ARCHITECTURE

A Sad Day, Too, for Architecture 

 Before Katrina-Historic architecture

GALLERY 1

D.M. PITTMAN

Debbie Pittman has been painting commercially since she was 16, and sold approximately 1,000 paintings "through the years." She works primarily in acrylic and oils, but has been known to create watercolor, sculpture, pen & ink, digital graphic design, photography, and with non-traditional materials. Some of her photography has graced national magazine covers. She has been commissioned to do animal portraiture, and specializes in horses.
"I've loved horses since I was little," she said.
"I started drawing and painting when I was 10," said Pittman, "when my folks bought my first set of oil paints."
She primarily paints western, wildlife, and landscapes, has done plein aire work.
"I have a photographic memory, and a lot of times I will see something that will catch my eye, and even years later, I'll paint it," she said. "Sometimes I will work on four paintings at a time," she said, "it helps me to put one down and go back to it later. Part of it is I need to set it aside to look at it, and work on something else for a while."
"I paint for myself, mainly, and if people like my work, that's a plus. I like to create," said Pittman.
"I haven't had the time to pursue it full time, but I plan to, some day."  

GALLERY 2

Dianne James

An entire set of encyclopedias with crude drawings of people, places, and animals serves as testament that Dianne James has been drawing since she was a small child.  She works in pastel, oils, charcoal, acrylic, and photography,  but she considers her "art" more that of musical composition or word-crafting.  Working in broadcasting and marketing for 27 years, she learned how artful words can be.  So, though she loves to paint, she feels her true calling  is one of being a wordsmith. 

"Second to love," she said, "if you put aside things like hunger, shelter, basic physical needs, words are probably the most powerful force on earth, on the physical/human level.  They can lift up, or tear down;  assuage or revolutionize; create or destroy.  They can be debillitating or villifying.  They can exalt truth or ensconce a lie. Very powerful, words."

"For me, where words come from sometimes surprises me.  I know when my syblings and I were young, my parents, for a long time, didn't have a TV in the house.  We read.  We ate, worked, slept, and read, everything we could get our hands on.  When we'd read all the magazines and newspapers in the house, we'd read the encylopedias and the dictionary.  I thought the dictionary was one of the best things to read, because you could learn something new in a short amount of time.  I can remember fighting over sections of the Sunday Pueblo Chieftain.  And when we weren't reading, we were cartooning each other-  chronicling our life with lines and words."

Now you can contact the artist, email form is in Gallery 2

GALLERY 3

DARYL BLACK

Author of A Place Like No Other: people of an enchanted land (2002, Sunstone Press) photographer and writer Daryl Black is a self-described late bloomer. Although she was interested in photography and writing as a teenager, she didn't publish her first photograph until December 1980. She has worked in radio and editorial capacities since then. Her photographs and writing have been published in New Mexico Magazine, The Santa Fean, The New Mexican, the Albuquerque Journal, Organic Gardening, Rocky Mountain Gardener, Adventure West Magazine, and The Walking Magazine, among others. In 1995, as part of a photography course project, she began to photograph people around New Mexico.   The project developed a life (and mind) of its own and eventually evolved into A Place Like No Other. It was a labor of love. Black recently did a similar project, photographing over 100 people involved in the planning, design, and building of the new public library in Farmington, New Mexico. Details are her interest, whether they are parts of a flower, tree bark, or wrinkles and smiles. She lives with her husband and assorted wildlife in Taos County.

Now you can contact the artist, email form is in Gallery 3

FRED BLACK

A retired American Airlines pilot and graduate of the University of New Mexico School of Architecture, Fred Black is a registered architect with a small practice specializing in sustainable and passive solar designs. As a 35-year resident of the state with a life long interest in design, he has developed an appreciation for Southwestern art and weaving. This interest eventually led him to Tierra Wools, in Los Ojos, New Mexico, where he learned to weave. Fred lives with his wife in the high sagebrush country of western Taos County where he is fortunate to utilize wool from churro sheep raised and dyed by neighbor Connie Taylor.

