is stronger and the broken connections in Phiros' body seem to mend. It would not repair the damage he had gone through over the aether but would easily grant him a few more years as long as he did not run headfirst into danger.

As the aether is poured in her love, her own body begins to age again, from her thirty year old body, she finds herself in the right body, weathered by fifty years of life and then more, her hair turning completely white as she watches the back of her hands wrinkle, the skin dry and blemished.

"Ha. I'm as old as you are now... Maybe even older! You'd have to pour me the drinks!"

The long process ends, trembling hands no longer aglow, her lips find the Au'ra's forehead as translucent tears of joy run down her face.

"Almost there, love. All that's left is to wake you up."

Although she feels bolstered by her success, it would be foolish to ignore how depleted her aether reserves are, likewise for the land around her for yalms around. Pink eyes look down at the beloved visage of her husband, his odd purple and yellow eyes hidden by his eyelids.

Her lips find his once again in an upside down kiss as she is certain of her next course of action. Her strength is low, her nerves burning as she is now unable to draw on to the aether around her, her only source of magic to warm him up is her life force. Yet there is no doubt in her mind, no ifs and no consequences other than waking up Phiros.

If she must pass away... Not even the lifestream could keep them apart, she knows this. I'll find you in every life. Placing her bag under his head, she settles down over Phiros' larger body, her right hand tangled in his long white hair as her left twines their fingers together, her head resting under his chin as she would usually do so at home, ears over his heart, laying her entire body over his as her magic warms the air around them while a thin thread of aether connects her heart to Phiros', attempting to bring his heart back to a strong heartbeat.

"You might hate me for this, I know it. But it would not be more than what I felt when I found your letter, Phi. I was gonna ask you, y'know, because our anniversary is in less than a month, if you wanted to move to Shirogane with me. Be a cute old couple that lazes around at the hot bath, drinks sake every night as we looked down at the pond. I'd offend people every other day without realizing and you'd shrug and say I'm a foreigner."

Her breathing is now shallow, chest rising painfully as her life force is sapped into Phiros' body. Suddenly, the sound of his heartbeat reaches her hear, finally strong enough to be heard! It's working!

"I'm afraid you'll have to do that without me. I can already see you, walking down the streets, with your hair untied and flowing over your back, a formal but colorful yukata on your back. My gentle giant."

Her heart stutters as Phiros' seems to pick up pace, his body warming up as hers begins to shiver despite her aero spell warming up the air around them. Her eyes close as she whispers her final words to her awakening love.

"I am so happy that I got to love you, to be loved by you. I never thought I could receive as much love as you have given me for the past twenty five years. I won't lie, I would have liked a little more still." Hiccups cut off her words as her hand clenches on Phiros' shoulders, her nose buried in his chest to inhale his scent one last time.

"You carry my heart in you, Phi. I love you, my husband. Live well."

Her grip on his shoulders relax as his chest begins to rise, hands falling limp as she falls into a deep slumber, the sound of glass breaking as white crystal shards scatter over the red and white flowers nearly covering up a raspy inhale.

[barbarapicci]

There were two young men with no heart and no peace They thought to be free lying under a tree And so they lay there from the dawn till dusk Enjoying the air and the chickens and ducks Theuy thought to be nice and wave with their hands And so day after day they are under that tree Counting the leaves and waiting for tea They are as happy as can be. Gilbert and George @ Foundation Louis Vuiotton, Paris (presso Fondation Louis Vuitton) https://www.instagram.com/p/B08e532I_J7/?igshid=1vumt54jhgrms

[big-hearts-blog]

Let them go ...

The truth love is not put someone else on padestal ...

Truth Love is not playing victims

Truth Love is big Heart ...

Truth Love more friendships,

Means that everything we can discuss

And allowing each others to be happy

Truth Love setting them free

Allow them to grown up as they are

Truth Love is have soul connection

We need fondation to build up more stronger

Like a home, where our hearts come back

Wherever we traveling in our journey of life

Your heart will guiding us to come home

And choose from distance

The safely places that you can talk about everything

You feel so freely as you are

Without fear and doubted

We will singing of happy song

Speak sweetness and dreaming sweet family

We fighting on days to make our dreams come true

There no talk about what's your obligation and what's your responsibility

We talk about what is mine is yours too

We don't have calculator

We no need agreement as we not doing a business, but we have a coffee and tea times

To sitting together to give our hearts and hand for each others

💜💜💜

“The saddest thing in life is seeing the person you love, happy with someone else.”

— Unknown (via perfeqt)

[impressivepress]

Félicia Atkinson: A Closer Listen interview

Do you have a favorite piece of gear you’d care to talk about?  With this series, I try to not fetishize equipment the way that often happens but rather to try to demystify the creative process.

Some people have all this expensive stuff and produce nothing of interest, others use literal garbage or broken old things and produce beautiful soundworlds.  So, not necessarily from a technical standpoint, but as a piece of equipment that you’ve developed a kind of relationship with.

