CENSORED!?! Part 1--Out of Order

This is a re-post of the original post that FB censored for the offending cover image on the chapbook of poems, Chance & Choice, Release date, March 3, 2017. If interested, please pre-order now @ https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/chance-choice-by-alice-bolstridge/ Thank you.

Monday, December 12, 2016

THE GREAT FLIPPED BLIP ~ on Art, Religion, & Politics

Probably like you, I get Facebook posts from Christian friends denouncing on Christian grounds the values and policies promoted by our president elect about all the most controversial issues of our time: the environment, taxes, jobs and the economy, interpretations of the 1st and 2nd amendments of the constitution, health care quality and accessibility, welfare, women's reproductive rights, voting rights, workers rights, and many more. And I get posts from other Christian friends defending and promoting on Christian grounds the very same values and policies promoted by our president elect and reflected in his cabinet picks.

My son, Moonway in the book Oppression for the Heaven of It, was preoccupied in  his art with paradoxes and tensions inherent in his Christian faith: responsibility for evil and suffering; the relationship between Christ and Satan; angels and demons; Adam, Eve, and the serpent. A youthful convert, he painted the suffering Christ with blood pouring from his heart. 

He painted Christ wearing the crown of thorns, a halo beaming out of the back of his head. He painted repeated images of Christ with one side of his face in light, the other in shadow and often broken. He painted a disembodied head of Christ with blank white disks where eyes should have been, head bent downward toward 3 diminutive crosses on a diminutive hill. He drew impressionist Christs, cubist Christs, charcoal Christs, ghostly Christs. He drew Christ surrounded by demons in cages.  He drew many demons, many of them labeled "Dragons of Madness." He drew Adam and a snake-like Eve dancing with the serpent; this one became a cover on a forthcoming chapbook of poems.

He painted lovely serpent couples rising out of water, posed as if dancing in a courtship ritual:

He said William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven & Hell was his favorite art work and, "There can be no peace on earth until Christ and Satan reconcile." Once in a letter, he wrote me, "Take the best they gave you in love and support, and leave the rest to the devil to carry away into hell or wherever he does the dirty work of God who I often call the Great Flipped Blip."

Moonway was never really comfortable in his Christianity. He loved the passion and fellowship he found in his early years in the church, but he yearned for resolution and reconciliation of the contradictions. He also yearned for the certainty he thought he saw in other Christians. Not finding it, he sought his own theology that grew increasingly strange to other parishioners, and he eventually drifted away from the church and turned increasingly to art, drawing and painting his discomfort in symbolic images by which his schizophrenic mind tried to make sense of a real world striven with the same kinds of paradoxes, contradictions, and conflicts of his faith.

I remember presidents back to the time of Franklin Roosevelt. I remember  partisan conflicts of the MCarthy era during Eisenhower's time. I remember the Kennedy and Johnson sixties with revolutionary activity for social justice. I remember Nixon's Watergate. I remember all the international conflicts of those times.  Watching the PBS series From Jesus to Christ, I remember that Christianity itself proceeded throughout its history riddled by and feeding into the same kind of conflict and division we see in our political life today.

For how to live with others, I take Jesus to be an important moral guide in the world and in my life but I am not a believer in Christianity. Moonway often said to me about his hallucinations, Mom, I wish you would believe this is real. I think he was a Christian believer like he believed in the reality of everything he saw in his mind and art. But he never asked me to believe in his faith. We talked often and peacefully about how to practice what Christ taught: Feed the hungry. Shelter the homeless. Love your neighbor, and your enemy.

CENSORED!?! Part 2

Eating fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil,

"They chewed and licked

until their whole bodies were drenched

in the juices, until the sweetness coursed

through their blood, until it pierced the DNA."

(Lines from CHANCE & CHOICE)

~To see details of the censored book, type CHANCE & CHOICE in the SEARCH bar @ https://www.finishinglinepress.com. Or click here for a direct link to the author page where you can place an order. Release date is March 3, 2017. If interested in buying, please pre-order now and help meet goals for advance sales which ends January 13 and will determine press run.~ 

The cover artwork of the book depicts Adam and Eve in "sexually suggestive actions" according to Facebook's criteria for buying a boost (ad).  

Facebook's response to my appeal of the boost rejection:

Thanks for writing in.