Now you can contact the artist, email form is in Gallery 3

When Tears Become Words    Healing with the written word By Dianne James As a child, in my family's household, there was only one acceptable way to vent one's anger- writing. We were a family of artists with a sense of humor, so, naturally, this turned into cartooning. My two siblings and I left at home (out of eight total- the rest of them grown and gone) would chronicle our lives in cartoons aimed at getting our point across, either diplomatically, or more often, sarcastically. We were not allowed to curse at or hit each other (although there were a few pinches and clandestine punches thrown). The cartoons are now a great source of laughter, in retrospect. I became intrigued when I recently ran across an internet site, quite by accident,  while searching for information about an artist I used to know. I became so interested in Catherine O'Neill Thorn's work with young people, that I forgot all about the artist search. The site is called Art from Ashes, a division of the Denver-based Phoenix Rising nonprofit organization, formed "to empower young people by facilitating creative therapies that encourage expression, connection and healing." Phoenix Rising, the poetry therapy program leading to Art from Ashes, endeavors to help young people discover the symbols and metaphors of their fears and dreams, tucked safely away and often forgotten. "We hope to give them a means for self-discovery and understanding, providing a positive way to cope with the negative aspects of life." One young poet in the program wrote: "I miss my brother like the earth misses peace."  -Carlos The founder of these organizations, and owner of O'Neill Publishing in Denver, Catherine O'Neill Thorn, is a member of the National Association for Poetry Therapy, and having established the nonprofit organization Art from Ashes, has conducted sessions at juvenile facilities, including residential treatment centers and day treatment programs, probation departments, high schools, youth groups and day camps. A story written by Tina Griego in the Rocky Mountain News reads: Catherine O’Neill Thorn will admit right off the bat that she was once terrified of adolescents. Loose-hipped, smart-mouthed, cagey, capriciously cruel, they brought back her ownadolescent suffering.Then she started working with kids, kids in treatment, who had committed crimes, whohad been sexually abused, the most desperate of children, "the broken-winged, the broken-hearted, the bitter, the beaten." She taught them poetry. She helped some of them express their fear and rage and hope, tofeel, for the first time, human, heard. "Why do I laugh, when I want to cry?" 14-year-old Andrew wrote. "Why do I live when Iwant to die?" "I feel like a race dog, running for the hare, but every race in my life is completed indespair," wrote another boy. Thorn reads me a poem published in 1998 by then 17-year-old Kerri Drumm. It is a breathtaking, devastating portrayal of adolescence, ending with:We form our own families And when we touch, hand to hands it’s like passing a prayer Because we are lonely, but we are not alone. Poetry therapy worked, Thorn says. It helped children heal and she loved it and loved the kids. And then she left them. For eight years, she worked with troubled kids for various nonprofit organizations. Each organization suffered budget cuts, and the arts programs usually were the first to go. Thorn couldn’t afford to volunteer - she had her own family to support - and she didn’t have the stomach to tell another child who counted on her that she wasn’t coming back. "All I wanted to do is be with the kids and I couldn’t be," she said. "I spent 75 percent of    the time educating people on poetry therapy and the other 25 percent raising money. I got really discouraged, and I quit. I left to make a living. Now I can’t live with myself." Her anguish poured out when we met Saturday. A day earlier, the News carried a package on the continued decimation of youth programs due to budget cuts as we near the 10th anniversary of the "summer of violence." Ten years ago gang violence punched its way into middle-class consciousness. Now, some of the programs created in its wake are barely surviving. I read the stories with the same sick feeling as Thorn. No, we don’t have enough money to help everybody. Yes, people need to take responsibility for their lives. But, you have to wonder at the hypocrisy, the glibness with which our elected leaders proclaim: "Leave no child behind" when every day we do. It amazes me to watch power brokers wrap themselves in piety - prayer in school, plaster the Ten Commandments where all will see, God bless you, brother - then ignore Christianity’s most fundamental teachings. "Whatever you do to the least of these, you do to me." So, a youth diversion program here is gutted, a gang intervention program there is eliminated. We’ll hack a few more social services employees, counselors, and for you mentally ill kids, sorry, we just can’t treat all of you. You want to know how these cuts translate on the streets? Something like this: "If you are black or brown, if you are poor, if you are troubled and in trouble, go ahead kill each other, rob each other, stick a gun in a rival’s face, a needle in your arm. As long you don’t come into my neighborhood, I don’t care. You are not my problem." "I learned a very important lesson about young people," Thorn says. "They know. They know when we are faking it. They know when we are in it for ourselves, they know when they’re not a priority. How can we expect kids to value society when society doesn’t value them?" Thorn, wrestling with her conscience, appalled by what is happening, is going back to helping kids. She’ll study behavioral psychology in between her two jobs and while running her own publishing and marketing business. Her partner will get his certificate in poetry therapy. They plan to start their own nonprofit. But, think, she says, of what happens when the private sector is forced to honor society’s obligation, understand what people who truly care about children are being forced to do. They will compete for money, and to compete they must market. They must market their method, they must market their clients. They will use kids who have been used most of their lives; they will "market victimization." And the kids will know that, too. Poetry as Therapy As early as the first century, physicians were prescribing poetry for their patients. Benjamin Franklin used poetry with his patients in the 18th century and published their work in a newsletter. Scientists and doctors, including Freud, Adler, Jung, and Reik have attributed much of the understanding of the subconscious to poetry. In the 1970s the Poetry Therapy Institute was founded, and in 1980 the National Association of Poetry Therapy was established in order to provide licensing, accountability, and a forum to network for poetry therapists around the country. At-Risk Youth Many at-risk youth are resistant to