I like to collect stones from my travels, especially the ones I find on empty beaches or desert. I put them in my pockets, forgetting where they come from, and then use them during my show with micro contacts. Sometimes I just hold them during shows, they don’t make any sounds but they give me energy or at least the courage sometimes to stay silent or not add anymore sound to what’s already in the air. It’s difficult sometimes not to add more, you have break yourself somehow in order to keep the focus and sharpness.

I am fascinated by this image of you deriving inspiration from these stones, even when they are not making a sound. Do you have any early memories of sound, as listener or recorder, that stand out to you, that you draw inspiration from as you do with your found stones?

I think the first sounds I enjoyed were birds in the evening and trains passing. Especially just before nightfall. I am still always moved when I hear them. I leave not far from the station in Rennes and there are birds in my garden, and every day I feel still deeply touched by those sounds.

I seem to recall you’ve spent some time in the American southwest, a residency perhaps? Were you at Taliesin West? Can you talk a bit about your interest in the region?  Quite a contrast to Brittany, no?

We went to Arizona, California’s Mojave and Nevada, and also New Mexico quiet often. Each year since 2014 we do the LA Art Book Fair with Shelter Press and we manage to add some wandering time before or after, a kind of research time where I can record, see, draw,s  listen, write, paint…

We actually went to Taliesin West, and the Biosphere, and Arcosanti, but also to the Meteor Crater and the Petrified Forest. Arizona is Crazy! In New Mexico we visited Georgia O Keefe’s ranch and Agnes Martin’s room in Taos. It’s very inspiring.

There are so many contrast and different energies and people out there.

My relationship to those places is very intimate and I don’t know how to speak about it rationally; but let’s say my records Hand in Hand andCoyotes are my way of explaining and sharing my relationship to those environments.

But speaking of stones, you know Brittany is very rich in dolmens, monoliths and megaliths, that are sacred stones…

May I ask about your musical formation?  Did you study an instrument as a child, or play in more traditional bands in your youth?  How did your current practice develop? Can you describe what led your interest in making music? What is your musical background, both in terms of playing instruments and musical “scenes” which you were shaped by?

I studied harp and piano as a kid, listening to classical music mostly, but was very bored with « solfège » and music theory.

I remember learning « Methode Martenot » [an unconventional form of music pedagogy] that was more intuitive and based on rhythm and really enjoying it.

Also, some people came to my public elementary school to present to us the Structures Baschet by the Baschet Brothers and I was fascinated by them.

I grew up in Paris and my parents were listening to music all the time. My dad, who was working as a psychiatric nurse, was listening to Robert Ashley, Stockhausen and Pierre Henryand my mom, who was working as a librarian at the National Library to world music such as Yiddish songs, Cape Verdian music, Polish music…

I stopped playing music at the age of 14 when I discovered grunge music, Brit pop, indie rock and trip hop. I decided to keep on studying theatre instead. I even wrote a few plays.  I wanted to be a writer at that time and was writing all the time; poetry, novels… I destroyed everything I was really living in my imagination.

In those years (14-18), I was listing to music all the time and reading the NME, The Face Magazine, Les Inrockuptibles… I was a music fan, collecting images, reviews, of the bands I was adoring!

I was doing a lot of baby sittings all my teenage years to buy records and go to shows. (There is no age restriction in shows in France.)

I even went to Bristol when I was 16 with a friend to see where Massive Attack and Tricky where coming from, but we were so broke and young the only thing we could afford was to hang out in parks. But we really enjoyed it, Ahha!

Then in my twenties I was a fan of Sonic Youth, Cat Power, Bonnie “Prince” Billy, Smog, and Low and the voice of Kim Gordon showed me you can speak in songs. I still enjoy the mood those musicians were putting me in, the importance of the lyrics and the feeling of being very close and intimate to the singer. The energy, the experience.

Then I started writing a bit in French magazines such as Octopus and Mouvement about music, read The Wire Magazine, and thinking about it in a more theoretical way.

At the same time, I discovered in my late twenties improvised music, avant-garde music, going to see shows at Instants Chavires, Fondation Cartier, Centre Pompidou…. I studied at Les Beaux Arts de Paris and did a workshop with Christian Wolff that was very influential to me. I started listening to Luc Ferrari, John Cage, Cornelius Cardew, but also Jim O’Rourke, David Grubbs, Fennesz, etc… I started playing music, in different projects such as Strechandrelax with dancer Elise Ladoué and a spoken word project with Sylvain Chauveau.

Then, when, and then around 28 years old, under my own name and the moniker Je Suis Le petit Chevalier. With Je Suis Le Petit Chevalier I made a lot of tapes and CD-R on great DIY labels that really encouraged me to be prolific and use recordings as a kind of sound diary. I feel it was a very liberating time because there was no pressure. I was doing live shows that were very short, very loud and noise, I felt since at that time I was playing in talking audiences I had to be louder than the audience. It was like an exorcism. I really enjoyed that psych / synth DIY scene with labels such as Not Not Fun, Stunned, Digitalis, Ruralfaune, Kaugummi…

And then, in 2011 we created Shelter Press with Bartolomé Sanson and it changed a lot for me, knowing I had my own home to release my music and trying to shape things with more specificity and control.