Your ad was disapproved because the image being used in the ad implies sexually-suggestive actions (ex: bending over sexually, sexually-suggestive focus on certain body parts, caressing body parts with tongue, lips, or mouth). Ads with a sexual undertone are not allowed. This applies even if your underlying product is represented by the image (ex: lingerie, condoms, sexual health books).

The current post remains published, but isn't running as an ad. If you'd like to boost your post, you'll have to recreate it with a policy-compliant image and boost it again.

Was this helpful? Let us know

Have a great day.

My response to Facebook:

The response does not explain why a post I boosted just last week with the very same image was accepted. The response does not clarify which details of the offending image fit the criteria you list. . . . Is it Adam's hand on Eve's breast? But I do not dispute that the image is sexually suggestive. I am arguing that your criteria is too restrictive to meet the standards stated in a supreme court decision defining "obscenity" as having no "redeeming social value." Your response does not at all address the concern about the Adam & Eve story itself being always interpreted as sexually suggestive and associating sexuality with evil. The image points to that association.  I believe that association should be made explicit and questioned in terms of redeeming social value.  Looking at that standard and in the context of the whole post, I believe any reasonable person would find the image to have redeeming social value. Please provide a higher level of judgement at Facebook that I can appeal to.  Hopefully a real human being that can respond to the specific image in the specific context of the whole post.

This morning I watched UNSLUT on PBS: Bonnie Erbe, TO THE CONTRARY.  I feel like I have been slut shamed by Facebook. It's surely neither intentional, nor personal. All the more reason to resist it, intentionally. Slut shaming has been going on likely since long before the story of Adam and Eve was even written, but the written story, codified in the Bible, made slut shaming such an intrinsic part of our cultural heritage we do it without even being aware of intending it.  We need to become aware.  We need to question our automatic association of Eve's/woman's sexuality with evil and with the knowledge of good and evil. 

CENSORED!?!

I never consciously thought that a literary work of mine might be censored even though I sometimes feel self conscious about what I might be unintentionally revealing about myself in the content of my writing, and even though I often have to struggle to resist censoring myself, and even though every rejection from a publisher might be considered a kind of censorship--figuratively if not legally.

So when I got a message from Facebook saying that my $20.00 boost was rejected for "sexually suggestive" content, I was shocked.   It was first accepted and $5.14 was already spent on early boosting. Another post I had boosted just the week before was accepted and completed, and it contained the very same image that was deemed to be "sexually suggestive" in the rejection. Click here to read the post with the "sexually suggestive" mage. By now, thanks in part to the first accepted boost, that image has reached more than 1000 viewers according to Facebook Insights. The art work was approved by the publisher for the cover of a forthcoming chapbook of poems. To see details of that book click Chance & Choice at Finishing Line Press or my Facebook Author Page.

The art work in question is an image of Adam and Eve with the Serpent. I would post it here,  but I want to boost this post. By the criteria used by Facebook for censoring, the Book of Genesis and other books of The Bible should be censored as well as innumerable interpretations of the Adam and Eve story and other works found in public museums and galleries.  If a respected museum wanted to use such an image to advertise, would Facebook reject it? Maybe so because it is likely an algorithm, not a discerning human being, that decides. But is it right?

Once over the initial shock, I went into defensive mode. I got on some of the writers groups I have joined, posted a summary of the situation with the image, and asked for comments and suggestions. So far I have only gotten 3 responses. Only one was encouraging: "Ask for a bump to another level of JUDGEMENT. By NO means at all should this be censored in my opinion." One said "This is fake news." I can't fathom what she meant by that. The 3rd said, "Can you change the picture for the ad and get on with it? Why waste energy on opinions, they always vary and run the spectrum." 

Relative to all the injustice in the world, my defense of this image must seem as trivial as the comment above suggests. Why should I fight this insult (only personal to me) when I have plenty to keep me busy in my fight for a clean environment, universal health care (including mental and social healthcare), universal income security, peace, etc. You can see many posts relating to these issues by clicking here. I could and maybe will remove the offending image and resubmit, but not before a fight. I have appealed. Facebook is not just any opinion; it is a very influential opinion. 

I have been looking for a  book about the interrelationship among Art, Religion, and Politics to teach  to a Senior Education class, and I think I have it in Blasphemy by S. Brent Plate which I just this morning found in a Google search and ordered. Hopefully, that book will give me a better handle on what I am getting into in adding one more cause to my social justice commitments: freedom of expression and of the press are values dear to my soul. Doesn't every writer feel that way? Apparently not. My shock is just another indication of my naivete about what it takes to be a professional writer.