cognitive therapy and have learned to dance around it. They often know the system better than their counselors, some having invested considerably more time. These young people have become immune; isolated and unheard, they refuse to listen. Some have much to say, but because of inappropriate expression, they have never been heard accurately, so they have given up and act out. Most have learned not to trust anyone - not even themselves. Poetry Therapy uses techniques that can be employed to give those in the mental health field an additional tool to reach damaged youth and even provide healing. The Benefits How can Poetry Therapy help? First and fundamentally, poetry therapy can bypass most adolescent resistance to being "therapized," by counteracting defensive and antagonistic attitudes. It is compelling enough and just out of the expected content of therapy, that many young people are immediately willing to engage in the process. Research has shown that those therapies Western medicine calls "alternative" like EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing), play therapy, and art therapies, can access the brain and often correct trauma in ways traditional talk therapy cannot. These therapies can create a bridge between the overactive right brain, providing a shift into left-brain functioning, and thereby encouraging access to more cognitive therapies. The Need to Tell the Story Every child wants to be heard. Despite their apparent disconnection or rejection by society and their families, there is some small, still awareness that what they think and feel is somehow important and must be shared. This should come as no surprise, since there is a deep desire in all of us to connect with one another. But if a child has been consistently discounted and devalued, that child will grow up feeling alone, angry and worthless, sometimes exhibiting behaviors that indicate "lack of conscience." Yet with only a little encouragement, a young person, given the opportunity to speak within the safety of a poem, and sometimes using the additional protection of metaphor, will pour out personal truths that often surprise even the client. Excerpted from Poetry Therapy: Time for a "Traditional" Approach by Catherine O’Neill Thorn. Catherine O'Neill's passion for life and love are reflected in her bio: Published poet, journalist, graphic designer and marketing consultant Catherine O’Neill Thorn has been the proprietor of O’Neill Publishing Inc. (ONP) since 1994, after graduating Summa Cum Laude from Metropolitan State College of Denver with a degree in Publishing, Editing and Writing for the Marketplace. Over the past 10 years, she has supported hundreds of microentrepreneurs and small business owners as a business and marketing consultant for MicroBusiness Development Corporation (MBD) and independently through ONP, where she provides numerous communications services based on her experience in writing, graphic design, editing, publishing, computer technology, behavioral psychology and marketing. O’Neill Thorn has held numerous classes and workshops and been featured in presentations and panels on marketing for MBD, the Denver Enterprise Center, the Small Business Growth Center and Denver Black Pages. She also has traveled across the country as a featured speaker for various groups on the subject of poetry therapy. A selection of publications include: Editor, columnist and marketing director for the weekly political newspaper, The Colorado Statesman (2003 to 2004) Editor and publisher of the Denver Press Club's bimonthly newsletter, The Press Box (1998 to 2002) Editor and publisher of the full-color quarterly youth arts 'zine, Inner 303  (1997 to 2001) Editor and Publisher of the book for youth, Why Keep Tryin'? Voices from the street (2000) Editor and Publisher of the award-winning Columbine student's chapbook, Screams Aren't Enough (2000) O’Neill Thorn was founding editor and publisher of Poiesis, a bimonthly calendar and newsletter of poetry events for the state of Colorado from 1992 to 1996. Due to the success of Poiesis in generating interest for poetry in Colorado, the Colorado Council on the Arts and the Columbine Poetry Society awarded O’Neill Thorn a grant to publish The Poiesis Poetry Guide for Colorado (O’Neill Publishing, 1996). In reality, expressing one's anger, sorrow, frustration, or other emotion in poetry is not only great therapy for children, but adults as well, who need to connect to and confront the real feelings inside them. They can do so with writing, whether it's novels, short stories, songs, or poetry. In my own experience, at times, there was no other way to deal with a problem than to write about it or from it. That has been the reason for many of my songs, and was the impetus for the poem, Nightfall, after my dad passed away, and my mother went through a period when I felt she hated me. In the months following his death, I tried to help her make the transition, making phone calls and doing necessary paperwork. She would threaten me, call me terrible names, and in no uncertain terms resented my existence, though I was there to help her and to be there for her emotionally during this awful time. All I could do was pray that God would lead me through this time, and somehow deliver me from it. I still, quite honestly, don't understand why. I was always taught to "respect my elders", so the only recourse I had at the time was to write. I can tell you that when that poem came forth, it was as if another one was writing it- the words poured forth faster than I could write them down. And so did the tears. A neighbor recalled later that she'd heard the terrible things my mother said to me, and noted that I never said anything back to her. That neighbor, and my children, the only witnesses to the strength that I found within me to endure in silence, because saying anything would not change her nor make things better. I don't, however, dwell on that time much, because it can still elicit the pain of those bitter months. My mother was later diagnosed with Alzheimer's, so I was never allowed closure. Except through poetry, song, and writing. This has been my bouy. A fellow writer once said of poetry, "It leaves your guts hanging out there for everyone to see." Poetry is very revealing and intimate. Another good reason to use it in therapy as a communicative tool. Catherine O'Neill Thorn recognized this. The poetry which comes from the young minds and hearts in her program is overwhelming, the words a reflection of the need for love, and transcending the pain they have endured. Read some of their poetry here. Interestingly, the artist I had been searching for was Susan Westwood-Yazzie. Instead, I found "Susan Westwood", whose art is featured on one of Catherine's books. Since I don't believe in meaningless coincidences, I think I was meant to find the Art from Ashes site. I hope you will send this on to anyone who might be encouraged by it. You never know how one act such as this could change a life.  Or save one.