I had a very important discussion when we were living in the Alps with Bartolomé with our friend Pete Swanson. I think he asked me something very basic, like «  what kind of music do you want to record » and it made me rethink the whole thing. I discovered also new composers, such Ruth White, or Moniek Darge and came back to Pierre Henry, Ferrari and Robert Ashley, and then I released A readymade ceremony, which is for me the volume 1 of a kind of new moment in my music, that I am still following now.

I’d like to ask about Shelter Press.  You’ve brought together quite a roster of artists, with some incredible aesthetic variety.  Shelter Press also publishes books and artist’s books. This feels very right to me, and isn’t something that is as common as one might think, as there is so much overlap between artists who produce work in small editions, whether it be music or books, but I’d imagine that the second decade of the 21st century has been a challenging time for such an endeavor.  Please, tell us more about Shelter Press, how you go about business, how you tie these various threads together.

Well, Shelter Press is 90 per cent run by my partner, Bartolomé Sanson, he is the captain,  holding the vessel on an everyday basis, thinking things ahead and making it possible; even though we take all the decisions together. I am more like the passenger, watching the GPS, looking at the window and tuning the radio accordingly to the drive…and making sandwiches!

It’s a lot of work to publish in the same time books and records, especially since he is handling creative direction, design, editorial, sales and shipping on his own

I think in many ways we often feel overwhelmed by work!

I can imagine!

But we are very happy and proud of what we put out: for example lately from the Ocean Scores of the artist David Horvitz to the latest Eli Keszler record, Stadium,  passing by a compilation of essays about utopian pedagogy (In The Canyon Revise the Cannon), the first record in ten years by Tomoko Sauvage, or the first album by CV & JAB in collaboration with artist Zin Taylor, etc…

We try to draw a kind of circle that links a kind of sparse but connected family.

We try to always meet people in real life before working with them, this is why we do not accept demos, we are not a dating app of some kind, a record doesn’t happen in one sec, it’s a slow process of exchange, not a fast delivery.

Metaphorically, we invite people to eat our table, and in that order, we like to know them first and then take our time to eat different courses and have a good conversation.

Shelter has just released Spectres, in collaboration with INA-GRM, in which you have a text. I’m looking forward to reading this, it looks fantastic.  Can I ask about how you understand the relationship between theory and practice in this context, between ‘research’ and the production of artistic works? You mentioned that in preparation of producing new works you have a period of absorbing various inspirations (books, films, landscapes, etc). Does the intellectualization of the process, as with this essay, come as part of the process or is it more removed (before, after)?

I just believe things are never isolated. Sometimes my ways of rehearsing is making a salad. I am very inspired by John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, Ana Halprin, or Alison Knowles in the way they embrace(d) the world as a whole. A walk in the forest could be a research.

More and more time passes more and more i believe there is not in one hand theory and in another practice, everything in embedded.

Right now I have a small child, we spend most of the day in the park under the trees, and observing an Atlas Cedar for an hour is for me a way of deep listening.

I understand more time since I started to do soft boil eggs, for example. They handle a very good duration I feel.

And music is about duration.

It’s an important stage. The thinking part is the moment where you allow yourself to stop producing, and look back and forward. What have I done? What am I gonna do?

What is around me? What is missing? What is too obvious? Who / what should I call? Where should I go? To whom am I connecting, referring,  in order to say/ show/ make what I feel /want?

I feel full of questions. I need to share those questions sometimes, and take the risk to make some hypothesis. It’s part of the game. Share your ideas and the risk to be wrong or boring.

Right now, for example, I have a small baby at home. My creative time is very limited, my hands being full all day with this little and wonderful person. Well, it allows me time to think and observe.

I go to the park with my baby, I go close to the Sequoias and Cedars of the park with him, I am not playing music, but I feel it is something that prepares me as much as a rehearsal to play shows or record later.

It’s about being alive. I don’t separate life and theory and creation. Each one is one hour of a whole day.

I feel close to John Cage again in that way. Picking up mushroom is also making music. Or making music is just a part of a bigger process.

I’ve only been able to read the first page of your essay in Spectres so far, but it concerns the voice. It seems to me that your work often foregrounds the voice (and the body, as in Hand in Hand). Can you tell me more about the role that your voice and language plays in your music?

I bring my voice with me. I record it and then, a double exists, and people are listening to the double, to this strange stamp called recording. I find it fascinating.

Language is an obstacle to fascination. It brings doubt and subjectivity. I use language to break the image and I use the voice to play with its plasticity and its ghost-like ability to be multiple, pitched, distorted, doubled or vanished. Voice is a wind that penetrates the ear and leave again and come back, it’s also a feminist embodiment of a flexible force.