This post will likely be continued when I receive the reply from my appeal.

THE GREAT FLIPPED BLIP ~ on Art, Religion, & Politics

Probably like you, I get Facebook posts from Christian friends denouncing on Christian grounds the values and policies promoted by our president elect about all the most controversial issues of our time: the environment, taxes, jobs and the economy, interpretations of the 1st and 2nd amendments of the constitution, health care quality and accessibility, welfare, women's reproductive rights, voting rights, workers rights, and many more. And I get posts from other Christian friends defending and promoting on Christian grounds the very same values and policies promoted by our president elect and reflected in his cabinet picks.

My son, Moonway in the book Oppression for the Heaven of It, was preoccupied in  his art with paradoxes and tensions inherent in his Christian faith: responsibility for evil and suffering; the relationship between Christ and Satan; angels and demons; Adam, Eve, and the serpent. A youthful convert, he painted the suffering Christ with blood pouring from his heart. He painted Christ wearing the crown of thorns, a halo beaming out of the back of his head. He painted repeated images of Christ with one side of his face in light, the other in shadow and often broken. He painted a disembodied head of Christ with blank white disks where eyes should have been, head bent downward toward 3 diminutive crosses on a diminutive hill. He drew impressionist Christs, cubist Christs, charcoal Christs, ghostly Christs. He drew Christ surrounded by demons in cages.  He drew many demons, many of them labeled "Dragons of Madness." He drew Adam and a snake-like Eve dancing with the serpent; this one became a cover on a forthcoming chapbook of poems.

He painted lovely serpent couples rising out of water, posed as if dancing in a courtship ritual:

He said William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven & Hell was his favorite art work and, "There can be no peace on earth until Christ and Satan reconcile." Once in a letter, he wrote me, "Take the best they gave you in love and support, and leave the rest to the devil to carry away into hell or wherever he does the dirty work of God who I often call the Great Flipped Blip."

Moonway was never really comfortable in his Christianity. He loved the passion and fellowship he found in his early years in the church, but he yearned for resolution and reconciliation of the contradictions. He also yearned for the certainty he thought he saw in other Christians. Not finding it, he sought his own theology that grew increasingly strange to other parishioners, and he eventually drifted away from the church and turned increasingly to art, drawing and painting his discomfort in symbolic images by which his schizophrenic mind tried to make sense of a real world striven with the same kinds of paradoxes, contradictions, and conflicts of his faith.

I remember presidents back to the time of Franklin Roosevelt. I remember  partisan conflicts of the MCarthy era during Eisenhower's time. I remember the Kennedy and Johnson sixties with revolutionary activity for social justice. I remember Nixon's Watergate. I remember all the international conflicts of those times.  Watching the PBS series From Jesus to Christ, I remember that Christianity itself proceeded throughout its history riddled by and feeding into the same kind of conflict and division we see in our political life today.

For how to live with others, I take Jesus to be an important moral guide in the world and in my life but I am not a believer in Christianity. Moonway often said to me about his hallucinations, Mom, I wish you would believe this is real. I think he was a Christian believer like he believed in the reality of everything he saw in his mind and art. But he never asked me to believe in his faith. We talked often and peacefully about how to practice what Christ taught: Feed the hungry. Shelter the homeless. Love your neighbor, and your enemy.

RISK, POSSIBILITIES, & PROBABILITIES

I am not much of a gambler, at least not with money. Except for a small investment in mutual funds and an occasional lottery ticket for a charitable cause, I don't gamble with my money.

As a writer, however, I gamble with my ego regularly by facing rejection every time I send out a submission to a magazine, writing contest, or book publisher. "Submission" is an interesting term to use for the act. We literally submit our precious product to an authority whom, most often, we do not even know, however much we research the publisher. Like most writers, I have faced such rejections hundreds of times. By now it may be in the thousands. I stopped counting many years ago. Probability, so far in my experience, always favors rejection with every individual submission. But bruises heal, and they are a small risk to take for the many rewards of exploration and discovery in the writing process itself and for the possibility of occasional publication or contest wins.

