"The first time her laughter unfurled its wings in the wind, we knew that the world would never be the same" Brian Andreas

I speak to your picture and know that you will always be with me Jen. You
have forever changed me with more gifts than you realized and for that
I will always be grateful. It has been a privilege to dance with you. A hole is left in the universe and we all weep. The heavens opened up its heart and wept with us for you as it poured all day in Portland. You will always dance with me in my heart and soul. You are the person that held up a mirror to me to remind me that I had forgotten that there was always a "Y" at the end of my name and I just could not see it. You help me give birth to myself and gave me JOY!

Rest, Patience, Time, Healing, Growth, Spring, Possibilities........

Surrendering to what IS

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.”    ~~Albert Camus~~

Circle of Healing

Yesterday I was blessed with the wonderful healing energy of the beautiful women in my yoga class. At the end of class Belle asked me to come into the center as I was surrounded by this wonderful circle of women. They all chanted OM for me and sent me their good wishes for a successful surgery and swift healing. It was difficult to allow myself to RECEIVE I must admit, but I felt so blessed to have these people in my life. This was followed by an offer from Janice to do a healing prayer for me and for Belle. Her hands were so hot as they hovered over my head and I felt her powerful healing prayer energy as well. On Sunday, after a wonderful dance, especially connecting in such a tender way with Teresa, she offered to come over after the surgery to do some Reiki on me and share Craft magazines. Last week Nes (baby Leyla too of course!) and HsiYi also offered to come over for tea and company after the surgery. I feel so rich as I enter into this very frightening surgery tomorrow, knowing that I am not alone. I fear the pain of the surgery, but mostly I fear that the surgery will not work. I am trying with much difficulty to be optimistic and just trust and allow. It is time to surrender with hopefullness~~~~~~~~~

The work is done and now is the time to just "BE"

"Some seeds are planted in the

Spring Time and bear their fruit in

the late Summer. But other, special

seeds, are planted in the quietness

and darkness of the Winter to germinate.

These special seeds are

planted, not in Mother Earth, but

deep within our Selves to help us

grow and ripen. These are seeds

we have received from special

times in our lives, times of joy or

sorrow, times that have moved

and changed us."

~~Judith Duerk

 

My Chairs are delivered. My rest time must begin. My wrist fusion surgery is next Wednesday and I want to be as strong and optimistic and I can and visualize a positive outcome.................

A sense of global consciousness

Once social change begins, it cannot be reversed. You cannot un-educate the person who has learned to read. You cannot humiliate the person who feels pride. You cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.

~Cesar Chavez~

I hope everyone can do their part however small, and the only thing that is small is doing nothing, to help the victims of the turmoil and tragedy that the Hurricane in Haiti has caused. Whether you can send a donation big or small or just a prayer (that's both free and priceless), please do something!!

"We don't have to engage in grand, heroic actions to participate
in the process of change. Small acts, when multiplied
by millions of people, can transform the world."
~Howard Zinn~

Finding Home - The Chair Affair second piece

What you can do and have done to help the Community Warehouse!

Message from Roz Babener
Board President- The Community Warehouse

Dear Friends,

In 2009, the Community Warehouse, with your support, helped more than 10,000 of our neighbors live in dignity in their own home. As the only "furniture bank" in the Portland metro area, Community Warehouse is a resource for over 100 social service agencies working to support at risk individuals and families providing a missing piece - the essential household furnishings to help people gain the stability and confidence that will help them move forward with their lives and the lives of their children.

Your generosity cannot be truly appreciated without hearing about a few of those we helped together:
-  A mom and her 2 young children escaping an abuser in another state - now have a furnished apartment and a chance to start over.
-  A family with 3 children who lost their home when the father lost his job. They have been living in their car for months. With a stable home, the children can go to school and the parents can look for work.
-  A homeless vet can be discharged from the hospital because now he has a place to go.

The idea is simple. Household furnishings that you no longer need are a piece of what has made a difference for these families. Thank you for your part in making the Warehouse available in our community.

Roz Babener
Board President

SPECIAL ALERT! WE NEED TWIN AND FULL MATTRESSES

The current wait time for families requesting twin and full mattresses can be up to 2 months. WE NEED BEDS!! -Donate your mattresses -Tell your friends -Donate Funds $40 = matt/box Help us tackle this problem and get more twin and full mattresses into the Warehouse.