I believe also in the power of hushing versus screaming. Getting closer to the ear where the shout push you outside. I believe in energies and flux through the voice and its recording.

The voice for me is interesting because it’s always with you. It’s also for me something that travels; from inside to outside, passing walls, staying recorded and filling a room while your body has always disappeared.

The voice is the metaphor of the spirit in that way. It can talk but in the same time stay difficult to understand. It brings images but also confusion. It’s like a stream or cloud. You can see in it or not, it can appear and vanish.

I am very fond of Robert Ashley or John Cage’s voices. Even if they passed away they are still speaking to me.

Sometimes I feel inspired by that, I want to talk to some listeners who are not born yet; at least to people I will never meet. Recording my voice is a way to travel in time and space.

One of the tensions Sound Propositions is concerned with is the difference between working as an artist in the studio (producing records and compositions in “fixed,” recorded form) and in performances.  Do you approach to a live situation in terms of improvisation as opposed to how you work in the studio?

Aha, I would say it is almost the opposite: I improvise way more in the studio than live

Most of the outtakes on my records are first takes with a lot of improvisation in it, whereas live I construct more the performance with diffusion and scheduled sounds.

I feel that the fact that the record is « fixed » allows many strata of improvisation, because you can pile up time on it, the record has to be played several time, and is recorded in that goal of fighting with age and time;  whereas a live event is meant to disappear and therefore has , in my opinion , to be anticipated ahead, so it’s strong enough to face such a rapid and short amount of time and existence; like fire works!

Perhaps working as a writer brings with it a similar tension?

Almost all the texts that are not borrowed from literature or cut ups from magazines are improvised, they “happen” to me when I record and then I convoke them again live.

Animals, or Twenties are Gone, the two books of poetry I made were written within the same process, very condensed and fast.

How does this vary between working solo and working (live or in the studio) in collaboration with others?

I don’t do that many collabs, but for example with Jefre Cantu Ledesmathe process was like a mail  correspondence : I send you this, you answer, I react, etc… we never recorded on the same room / continent!

We would conceptualize very little ahead but rather exchange links of records and books we like to read / hear. The connection and language was a very special way of listening that, I think, we have in common.

How do you approach or conceive of the process of musical composition?  Is it a studio-based practice for you?

It’s a slow process, very similar to the way I do art. First I read books, watch films, listen to music, walk in landscapes. Then some ideas and desires appear out of this contemplation. Therefore I start producing various materials: field recordings, melodies, modular patterns, voice…. and then I listen to everything and assemble, like making a bouquet of wild flowers, according and tuning sounds into this first hunch I had at the beginning. This « feeling » or « idea » that will be the shape makers of those drafts, that will give sense and cohesion.

I think of composition as way to create form in space, with layers, blanks, densities, perspectives and light.

Would you be willing to choose a recent or upcoming track and break it down, talk about its development, equipment used, etc?

This is impossible for me to answer, I never follow recipes, neither in the kitchen, nor in the studio.

I can explain what inspires me, the environment of a composition but  I’ve always been a bit skeptical about technique demonstrations. I find it often obviously masculine and even sometimes even shallow; like ooh look how much gear I’ve got.

I feel creation, wherever it’s music, literature or painting can be analyzed as an objet, of course,  but what the artist does can only be explained in terms of intention and context, that’s it. It’s always completely relative, because at the end, the listener might catch something very different, because he/she is a different person than the artist, at a different time, in a different place, and that’s the beauty of the artefact. To be able to travel, to be able to remain a mystery and in the same time, to be able to be explained and analyzed in many different ways. Like a diamond with different facets.

In fact, I feel rather the same. I don’t mean to imply that the particulars (of the studio or a particular track’s creation) should have some universal importance, or be instilled into some kind of hierarchy, such that readers might think, oh “this piece of gear or software would make my work better.” I absolutely do not subscribe to this idea, and I’m very much moved by work that comes from making do with what is available. (Arte povera artists, or the sculptures of Louise Nevelson for instance, or the artists I’ve profiled in the series).  So, yes, I absolutely agree (about cooking as well!), improvisation is key, and formulas are generally to be resisted. Art is not a recipe to be followed.  I also concur regarding the masculinist tendency of gear shots and demonstrations of skills, flexing in the studio and all that.  (I for one dislike FACT Mag’s On the Clock series in part for this reason.)

So perhaps the question is more pedagogical: what advice would you give to someone starting out to make music or art in whatever form?  

Take your time. Believe in small forms.

Be curious and imaginative. Don’t forget to have some humour and distance around you . it’s only music. It’ s just music.  and to paraphrase JL Godard what is «  une image juste / juste image »?

You evoke Godard, and I think there’s something pedagogical in all we absorb. So, I always like to ask about an artist’s favorite work outside of sound art or music. What books, visual art, plays, films, etc you are inspired by, or find common cause with? Are their artists working in other media (past or present) that you feel an aesthetic kinship with?