Such rejection is an especially small and personal risk compared to the risks we humans both individually and collectively take with social justice, our environment, our economy, and our politics where policies and decisions are so often made on the basis of perceived possibility of limited and temporary gains than on evidence-based probability. A headline in a local newspaper this week reads, "State geologist favors smart mining." It's not clear from the content of the article what is meant by "smart mining."  Smart for whom and for what?  It's possible that an open-pit mine at Bald Mountain could trigger an economic boom. It could create hundreds of good paying jobs as promoters of the mine promise. Those are certainly possibilities.

In all my research over the last several years, I have not found any reason to believe that an open-pit mineral mine at Bald Mountain can be smart for protecting the environment.  The evidence-based probabilities are that it will pollute the pristine waters of our area, likely require tax-payer maintenance in perpetuity to minimize damage, and destroy the sports industry, a major part of the local economy. Any posssible economic boom will end in an economic bust when the minerals are exhausted or the mining company goes bankrupt. In these situations, it is foolish to enact legislation on the basis of risky possibilities as the mining supporters are attempting to do.

In politics and the economy, risky possibilities for economic and political gain too often win, and probablities for harm are too often ignored.

Personally, though, I often need to take more risks on possibilities, make a choice, take a chance. Take a stand for justice against prevailing opinions and send in that Letter to the Editor. Write that story you always wanted to tell but were afraid it would be too revealing, and then submit the manuscript.

Here is a taste from the forthcoming chapbook, Chance and Choice:

Within minutes of his birth, his mother

had to choose.  Resuscitate or not?

Without it, he would die, mercifully

many said.  With it, tubes would invade him

again and again—through nose, mouth, veins

and arteries.  50% chance he might die anyway;

of those who live, more than 30% have some degree

of life-time handicap—blind, retarded, palsied.

90% have major complications.

The only certainties—quick death if no,

months-long suffering and disease if yes.

She didn’t hesitate—help him live.

Amid high-tech glare and urgency,

a tracheal tube cut off his cry.

March 3, 2017 is the release date for the book. Advance sales which end January 13 will determine the size of the press run. If you are interested, please place your order now at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/chance-choice-by-alice-bolstridge/ .

THANK YOU.

SELF PROMOTION & OTHER FORMS OF PRIDE

Promoting my own work is an emotional roller-coaster. Against my will, I despair at the frequent advice from the publisher about all that is needed to be an effective self promoter. I fear I can't possibly even make the goal for advance sales. I have a self conscious streak that shrinks from too much or too personal attention to me, afraid of being "found out" as a fraud, or, worse, as who I really am, etc. And I have a measure of agoraphobia. One time, I left a rally (for health care, I think) at the State Capitol Hall of Flags because people were packed in too close to me.  Such self consciousness (imagining that people are paying that much attention to me, negative or otherwise) is a form of narcissism.

And then I hear from friends congratulating me, I know it is all worth it for that high if nothing else. And I felt euphoric from the Friday night reading of poems from Chance & Choice at the second art show of my son's work. His drawing of Adam and Eve with the serpent is on the cover of the book. 

The event was packed, biggest audience, they said, they have ever had at this venue for a First Friday event. You can read and see more about it below. I am ashamed to admit I almost understand Trump's addiction to YUGE audience attention. One friend I shared this with ordered me not to compare myself with Trump. 

So here I sit still in the after-glow of warm attention I felt at the 1st Friday event, and the poems I read share some of the most personal experiences of my life, disclosing "who I really am." The relationship between reader and author, each solitary while under the spell of the reading or writing activity, is surely one of the most intimate experiences of our lives. More intimate than sex, this deepest sharing of one's mind. And it makes me anxious every time I prepare to read.

The publishing process for this little book seems to be distracting me from the fear and rage of the terrible 2016 election and the terrible state of our politics in general. Since the election, I have hardly read anything except advice about promoting my product. 

Even so, I am planning to participate in a rally,  the 3rd in 3 years, to protect our local area from the threat posed by another legislative attempt to weaken environmental protection rules and allow open-pit mineral mining of Bald Mountain, an extremely toxic site virtually certain to  pollute local waters with arsenic and sulphuric acid in perpetuity. In town hall meetings and elsewhere, our governor calls us "job killers," "one of the greatest enemies of the state of Maine," "zealots." I know, pride is one of the 7 deadly sins, and I confess it: I am proud to be a warrior in the fight for clean water, air, & soil; to be a combatant against the forces of greed and power lust driving the destruction of life on our planet.  It is as important to me as poetry. It feeds my motivation to write poetry.