Community Warehouse Immediate Needs

-Cooking Utensils -Dishrack Strainers -Measuring Cups -Casserole Dishes -Coffee Makers -Toasters -Wastebaskets We are open to accept donations 7 days a week   10:00-4:00 3969 NE MLK Jr. Blvd Portland, OR 97212 If you would like your donations picked up for a $20 fee please call (503)235-8786

Community Warehouse Garage Sale

Funky Finds, Good Stuff, and more of what you have come to love at our new Garage Sale. Open Sat and Sun 10-4 Right next to Estate Store  For more on the Garage Sale visit our blog

The next step to enjoying the Chair Affair and support The Community Warehouse

The 4th Annual CHAIR AFFAIR+ will be rockin’!!

• 
  
  Live auction: trips, beach houses, celebrity cooking…
  
  
  
• 
  
  Silent auction featuring the work of 100+ artists creating gallery quality, funky/functional, one-of-a-kind chairs and household items…
  
  
  
• 
  
  Food, Drink, Fun…all supporting the important work of Community Warehouse — providing basic household necessities to those in need.
  
  
  

Date: April 8

Time: 6-9 pm

Location: The Bison Building

What Next?

Buy a Seat: $50 – Click here to purchase individual seats!

Buy a Table for 10: $400 – Click here to purchase a table for ten!

Can't Make It? Please donate! – Click here to make a donation to the Warehouse.

Questions? Contact linda@communitywarehouse.org; 503.206.5244

Another Chair!?!

In the interest of sanity and the spirit of giving, I have decided to contribute a second chair to The Chair Affair. This second chair is entitled "Finding Home". It was actually the working title of my first chair, which eventually took me in another direction, as collaborations with my materials often do, to "Pieces of the Past". This"new" small piece is actually a gathering of things I have made, things I am repurposing, and words I have collected. Pictures to follow....... As I count down 15 days till my wrist fusion surgery I am trying to practice self care, and am trying to recognize and listen to The Sacred Pause. I also recognize that I still have to create space for the creating.

The Chair Affair is Swiftly Approaching!

Jo Grishman

I have seen myself as an artist since childhood, always drawing and creating imaginary worlds, growing up in New York City. My passions for family and nature have been nurtured and blossomed since moving to Portland, where I finally feel at home. I am an artist exploring narrative sculpture combining found objects, text and mixed media. Manipulating the variety of materials is like a dance, as the images emerge and take on a life of their own. Through the process of excavating layers of memory, the story of each piece I create gradually begins to reveal itself to me. It is an unfolding."What a caterpillar sees as the end of the world the butterfly sees as just the beginning".


The 4th Annual CHAIR AFFAIR+ will be rockin’!!

• Live auction: trips, beach houses, celebrity cooking…
  
• Silent auction featuring the work of 100+ artists creating gallery quality, funky/functional, one-of-a-kind chairs and household items…
  
• Food, Drink, Fun…all supporting the important work of Community Warehouse — providing basic household necessities to those in need.
  

Date: April 8

Time: 6-9 pm

Location: TBA

The Chair Affair 2010 Update

Our great event - even better in 2010!

More artists...

Over 100 artists! Look forward to some amazing creations.

More variety...

The + means (re)created chairs and other basic home furnishings.

More food...

In unique Community Warehouse style

CHAIR AFFAIR+

More fun... to meet a greater need!

The 4th Annual event will be the biggest ever with over 100 artists participating! Besides the fantastic one-of-a-kind chairs, look for art made from tables, mirrors and lamps; as well as photography, sculpture and jewelry.

The chairs (et.al.) will be displayed at three locations.  Mario's always does a stunning display of about a dozen chairs in their window. 

P.H. Reed will be showing a window full of art for us again - they also did this last year.  We have arranged to have the rest of the work displayed in the Galleria windows - the space that was occupied by Made in Oregon! 

~  We will have a First Thursday opening on April 1st at these locales. I hope you will all attend! It will be a great way to preview and tempt you with all the wonderful creations that will be part of the Chair Affair auction on April 8th

~ The event will be held at The Bison Building in Northeast Portland.  Take a look we are very excited about this venue!

All art will reflect the work of Community Warehouse - providing basic household necessities to those in need. For those of you in the know, this is the place to be to purchase gallery-quality art that's both functional and funky! All proceeds go directly to Community Warehouse which enables us to continue our work in providing for those who have little-to-nothing.