So many of them of course. I wish i could have seen the Anni Albers retrospective in London and the Hilma Af Kint retrospective in NYC. Both of those wonderful women are very inspiring for me. They are both masters of colors and shapes, and I could watch their work all day. Same with many other artists such as Ruth Asawa, Agnes Martin, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Sonia Delaunay… Painting is source of every day joy for me.

I was lucky enough to catch the Af Klint at the Guggenheim while I was home for the holidays. What a revelation, when viewed all together in a space such as that. She knew her work would be misunderstood, so she imposed this long restriction on public exhibitions of her work. To think it’s taken this long for her work to be appreciated. Imagine what else is out there, still hidden.

What is on the horizon for you? What future projects can you tell us about?

Horizon is a line in the sky I am always contemplating and questioning. We never know.

I am currently composing a piece inspired by the work and persona of the painter Helen Frankenthaler for Atonal in Berlin this summer and another piece called Hedra Helix for Musica Sanae in Sokolowsko in Poland in August. [Episode 6 of the podcast includes an excerpt from her live performance at Musica Sanae in Napoli in May of 2019.]

I am gonna play at Le Poisson Rouge in New York in September and I’m working on the score of a dance piece by the choreographer Rebecca Chantinell in Stockholm.

Thank you so much.

~

by thenewobjective · July 5, 2019

[biointernet]

574 Fur Das Alter

“Beyond the obvious facts that he has at some time done manual labour, that he takes snuff, that he is a Freemason, that he has been in China, and that he has done a considerable amount of writing lately, I can deduce nothing else.”  ― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Red Headed League

574 Fur Das Alter

Bern Fondation Nationale Vintage masonic postal envelope, Bern

Fur Das Alter “Few realize that political action offers little solution to the world’s major problems. Few understand that the elite have created political parties in order to prevent real change from ever taking place. The political arena is merely the “sty” in which two or more mutually hostile agencies, created by the same hidden hand, get the chance to pummel one another. As alternative researcher Juri Lina so brilliantly put it: When the left wing Freemason is finished, the right-wing Freemason takes over The point has been emphasized by many an insider: The elementary principle of all deception is to attract the enemy’s attention to what you wish him to see and to distract his attention from what you so not wish him to see – General Sir Archibald Wavel The world’s power structures have always ‘divided to conquer’ and have always ‘kept divided to keep conquered.’ As a consequence the power structure has so divided humanity – not only into special function categories but into religious and language and color categories – that individual humans are now helplessly inarticulate in the face of the present crisis. They consider their political representation to be completely corrupted, therefore, they feel almost utterly helpless”  ― R. Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path

574 Vintage masonic postal envelope, Bern

MHC Exhibitions – Dynamic Vision Board meta-models

Welcome to Exhibitions at MHC Virtual Museum! Authors: Adam Pierce, Oleg Bazhenov, Lena Rhomberg, Kirill Korotkov, Anton Fokin, Petr Mihailov, Rustam Adyukov and other MHC Exhibitions:Time Shadows by MHCPersonification of Time – Father Time ExhibitionBeauty Bio Net – Dynamic Vision Board Mental ModelHourglass and Cards – Die Welt als Wille und VorstellungArt Glass by Anton FokinThe Full History of Time3D Hand Made – 3DHM ExhibitionHourglass Figure Sophia LorenHourglass Figure Marilyn MonroeDead Sea Collection ExhibitionHourglass – Masonic Symbol ExhibitionTime Machine Structure 574 Fur Das Alter “To enlarge the sphere of social happiness is worthy of the benevolent design of a Masonic institution; and it is most fervently to be wished, that the conduct of every member of the fraternity, as well as those publications, that discover the principles which actuate them, may tend to convince mankind that the grand object of Masonry is to promote the happiness of the human race. ”  ― George Washington, Writings Read the full article

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Artists: Danica Barboza, Genesis Belanger, Meriem Bennani, Sascha Braunig, Florencia Escudero, Hadi Fallahpisheh, Anna Glantz, Ivy Haldeman, Christina Quarles, Emily Mae Smith, Greg Parma Smith

Venue: Petzel, New York

Exhibition Title: A Love Letter to a Nightmare

Date: July 15 – August 14, 2020

Click here to view slideshow

Full gallery of images, press release and link available after the jump.

Images:

Images courtesy of Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York

Press Release:

The skeleton was as happy as a madman whose straitjacket had been taken off. He felt liberated at being able to walk without flesh. The mosquitoes didn’t bite him anymore. He didn’t have to have his hair cut. He was neither hungry nor thirsty, hot nor cold. He was far from the lizard of love.

