Reply #12: When I lived in Santa Fe... [View All]

[Ophelia Rising]

I facilitated an open studio at a shelter once a week for an hour and a half and every week I was humbled again and again. I would complain about being in grad school full time and waitressing 5 nights a week and tryin' to work out my thesis blah, blah, blah, and then I would go to the shelter with my art supplies and all that whining seemed so trivial. The thing that shook me the most was that about 50% of the people that participated in my group were vetrans of the Vietnam war and they were still struggling with their demons today.....through all of my grad school internship experiences, facilitating that art group at the shelter gave me one of the most profound learning experinces I could have ever had....and when I quote Che Guevera and people call me a communist, I wonder if they have ever had an experience of hearing the stories from the children, women, and men in our nation that have "fallen through the cracks", instead they conviently say "those people choose to be homeless" and turn a blind eye. Some people say ignorance is bliss, I say it is cruel denial.