new project

I had a meeting Sunday evening with a group of people, who are traveling to Juarez, Mexico, to teach art to children living in a local orphanage. The orphanage, Arbol de Vida (Tree of Life), is home to around 100 children, ages roughly 5 to 18. I've been invited to go with this group and spend two days working with these kids to create artwork that we will bring back to the States to be sold at an art auction with the proceeds going back to help the orphanage. It's a fantastic idea and I'm excited to be a part of it. There will be four other artists besides myself.

Each of us will be responsible for creating a different art project and for instructing the children through our respective projects. Since my specialty is painting faces, I've decided that self portraits will be my project. I've got a lot of work ahead of me. The trip will take place October 9th -12th. We'll be driving from Denver the morning of the 9th, arriving at Juarez that afternoon. There will be eight of us traveling together in a 15 passenger van with the trip taking about twelve hours, door-to-door . We'll spend two days working with the kids and then return home with the children's artwork on Sunday the 12th. The art auction will be sometime in mid-November.

There's a lot of history being made this year. Some of it will happen here in Denver this summer with the Democratic National Convention ascending to the Mile High Metropolis. As of late, your choices are now more specific, Obama vs McCaine. Although Ron Paul for the Libertarians may still be holding pot-lucks, and of course perennial Ralph Nader is with us, slingshot in hand.

I love presidential elections, it's the best feature of our government. It's sort of like a shaking of the national etch-e-sketch. Don't like the picture? Shake it up! Let someone else turn the knobs for a while and see what happens. We live in a great ongoing experiment that demands our participation. Of course we can't all devote huge chunks of our time and money to shaping the political landscape, but we can inform ourselves, we can talk about important issues with our families, through letters and emails, we can advise and encourage our representatives and congress people, we can volunteer a little of our time and money to supporting and encouraging good people to govern our country, we can vote. Opting out and displaying boredom and apathy signal lazy and self centered thinking. Don't let apathy be your legacy. We need to be thinking beyond our own lifetimes. How should our country conduct itself today, so that 100 years from now, people can ponder the same question. If you love your kids, educate yourself and vote.

Have a good weekend, and Godspeed, John Glen

Dave