–Leonora Carrington, The Seventh Horse and Other Tales

As we reopen, Petzel Gallery is pleased to present A Love Letter to a Nightmare, a summer group exhibition that will be on view from July 15 – August 14 at the gallery’s Chelsea location. The exhibition’s premise is to take into consideration contemporary visual modes and expressions that trace back to historical movements such as Surrealism, Symbolism and Pop, through the lens of our current uncertain existence. Call it vamped Surrealism and Symbolism. The show ponders how the aesthetic of modern surrealism/symbolism has been dressed up and added upon, sexualized, feminized, and reworked in the 21st Century. How does the state of a bound subconscious affect these artworks? This has become especially prevalent while the world shelters from the coronavirus pandemic and confronts centuries of inequity in a moment of historic unrest and great potential for revolutionary change. Beneath our daily struggle for normalcy bubbles a shared unconscious anxiety, fear, loneliness, despair, and trepidation of the future. In these times, the fabric of society is now both flattened into two dimensions as we socialize through screens – from our Zoom meetings, family check-ins, and “cocktails with friends,” to the daily State and Federal news conferences, Instagram stories, and Tik Tok videos – and yet simultaneously burst open in valiant action both intellectual and physical as we gather, protest, and organize in efforts to reimagine and rebuild a more just world. Our dreams have become more “vivid” and “menacing,” according to The New York Times, and, of course, in fantasy there is room for radical possibility. How might these practices of contemporary Surrealism, Symbolism and Pop, be read and implemented in reaction to the current upheaval? As one of the artists offered – how might these daydreams and nightmares be used as “forms of resistance, or in addressing trauma, enfranchising the masses, and envisioning necessary escape?” The exhibition asks how does each artist’s subjective work – painting, sculpture, installation, and video – explain a world riddled with multiple “objective” truths?

A Love Letter to a Nightmare includes work by Danica Barboza, Genesis Belanger, Meriem Bennani, Sascha Braunig, Florencia Escudero, Hadi Fallahpisheh, Anna Glantz, Ivy Haldeman, Christina Quarles, Emily Mae Smith, and Greg Parma Smith.

Danica Barboza (b. 1988, New York) is a multimedia artist who elaborates a rich personal mythology through the mediums of sculpture, drawing, writing and assemblage. Her work portrays a mystical marriage between her and a mythologized lover, and in her sculptures’ shifting identities she explores questions around celebrity, psychology, and desire. She had her first institutional solo exhibition at Schinkel Pavillon, Berlin, Germany in 2020, and recent exhibitions with Lomex (New York) and Galerie Buchholz (Cologne).

Genesis Belanger (b. 1978, USA) Belanger’s work is characterized by the treatment of objects as surrogates for the body. Sculpted in porcelain and stoneware, metal work and upholstery and tinted in fondant hues, everyday objects take on human features, made uncomfortably familiar as they begin to resemble us. Belanger’s sculptures address themes such as feminism and the objectification of the female body, the psychology of consumerism and power structures in modern history. Belanger has upcoming museum solo shows at Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, in Ridgefield, Connecticut (September 2020) and the Consortium Museum in Dijon, France (April 2021).

Meriem Bennani (b. 1988 in Rabat, Morocco) lives and works in Brooklyn, USA. She received her BFA from Cooper Union, New York in 2012, and her MFA from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris in 2011. Solo exhibitions of her work have been held at C L E A R I N G Brooklyn; The Kitchen, New York; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Art Dubai; MoMA PS1, New York; and SIGNAL, Brooklyn. Her work has also been featured in numerous group exhibitions, including Whitney Biennial, New York; Biennale de l’Image en Mouvement, Geneva / Turin; Public Art Fund, New York; Shanghai Biennale; Jewish Museum,New York; Saatchi Gallery, London; MANA Contemporary, New Jersey; and Palais de Tokyo, Paris. Her exhibition, Party on the CAPS, is currently on view at the Julia Stoschek Collection, Berlin. Later in 2020, she will have a public commission at LAX airport. Meriem Bennani’s work is part of the collections of the Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris; Fondation Cartier, Paris; Kadist Foundation, Paris; and FRAC Ile-de-France, Paris.

Sascha Braunig (b. 1983, Qualicum Beach, BC) is a painter who creates nontraditional portraits and still lifes. Even as Braunig reduces bodies to witch-like cut-outs, barbed skeletons, or wireforms lit with an internal neon glow, she finds a possibility for expressing freedom and tensile strength through these humanoid scaffolds. In 2016 Braunig had a solo exhibition at MoMA PS1, and her work was featured in the 2015 New Museum Triennial. She holds a BFA from The Cooper Union and an MFA in painting from Yale University. Braunig was awarded a studio residency from the Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program in 2016–2017, a Pollock-Krasner Foundation award in 2016, and a Macdowell Colony Fellowship in 2013.

Florencia Escudero (b. 1987, Singapore) is a multimedia artist recognized for her soft sculptures that use fabric printed with digitally rendered images. Her work aims to flip the narrative of the objectification of the female body. Escudero received her MFA from the Yale University School of Art and her BFA from the School of Visual Arts. Her works have been shown at the Instituto Cervantes, New York and the Pratt Institute, New York.

