CURRENT MISSION

To advocate for the virtue of people enabling each other to be creative

ABOUT ME

I am an artist, and an advocate for people living with developmental disabilities (autism, downs syndrome, intellectual disability, etc).

In the interest of this project i have spent a lot of time around the country - couch surfing. i'm currently based in Chicago IL, over the past year I've lived in Alaska, and Nevada and North Carolina. I have been doing this work for five years. I am interested in all kinds of things because what i care about first, and foremost is learning, and understanding.

PHILOSOPHY

I follow compulsions that i believe are good. I care about beauty, compassion, and wonder. I believe in the unknown.

The opening post for my current blog project "Disparate Minds" sums up my personal philosophy at the moment:

Disparate Minds begins with a journey North. For these writers, this project is born out of a need to understand and articulate the foundational principles on which a progressive art studio is built, and for which it stands.

This trip brought me from Las Vegas - where I began this work, to the distant, remote town of Haines at the northern end of the Chilkat Peninsula in Southeast Alaska. I came through the inside passage along the western coastal edge of the great wild land of Northern British Columbia that one of my heroes, Wade Davis, presently works to protect.

Although the work of Wade Davis seems utterly disparate from the work of Disparate Minds, the principle is the same- the idea that intellectual diversity is worth investing in and protecting. In his Talk at the TED conference in 2007 (http://www.ted.com/talks/wade_davis_on_endangered_cultures) he states that the central revelation of anthropology is that “world in which we live does not exist in some absolute sense, but is just one model of reality, the consequence of one particular set of adaptive choices”. He then proceeds to describe “ethnocide” as the great tragedy of the present time, that is the result not of a natural progression, but of the power of identifiable forces. It’s reasonable to understand that the powers affecting ethnocide are informed by ethnocentric intuitions. Consensus is the enemy of diversity.

Art making is more than a vocation for money and the progressive art studio is more than a producer of novelty works by so-called outsiders. It is an environment that embodies an undeniable authenticity and functions as a solution to the present human crisis.The rise of socio-economic inequity, destruction of the natural environment, and ethnocide have been, for past generations, abstract - considered and acted upon out of a moral consideration for the people of the future. For me, these are immediate - they are our problems and our future is dependent on how they are confronted.

Progressive Art Studios are a powerful model for support that allow artists to transcend disability fully and acquire a voice that they can not acquire in any other way. For that reason, the Progressive Art Studio is an institution that all communities deserve to have. Beyond this, even, it presents an opportunity for our present culture to embrace the value of intellectual diversity. Critical and attentive appreciation of these studios and their work is an exaltation of the value of those with intellectual differences supporting each other to form a whole that is greater and more viable than the sum of its parts.

Why I’m on Couchsurfing

HOW I PARTICIPATE IN COUCHSURFING

on my journey around the country to explore, and write about services for people living with developmental disabilities (especially art based services). couch surfing Has been a great support to my project - allowing me to get to know the communities that i visit in a deeper way through the gracious local people who have offered their support and shared their towns with me. I have just recently settled down inmy own place for the first time in a long time, and i look forward to starting to participate as a Host to pay back the community for all the support.

COUCHSURFING EXPERIENCE

i did a bit of hosting years ago before i ever did any surfing - i was able to host i hosted several great travelers - and learned a lot of valuable things about travel that have been immensely important on my journey. I've done a bit of traveling now, and it has been great. I look forward to getting back into hosting now in my new home in Chicago

Interests

I am interesting in everything. I like literature, film, ideas, stories. Mostly i am interested in people.

Right now, my blog project, and advocacy in general for disabled artists is my core focus.

• arts
• culture
• literature
• beauty
• environment
• modeling
• traveling
• blogging
• investing
• surfing
• anthropology
• mountains

Music, Movies, and Books

I like beautiful writing above all anything else: Faulkner, Tennyson, Hemingway, Irving, Nabokov, ect.

I like a lot of films, but especially the work of Miranda July, the Coen Brothers, and Stanley Kubrick

I listen to a lot of different kinds of music - I tend to listen to and value albums that have some kind of connection to somebody in my life.

One Amazing Thing I’ve Done

I once traveled for a week to Oklahoma city to work on cleaning up after a bad Tornado. It was unbelievable - sobering, and terrible, but it was an experience that also left me inspired.

Recently i spent a month in a remote Alaskan town working on a goat/alpaca farm - i'm still trying to acclimate to life without those mountains...

Teach, Learn, Share

I have been discovering a lot of incredibly beautiful, mind blowing things in the course of my research into these important programs so far. I would love to show you some of them...

What I Can Share with Hosts

If you want to know about some of the most amazing art being made in the world, works made by artists living with developmental disabilities, Id love to tell you all about it.

Countries I’ve Visited

Japan, United States, Venezuela

Countries I’ve Lived In

United States