There's more to my life than abject suffering, there is also tremendous beauty- pictures and people!

Beauty in nature, and beauty in the love of the people in my life. To all of them / you, I dedicate this. (There are dozens, maybe hundreds, more where this came from.)

"I'm but a stranger here, heaven is my home" - my first hymn word picture

Did most of this in a 50 minute burst of lucidity Thursday. Kept waiting for another so I could write about the process which went into it, its some of my most satisfying monochrome work since my darkroom days, but I've not had any since... in fact most of the last 30 hours I've been hallucinating.

So decided I'd best just get these up and out here for folks.

Hope I can post more about in the future.

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Go to ImageShack� to Create your own Slideshow

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Video fun : Primal Papillon | Rant/Plea- Fun can be art therapy too! Let it! Have it!

This was purely fun for its own sake. Its not high art, in fact, its unapologetically cheesy and schmaltzy. *grin* If there is a deeper message, its CARPE DIEM!

This is important enough for everyone, but especially people whose lives are so swallowed up as those who are disabled etc. The things a person in this condition might most want

• Relief

• The ability to do as they did before
• Or to do as people without pain and disability
• More / better medical treatments

Simply aren't necessarily going to happen. Yet there is still good to be had in and of life, and moments of pure whimsy like this are especially valuable.

I'd also like to take this this opportunity to contest a whole gaggle of myths about art therapy, all of which essentially center around arbitrary, meaningless, and harmful standards about what is "valid" art therapy and what is not.

Art therapy is not

• Limited to any form of expression... it is NOT the case that, say, painting is true art therapy while poetry or sculpture are not.
• Required to in any direct way be related to the maladies or burdens afflicting the person doing it.

Art therapy is anything which improves the life of the person suffering a chronic problem / illness by means of creativity or helps them feel or express what ever emotions they need to feel or express by means of creativity.

The only essential elements are: A person in need and creativity.

All the other rules and so forth just get in the way. They turn something which can be of more benefit than medicine and cut it to death with the harsh knife of the law.

I've actually had arguments with people over which mediums were valid forms of art therapy, or which subjects were. IMAGINE!

Perhaps some people need a certain amount of direction to help them get the most out of art therapy. I can't say that I've ever met them, but there are millions of people out there I don't know, so I can't preclude it. At most however, I think people need only help in finding their muse and perhaps a little education in how to work with what ever media are most beneficial to them. As I've been writing and taking pictures for over 30 years (and I'm in my lower 40s) the nuts and bolts of how to write or how to use visual images have long been known to me... no problems there!


Back to / On to the video:

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If able, I'll do a post about some of the FX razzle dazzle I did in Windows Movie Maker for Vista64, beta. That is for a different post however.

This was purely fun for its own sake, and was exactly what I needed. Sometimes its nice for me to take a break from things which have deep and complex existential meanings. The video was all pretty easy and rudimentary in its technical aspects, but very satisfying none the less.

Word Picture: Psalm 107 - Oh Give Thanks to the Lord for He Is Good

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I finally got these uploaded to imageshack.us using their uploader - its been a long time in coming, but wow, was it worth it! The upload was easy, drag and drop, and when it was done, they generated the html code for ALL EIGHTEEN images! This is media hosting made easy... I'm hooked!

Toothbrush rugs: Cleaning without washing, for large rugs or ones which can't be washed

While cotton poly fabrics, plastic, and hosiery rugs can usually be washed, dried gently, and left to hang, some rugs can't.

• Rugs which are too large to wash
• Rugs which are too old or loosely stitched to hold up to a washing machine
• Rugs with leather or vinyl in them, as this beauty.

Since most people outside of certain select circles and antiquarian religious groups don't have a carpet beater, there's still a good way to clean these rugs.

A vacuum cleaner works well enough on rugs which aren't old or delicate, but it'd better have a pretty strong motor and good brush to get all the dirt and grit and hair out of the crevasses and creases of these handcrafted masterpieces.

An easier way is to put the rug into the dryer on low heat or air fluff setting for about 10 minutes.

You might have to vacuum out the dryer, but that is a lot easier than vacuuming the rug!

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PS- I do have a new rug video to post!

A dear friend came up to help me out while my wife Tess was in the hospital recently. It needs a bit of post production work before I can post it, and I've not been able to look at a monitor long enough to finish that.

He also helped me figure out how I can shoot more effective videos by myself, so as you have thoughts about new videos you'd like to see or old ones you'd like to see with lighting better than that of a cheesy "Blair Witch Project" copycat video, let me know, and I'll get to them as time and my health allow.

I was just cleaning our anniversary rug to have it on my wife's return, I used the technique described above, and I decided to post it while the thoughts were in my mind.