Hadi Fallahpisheh (b. 1987, Tehran) is a multimedia artist that specializes in photography, performance and installation. Often commenting on conditions of displacement, his work questions the ability of representation to convey truths, revealing the gaps between public perception and personal experience. Fallahpisheh received the Artadia Award in 2019, and his work was included in 2020 in the group exhibition In Practice: Total Disbelief at the Sculpture Center.

Anna Glantz (b. 1989, Concord, MA) creates paintings that consider the poetic connections between personal, invented, and historical imagery set within psychological landscapes. She received a BA in Art and Linguistics from the University of California, Los Angeles and an MFA in Visual Art from Columbia University. In 2020 she will have her first UK solo exhibition at The Approach in London.

Ivy Haldeman (b. 1985, Aurora, CO; lives and works in New York) is recognized for her nuanced, and disarmingly languorous, renderings of anthropomorphized sausages swathed in pillowy buns, pantomime hand gestures, slapstick unions of heels and banana peels, and women’s suits depleted of bodies – illuminating relations between consumerism and desire while both allegorizing and eroticizing slippages among the unequal distributions of finance and femininity. Her work has been the subject of recent solo exhibitions at Downs & Ross, New York, and Capsule, Shanghai. The artist received her BFA from the Cooper Union in 2008.

Christina Quarles (b. 1985, Chicago, IL) paints abstracted figures that are subject to identity politics. Her gestural, distorted human forms explore the ways in which race, gender, and sexuality intersect to form complex identities. She will have a solo exhibition at Museum ofContemporary Art, Chicago in 2021, and her work was included in the group exhibitions Made in LA at the Hammer Museum; Fictions at the Studio Museum in Harlem; and Trigger: Gender as a Tool and a Weapon at the New Museum.

Emily Mae Smith (b. 1979, Austin, TX) is an artist whose subject matter plows the Surrealist genre with Feminist psychology. She layers her paintings with popular and underrepresented Art Historical references, often marrying them with pop culture motifs. Smith has had solo exhibitions at Le Consortium, Dijon and the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut.

Greg Parma Smith (b. 1983, Cambridge, MA) creates visionary paintings that combine mystical symbology with a personal and experimental painterly language that draws upon and synthesizes languages from the Renaissance, medieval illustration, as well as modernisms from Miro to Jasper Johns. Martha Schwendener explained: “His ultimate tactic seems to be to show how painting can accommodate multiple ideas and worldviews, rather than what art’s gatekeepers allow at a given moment.” Smith’s work was presented in a solo exhibition at Musée d’art moderne et contemporain, Genève in 2017 and was included in a two-person exhibition at the Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis in 2010.

Link: “A Love Letter to a Nightmare” at Petzel

from Contemporary Art Daily https://bit.ly/2DvEbpj

[filosofablogger]

I started today’s good people post about a single person, Mama Rosie, who is doing wonderful things.  But, she is doing so many wonderful things, and having such an impact, that I quickly realized I would not be able to finish it in time, so I switched gears (another symptom of my bouncy mind) and decided to write about multiple good people doing good things.  I went in search, and I found these …

I had never heard of the band Midnight Oil, but of course daughter Chris had … she knows every band that has existed since the beginning of time (and refers to my music as “bad taste”).  Anyway, the band Midnight Oil, an Australian band dating back to the 1970s,  is giving a concert in Fremantle, Australia on 29 October.  According to the band’s lead singer, Peter Garrett, every single cent will go to support marine protection organizations, charities that work in the areas of reef protection and climate change.

Peter Garrett

The band has long identified with environmental causes, and Garrett himself was on the international board of Greenpeace for two years from 1993-1995.

One of the organizations the environmentally-minded band will be supporting will be the Australian Marine Conservation Society. Started in 1965, the independent charity works to create large marine national parks and sanctuaries, support sustainable fishing practices and protect threatened ocean life such as whales, sharks and seals. The organization also works to protect the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system (344,400 square kilometres), which is severely threatened by environmental pressures and climate change.

Midnight Oil typically earns up to $210,000 per concert, so their contribution is nothing to sneeze at!  Great job, guys …. and thank you!

Joseph Badame and his wife, Phyliss, were survivalists who stocked up on everything: dry food, generators, fuel, survival books, thousands of rolls of toilet paper — all to keep them alive in the event of a disaster or some other crisis. When the crisis came, however, all the food they had stockpiled would be of no use.  In 2005, Phyliss had a massive stroke that left her paralyzed, and she died after another stroke in 2013.  Joseph, then nearly 70 years of age, had quit his job years before to take care of his wife, and had eight years’ worth of medical bills. He managed for a few years, but this year he defaulted on his mortgage and could not pay his taxes, and in August received a foreclosure notice from the bank.