March 3, 2017 is the release date for the book. Advance sales determine the size of the press run. If you are interested, you can place your order now at https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/chance-choice-by-alice-bolstridge/ .

ART SHOW: RECEPTION AND READING

 

Very grateful to all the people who attended 

the reception and the poetry reading last night. 

Thanks so much to all of you and to hosts Brian & Jane: 

MORNING STAR ART & FRAMING is such an interesting place. 

All profits from sales will be donated to 

THE FOUNDATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN MENTAL HEALTH CARE

www.mentalhealthexcellence.org 

The art and the book, OPPRESSION FOR THE HEAVEN OF IT, 

will be up for bid or purchase until December 21. 

ART SHOW

ART SHOW: DECEMBER 2016 

MORNING STAR ART & FRAMING

422 Main Street, Presque Isle, Maine

FEATURING THE WORK OF ARTIST, ALAN MOUNTAIN

including work not previously displayed in public.

Reception: First Friday Art Walk, December 2, 5:00 to 9:00

  Music & light refreshments. 

7:15 to 8:00, Alice Bolstridge  

will read and discuss writing about art 

including poems from her forthcoming book, 

CHANCE & CHOICE. 

Silent auction of art work until December 21. 

Profits from sales of art and the book 

Oppression for the Heaven of It 

will be donated to 

The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care http://www.mentalhealthexcellence.org/ . 

CHANCE & CHOICE, forthcoming

Finishing Line Press   

PO Box 1626
Georgetown, KY 40324
859-514-8966
Finishingbooks@aol.com
www.finishinglinepress.com

            Finishing Line Press is proud to announce the publication of Chance & Choice:
            Melissa Crowe, author of Girl, Giant and editor of Beloit Poetry Journal says: “In this wise and searching collection, Alice Bolstridge illuminates crucial connections between the animal, the human, and the cosmic. . . . The speaker of these poems makes herself kin to weasels and wildcats, to elephants mourning their dead, and to mythic figures by whose triumphs and failures we come to understand our own struggles, our own joys.” 

            Advance sales are greatly appreciated as they will determine press run and author award. Please preorder by sending to the above address $13.99 plus discounted shipping until January 13 of $2.99. Or order online at

https://www.finishinglinepress.com/product/chance-choice-by-alice-bolstridge/

Media Contact: Christen Kincaid, Editor, Finishing Line Press, https://www.finishinglinepress.com
(859) 514-8966. 

Author Contact: Alice Bolstridge, bolstridgea38@gmail.com

First Friday Art Walk, December 2 from 5:00 to 9: 00 PM, MORNING STAR ART & FRAMING, 422 Main Street, Presque Isle, will host Alice Bolstridge showing Alan Mountain's art including work not previously displayed in public. Music & light refreshments. 7:15 to 8:00, Alice will read from writing about art including poems from CHANCE & CHOICE. Silent auction. Profits from sales of art and from the book Oppression for the Heaven of It will be donated to the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care, http://www.mentalhealthexcellence.org/ .

Alice, Ph. D. in English Literature, has poems, stories, and essays published in many magazines and anthologies. As Moore Bowen, she won the 2013 Kenneth Patchen Award for Experimental Fiction for Oppression for the Heaven of It, co authored with Alan Mountain, and published by JEF Books. Available at www.amazon.com

POLITICAL STRATEGY

Too many politicians, following examples of Donald Trump and Paul LePage, respond to a reasoned argument or respectful criticism or even just an explanation of a problem with insults, name calling, or wild accusations about motives. The following is a transcription of a taped conversation that took place at a meet-the-candidate gathering for Tim this past Wednesday.

Tim: There would be lots of good paying jobs in that mining. As long as they can promise to clean up after it closes.

Alice: I wonder if people understand how toxic that site is. It’s one of the most toxic sites in the United States, that area on Bald Mountain. And how much those toxins would be released. It’s really important to understand the danger and the threat of pollution being released into surrounding waters. A lot more jobs would be lost than would be gained. And it’s a temporary business. There’s going to be an end to it. Even in the best of circumstances, if there’s a boom, there’s going to be a bust that follows. It’s really, really important that people understand . . .

Peter [interrupting]: Sounds like the liberals out of Portland.