Information and ticket sales contact:

linda@communitywarehouse.org, or call 503.206.5244

Young@Heart

I ended my evening laughing and crying as I watched the most amazing heart warming, powerful film about living life to the fullest at any age. If you have the chance do not miss the independent film documentary Young@Heart showing on PBS. It is both extremely joyful and very sad but so full of life, love and zest for living that it is a must see. What a perfect way to complete an exhausting rollercoaster emotional day and put life in perspective!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3uOOhm8Fj8&feature=related.

A Change Is Gonna Come!

 Last night at dance, I tried to channel all my anxiety and stress about today's upcoming Regional Hand Surgeon's Conference by creating through my dance. When the evening was winding down, Winky, in her infinite wisdom played an instrumental version of  the old Sam Cooke song A Change Is Gonna Come. I danced my heart out and through my tears felt the meaning of the words I have come to know over time. They could not have seemed more appropriate for this time in my life. After over three years and two surgeries and a significant effect on the quality of my life and my work, I have hope for the surgery on my wrist on February 10. The team combined their knowledge and experience to come up with a plan of action to fuse my wrist and help me to get on with this wonderful life I have been blessed with. The dance continues to amaze me in the way it mirrors my life. I dance in celebration of new beginnings!

 

A Change Is Gonna Come

(Sam Cooke) (1964)

 

I was born by the river in a little tent

And just like the river, I've been running ever since

It's been a long time coming

But I know a change is gonna come

 

It's been too hard living, but I'm afraid to die

I don't know what's up there beyond the sky

It's been a long time coming

But I know a change is gonna come

 

I go to the movie, and I go downtown

Somebody keep telling me "Don't hang around"

It's been a long time coming

But I know a change is gonna come

 

Then I go to my brother and I say, "Brother, help me please"

But he winds up knocking me back down on my knees

 

There've been times that I've thought I couldn't last for long

But now I think I'm able to carry on

It's been a long time coming

But I know a change is gonna come

Pieces of The Past

In an attempt to focus on the CAN DO and not on the CANT'S,  I photographed my completed piece for The Chair Affair 2010. She is aptly entitle "Pieces of the Past." I am faced with a cancelled surgical date for my wrist and anxiously awaiting the rescheduled date, to say the least. I am trying to hold it together, leaving pieces of the past behind, moving forward with the new, but with the inability to let go of memories and experiences from the past, be they positive or negative. Memories are something we carry with us. It is not a choice. Creating the chair has been therapeutic for my spirit but painful for my hand. I am glad she is completed. I feel a sense of satisfaction that I was able to complete her and pour my pent up creative juices into her to the best of my ability and to try to accept that being enough. She is, what she is. The chair I began with is old. She feels broken, lost, left behind. The chair is collaged with handmade paper I bought, that reminded me of days gone by, possibly another era, another place. I then used the chair as a place to land. I patched her up, added worn, rusted, found and collected elements. I created an assemblage of things I have found and collected that conjure memory, partly for me and partly for some other fictitious life. There is a sadness about her. She has a sense of completion for me, yet a sense of possibility, of waiting for someone, something, to arrive. 

I sit with her........I sit..........I wait...........I become her..............

First Winter Snow

"All things share the same breath - the beast, the tree, the man... the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports."
- Chief Seattle

After a wonderful holiday spent with family in San Francisco, we return home to the comfort and quiet of winter's beauty. I feel truly blessed. I now patiently await my scheduled wrist surgery on February 19 with the hopes of a healing winter and a spring awakening.

 

Walking the Labyrinth

To honor the Solstice and that quiet, dark and restful place that dwells within me, I walked on the Labyrinth at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral last night. Walking the labyrinth can be a way for the psyche to connect with the soul, a way of seeking our higher spirit. It may be a symbolic pilgrimage or a means of seeking clarity, vision, focus, healing, discernment, peace, or spiritual insight. The labyrinth is a spiritual tool. There is no right or wrong way to walk the labyrinth. Trinity has a beautiful inlay wood labyrinth in the parish hall. Trinity’s Labyrinth Guild provides its walkers and seekers opportunities to strengthen and deepen their spiritual connection by walking the labyrinth. It is a wonderful, symbolic ritual of meditation, clarifying the  teaching: Out of the journey in and deep surrender comes an opening awareness of new life.