Joseph planned to move to a small apartment that he could afford with only his Social Security, but what to do with all this food stored in the basement of the house?  Sometimes, I think, fate steps in and brings people together for a reason.  Last month, Joseph met Victoria Barber, a local food truck owner who just happened to be taking donations to help people in Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria. Joseph donated $100 in cash, but more importantly … he took Ms. Barber to see the food in his basement and told her he would like her to send it to the people of Puerto Rico, who needed it more than him.

Barber and her husband spent the next week raising money to transport the barrels. Badame helped, too, and wore a red T-shirt: “#PRSTRONG” it said, with a heart below it. Members of the local police department and a high school soccer team helped carry the supplies out of the basement, and the barrels were repacked so that each contained a variety of dried goods.

Badame said it was his own life that was saved. “I’m tired, old, depressed, feeling like I’m a failure regarding the survival thing,” he said. Then Barber “came along, gave me a shot of adrenaline. I couldn’t believe it.”

Sometimes things just happen that way.  Hats off to Joseph Badame and Victoria Barber whose ships just happened to pass one day, and together they made a difference to the good people in Puerto Rico.

Pro athletes have been much in the news of late.  Until recently, I thought of most pro-athletes as overpaid, greedy people, but I am learning that many of them have big hearts and generous spirits. Not a hockey fan, I had never heard of the Montreal Canadians player, Jonathan Drouin.  Drouin has partnered with the Canadiens Children’s Foundation to host less fortunate children at a Bell Centre suite for the team’s games. He is making a personal annual contribution of $165,000 that will go toward a suite that will be used to provide underprivileged children and their families an opportunity to attend games they would not otherwise be able to. And just last month, Drouin donated $500,000 to the Fondation du Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM), and a pledge to help raise $5 million for the hospital.

This is one athlete with a heart of gold!

It’s just a little thing, really … it didn’t cost anything except a small bit of time.  But sometimes those little things mean so much.  An unnamed 92-year-old man went to his local Bank of America in Montebello, California, to withdraw some cash from his account.  Unfortunately, his state-issued I.D. had expired and the bank teller refused to honour his request.  Perhaps confused, and definitely upset when the employees would not help him, he was told to leave, but he refused, for he needed to withdraw his cash.  So, the bank employees called the police (nice folks, eh?)  Luckily for the man, the officer who arrived on the scene was Officer Robert Josett, a man with a good heart.  Officer Josett took his time to take the man to the nearest DMV (Division of Motor Vehicles) and helped him renew his identification card.  Officer Josett then took the man back to the bank and made sure he was able to withdraw his money.  As I said, a small thing, but we can understand how much it meant to the man.  Thumbs up to one caring officer!

Stephen Davies was born without a lower left arm.  He spent his first decades on earth without the aid of a prosthesis, and finally, as an adult, decided to invest in one.  He was disappointed in the available designs … he wanted something ‘cool’, but they were all the same … functional, yet boring.  He posted about his experience online, where it was seen by one Drew Murray, a volunteer for a group called e-NABLE that was doing some innovative things using 3D printing to create artificial hands.  Drew offered to make a functioning arm for Stephen.  Stephen was so impressed with the results that he talked Drew into a partnership, and together they formed Team UnLimbited, an organization that makes prostheses for children free of charge.

While I do not understand this technology of using a 3D printer to create prosthetic limbs, I do understand innovation, character, and generosity, and these two men are rich in all three of those!  Just look at some of the fun ones they have made …

“We’ve done Iron Man designs, Harry Potter, Lego and Spider-Man. The key is making something the child actually wants to wear and feels is cool enough to show their friends.”

Two great men, a wonderful organization, and a bunch of happy kids!

  And I end with a story about the City of San Diego in California.  In March, 2016, San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer announced a “Housing Our Heroes” initiative to provide secure rental housing for 1,000 homeless veterans.  Last week, they exceeded that goal and have provided housing for 1,007 previously homeless veterans. But the city is not stopping there.  According to CEO Rick Gentry, they will be expanding the program to include other homeless people and hope to house another 1,000 by the end of the year.

For incentives, landlords received $500 for the first units they rented to a homeless veteran and $250 for each additional unit. They also received an average of $1,500 in security deposits and $100 in utility assistance per household.

Jimmie Robinson, a landlord who rents out several houses, took in seven homeless veterans in the Housing Our Heroes initiative. Robinson said the incentives were “eye-catching,” but were not the greatest motive for taking in homeless veterans.

“When you get to meet them, the satisfaction of helping people turn their lives around was more important. When you see somebody rebuilding their lives, that’s what it’s become for me, more than than the incentives.”

Wonderful job, San Diego!  I hope we see more cities taking this initiative soon.  That there are people living on the streets in this nation of plenty is unthinkable.

These are just short stories about people doing mostly small things, but every one of those things count, each one of these people are showing compassion for their fellow mankind, and they are making a difference.  My hat is off to each of these fine people!

Good People Doing Good Things … Little Things Mean A Lot I started today’s good people post about a single person, Mama Rosie, who is doing wonderful things.