Alice: I’ve lived here most of my life. I was born and grew up in Portage, Maine. I started my research on this issue with an open mind—hoping it might be an economic boon, and it might be good for the economy. And the more I learned every year, the more I understood about how toxic that site is. It sounds to me, Mr. Edgecomb, with your reference to Portland liberals that you’re trying to insult me. I don’t appreciate that. I come here to these meeting trying to find solutions, and I don’t like being insulted . . .

Peter: Alice, you came here for one purpose, and I know what that is. Have you ever voted Republican in your life? No matter what you say, you’re not going to vote for a Republican.

Alice: I am a great admirer of many Republicans: Senator Cohen, Margaret Chase Smith.

Peter: Alice, I know your background.

Troy: Many Democrats and Republicans in Ashland have concerns about this. . .

Peter: Troy, do you want to help pay for this meeting. Feel free to do that.

Troy: OK. Who do I write the check out to?

LATER as the meeting is breaking up, Peter approaches Troy with open palm held out: I’ll take your money, now.

Troy: Glad to. How much? Being clean elections, it all comes out of the same pot.

Shelly: Peter, I have properties in Mapleton and Portage. I have a vested interest in these towns and a perfect right to be here. You owe my mother an apology.

In another incident that demonstrates political strategy, Troy found that flyers were being put in mailboxes accusing Troy of being one of those Portland liberals who doesn’t have the best interests in mind for this area. I believe that unauthorized use of mailboxes is a crime. When Troy confronted Tim about his actions, Tim responded that he was told to do that, that he just did what he was told. As explained in Shelly’s LTE to The Star Herald, when Tim was asked why he refused to participate in a forum or debate with his opponent, he replied that it wasn’t up to him, that he was just doing what he was told.

It is very disturbing that we are voting into office candidates who do not understand the issues that affect us all, that they respond with attacks when confronted, and that they depend on party leaders to tell them what to do. Some of these candidates use clean elections to do as they are told by party leaders who are generously funded by major corporate interests.  Is it any wonder our trust in government is so badly eroded?

COMMENTS

I'm cleaning up this site today and discovering again that comments don't appear at the end of my posts, and that there are frequently gratifying comments that I wish would appear. So thank you all who post for your interest. I am not ignoring you.

The Costs of War

THIS POST WAS WRITTEN AND POSTED IN 2011, AND I JUST FOUND IT AT THE TOP OF MY POST FEED WITH TODAY'S DATE. ANYWAY, EXCEPT FOR THE DATE, THE POST IS STILL RELEVANT SO I WILL LEAVE IT.

This coming weekend marks the 8^th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and we have not completed that war.  In October, we will have 10 years at war in Afghanistan, and we have yet to begin the draw down of combat operations there.  The total cost of these wars is above $1.16 trillion and counting, over $700 million a day by conservative estimates. It is millions more if considering all the associated costs of maintaining the military industrial complex and repairing the damage caused by war.  Leaving aside for a moment the social and moral costs of war, can we afford this kind of expense when we have such looming unsolved economic problems here?  

Consider health care so costly that many of our citizens can’t afford it even with the Affordable Health Care Act that is under threat, state budgets in so much trouble they are threatening massive layoffs and cuts in essential social services and infrastructure to avoid bankruptcy, a national debt that exceeds $14 trillion, rampant and uncontrolled greed in our financial institutions that caused a massive recession and that show no signs I have seen of reforming or being reformed, an environment increasingly at risk, increased taxes on the lower middle-class while taxes are cut for the most wealthy.   No, we can’t afford the mounting costs of resorting to war to resolve our security problems and international disputes. 

We study and learn the practice of war.  We pour our best resources into improving our military capability.  Imagine what would happen if we began to draw down our commitment to war and turned those abilities and resources to learning and practicing peaceful conflict resolution.  For that we need moral commitment from citizens and institutions together.  A better, more peaceful world will not happen only by individuals just improving themselves, though that is a good and necessary thing to do.  But then, like Buddha, or Christ, or Mohammed, the individual needs to take some responsibility for improving the world. 

For a time, there was an old bill board on Carmichael Street which said in stark white on black, WAR IS OVER IF YOU WANT IT.  I am sorry to see it gone.  We need voices, many of them speaking out every where, on billboards, Face Book, Twitter, Blogs, Letters to the Editor.  We need moral voices crying out for all the killed, wounded, and displaced by war.  We need a vast chorus of voices demanding peace.  Please join us at the Aroostook River Bridge on Sunday at 12:00 noon and add your voice to the chorus.  