The stones I chose from the basket to hold in my hands while I walked were "Peace" and "Resiliency". I reflected upon those words and their personal meaning to me as I journeyed through the path of the Labyrinth.

I meditated upon the gifts that fill my life and the gifts I have that fill others. I meditated on the possibilities of accepting what is as being "enough"..........surrendering, allowing, being. I thought about the conundrum of what it would be like to do less and in doing so, be more. To surrender to the fact that my hand is in pain, needs surgery and cannot do much of what I want. To surrender to and accept what I can do and see the gifts that are hidden within.

Inside that dark quiet place of winter the potential grows...........

The Solstice and my Personal Winter

This weekend was filled with many wonderful openings. Now that I have seen them, I can begin to realize I have the choice to enter into these openings. Jumping back a bit to last Friday Dance Playground, there was a shift. During the pairings and changings between our six dancers, I felt a new opening into trust and safety and fun while in dance and relationship with "the other". I was able to let go and enjoy without all the work that fear brings with it. A breakthrough for me in the dance, the movement, the relationship, the dance..........fast forward to this friday and the 3 hour Reflective Dance Practice.

The very sweet small intimate group of the four of us was beautiful.Dancing in silence, how aware I became of the music of each others breathing, footsteps, clock ticking, bodies moving through the space followed by the quiet sitting meditations that came between the steps. Jen gave me the "permission" in her suggestion of the time of the season and I realized that right now I am in my own "Personal Winter". I am going to try to embrace that now.That quiet time of inward darkness that makes way for spring light. Like a bulb planted, I need the quiet slowness to heal both my hand and my spirit with the hopes that there will be a renewed blossoming of my hand that will be healing after the surgery, but making room now for the gathering of the creativity during this time of darkness that will also blossom anew in the Spring. I brought one of my old sculptures that felt dead to me right now and created an alter of sorts for it before I danced not so much to breathe life back into it, but to honor that for roght now, it too is in its dormant personal winter that needs to rest with my other sculptures until the time is right to re emerge. Time..........Patience...........Quiet..............Darkness.

Now to Sunday morning dance. For the first time I gave myself permission to dance as part of the whole rather that on the outside looking in. In the past, I actually placed myself on the outside of the circle not really looking into the circle and the other dancers, as much as looking into myself or sheilding myself from the other dancers by always gazing inwardly. I opened my eyes, I moved through the space, through the other bodies! Winky gave permission to dance with "the other"even if there is no physical contact, that you can dance with each other by merely being aware of the space you are both inhabiting at that moment. I found a way to take care of my body and myself in the mass of moving bodies. The energy that I allowed myself to fill up with from the others was amazing, and I acknowledge that I too must be contributing to filling others as well. I felt so free and alive and truly a part of the community. I do give myself permission to still step outside the group dance and into the private quiet dance of the self whenever I need to, but that will be out of choice rather than out of fear. Yet another breakthrough for me!

The weekend was also filled with wonderful jazz/funk music shared with Michael on Saturday night and then rounded out with an amazing performance of the Aurora Chorus joined by the fantastic Jamie Seiber on Sunday. The voices of the 100 woman singing about peace in many languages was so inspiring and uplifting. It truly filled my soul to hear the 100 voices sound like one voice and the ethereal electric cello added just the perfect touch.

The finale of the weekend was to meet and celebrate the Solstice and holiday season with my Art Circle for dinner. Wonderful friends and rich time.

Now, today marks the Solstice and I plan to try to create some enriching rituals for myself that will not only celebrate the Solstice but honor my own Personal Winter.

Honor your own complexity.

Mark Gerzon
Coming Into Our Own

Pieces of the Past

Well believe it or not in a manic burst to finish my chair for the Chair Affair before my surgeon's appointment in one hour, I did what I thought was impossible. What began as a lonely chair that had no identity, she joined us as the Thanksgiving table, then waited to become......At first her working title was Finding Home. On this journey, she became Pieces of the Past. I love my narrative chair and will post a picture soon. I am proud of myself for working through the pain, and using my left hand as much as I could, being disciplined at a time when I was in emotional turmoil which culminated in creating my chair. It was a collaboration that was at first uninspired, but the relationship grew into a chair that I am proud of. I hope she raises a lot at the Auction in April!
Now I am off to the surgeon to create a plan to heal my hand. Now I am waiting to become whole again.

"We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time."

~T.S. Eliot ~

I am honored to have been a part of this annual fundraiser!