LOVE YOUR ENEMIES

ELECTION 2016

Participation in recent conversations on FaceBook and elsewhere inspire reflection and confession: I don’t know how to love my enemies. That is the greatest ethical challenge of my life, but in this election cycle, I even have trouble knowing how to love my friends and how to avoid making them enemies. Challenges to my refusal to commit to voting for Hillary Clinton come at me throughout every day from both public and private sources. With these challenges, I feel powerful temptations to make enemies by lashing out with name calling, obscenities, withering sarcasm, or condemnations of personal and trivial weaknesses, real or imagined. Just like is coming from the presidential candidates and their respective supporters.

Often in the privacy of my own mind or with friends I know to be sympathetic I give in to these temptations, just like the candidates do. On some level, we must believe these responses to hurt feelings work, at least to relieve the hurt temporarily if not to resolve the conflict. Both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton have been targets of these kinds of enemy making. And both respond in kind, though one is much more accomplished, loud, and confident with blasting his many perceived enemies. Yesterday, I heard a TV news pundit say that daily relentless attack on Trump is what Clinton needs to do to win the election. It certainly seems to be working for Trump.

It makes me question my commitment to reasoned argument, respect for all stakeholders’ viewpoints even when I don’t agree with them, seeking common ground, and problem solving as the best way, long term, to resolve conflict and find solutions. That commitment has been my attempt to love my enemies. Both candidates believe they have solutions for the public, and neither in this contest has any interest in resolving conflicts between them. So winning, obviously, has to be the primary goal. As it is in any competition. That doesn’t seem to be working, that I can see, in solving the public problems.

All my ethical goals are at odds with winning as the top priority, and I only know that I won’t vote for Trump nor support him in any way. But how am I to love him? That is not a trivial question for me. There is not only him we have to worry about. There are all of his steadfast supporters. If we don’t find a way to respect the concerns of all those people, we will continue to have the desperate problems we need to solve.

ART SHOW: THE LIFE AND WORK OF ALAN MOUNTAIN

Published in The Star Herald, June 8, 2016:

Exhibit Benefits Charity, Wintergreen Arts Center

PRESQUE ISLE -- During the month of May, The Wintergreen Arts Center participated in “May is Mental Health Month” with a show celebrating the life and art of Alan Mountain (1956–2015), a local artist who lived his entire adult life with a disabling mental illness. The Center thanks the generosity of the family of Alan Mountain who donated the proceeds from the sale of his art work and a book he helped to write to be divided equally between the Center and Catholic Charities.

The show touched hundreds of people and through the generosity of Alan’s family, an auction of his artwork and the sale of a book he helped to write brought in $2,980 with all proceeds divided equally between Wintergreen and Catholic Charities.

“With this donation, the family thanks these organizations for the important role they play in contributing to community mental health,” said Alan’s mother, Alice Bolstridge.

“I cannot overemphasize the therapeutic significance of artistic expression in Alan’s life. And Catholic Charities’ mental health services provided for Alan’s needs in a variety of ways for most of his adult life: basic survival needs of housing, food, housekeeping services, and supplies he obtained in their “free store” that he often used in surprising ways in his art,” Bolstridge said.  

Dottie Hutchins, Wintergreen’s executive director, said, “On May 6, we held a reception during the First Friday Art Walk which drew a crowd of 125 people, including several members  of Alan’s family. Alice gave a moving and candid talk about Alan, the importance of art in his life, and his illness. Her bravery is equaled only by her generosity.

“The family’s gifts—both financial and groundbreaking—are greatly appreciated.”

Dixie Shaw, director of hunger and relief services at Catholic Charities Maine, said, "Catholic Charities is so thrilled to have this support from the family of Alan Mountain. This will go far to provide services for those in Aroostook County struggling with mental illness."

For more information about Catholic Charities services, visit www. ccmaine.org.

The book Bolstridge and Mountain wrote , Oppression for the Heaven of It, is a “docu-fiction” published under the pseudonym of Moore Bowen. It won the 2013 Kenneth Patchen Award for an innovative novel.  For more about the book and to read a copy of Alice’s Gallery talk, visit https://moorebowen.wordpress.com/. The book  is available from amazon.com, SPD, Ingram, Baker & Tayler.

ARTS BENEFITS COMMUNITY -- A recent exhibit at the Wintergreen Arts Center focused on the life and work of Alan Mountain, a local artist who struggled with a mental illness. The show and an auction brought in nearly $3,000, which was split equally between the WAC And Catholic Charities Maine.  From left are Dixie Shaw, director of hunger and relief services for Catholic Charities; Alice Bolstridge, the artist's mother next to one of her son's works; and Dottie Hutchins, WAC executive director.

IDEALISM, REALISM, AND VOTING YOUR CONSCIENCE

I feel challenged by a recent FB conversation thread to defend my "idealism," my conscience, and my steadfast refusal, against repeated urgings and sometimes outright bullying, to make any commitment about how I will vote in November if Hillary Clinton is the Democratic nominee. All such urgings, as in this particular conversation, argue that a write-in vote for Bernie or a vote for a 3rd party candidate such as Jill Stein is a vote for Donald Trump. They tell me that personal idealism and conscience make every such voter "responsible" for electing the worst possible president, and that "realism" is the more mature and responsible approach.

First, the issue of responsibility for election results. Voters who vote their conscience instead of for Hillary Clinton are responsible for electing Donald Trump? Really? Does the Hillary Clinton campaign bear any responsibility for being so out of step with so many Democrats on so many of the issues. Do the authors of a rigged electoral system bear any responsibility? Does the media who fill their newscasts with attention to Donald Trump every day bear any responsibility?  Do the voters who voted for the sake of realism against their conscience and ideals for Hillary Clinton in the primaries bear any responsibility? The issue of who or what is responsible for the election of Donald Trump is far more complicated than suggested by those who blame idealism or conscience voters

Putting aside for the moment all the possible and slippery meanings, philosophically, of “idealism’ and “realism,” let’s assume that the meanings are what they appear to be on the surface of this particular argument. Hillary and her supporters argue that Bernie and his supporters are unrealistic, that his policy proposals are too idealistic to be workable, and that he doesn’t have the appropriate experience to make them work.

Are these arguments really valid? Every one of Sanders' policy proposals on issues I care most about are realistically and successfully practiced somewhere in the world today, or we already have the know-how and resources to put them into practice. Income equality, environmental protection, health care, social justice, education, financial and corporate regulation, political and electoral reform, promoting  a more sensible foreign policy, etc., all of these issues I am idealistic about, and I believe they are also realistic.

Bernie’s record in the House and then in the Senate for getting things done is less well-known than Hillary’s experience as Secretary of State but it is far more impressive in terms of accomplishing his priorities than Hillary’s congressional experience is. Known as the “Amendment King,” he has demonstrated his ability to work with others in congress to make improvements in corporate crime accountability, protecting pensions, expanding free health care, protecting against nuclear disaster, environmental protection, protecting veterans benefits, protecting U. S. workers, revealing corruption in the Military Industrial Complex, and much more.  All of these are issues I am idealistic about, and he made progress on them a reality. 

Hillary's representation, on the other hand, of Wall Street while she was in congress is anathema to my ideals, as they resulted in a contribution to the problems of income inequality, poverty, and the disappearance of the middle class. This is realism.

As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton clearly has more foreign policy experience in terms of quantity than Bernie Sanders, but I question the quality and values of that experience. Her record shows she is clearly more prone to reach for the use of force to resolve conflict than Sanders, and much more hawkish than I want in a president. Not only her vote on the Iraq war which she has admitted was a mistake, but also she pushed hard for a troop surge in Afghanistan.  She strongly advocated for military action against Qaddafi's regime in Libya, She wanted to arm the rebels against Assad's regime, and she argues for a no-fly zone in Syria. I am idealistic about peace. All the time I see people around me coping with conflict in their lives without resorting to physical force or violence. In everyday “real” life such coping is more the rule than the exception. And it is much more the general expectation in everyday “real” life than in international affairs. I believe it is possible to translate that expectation to foreign policy by putting more emphasis on diplomacy and negotiations as John Kerry has done with the recent Iran deal to prevent the expansion of nuclear weapons. He bridged a gap there between idealism and realism.

There does not have to be an unbridgeable gap between our ideals that so many of us agree on and the demands of real life. I do not intend to enable with my vote or otherwise those who believe there must be that gap in the name of realism, and I definitely do not intend to enable the 1% who stand to gain so much from keeping the gap unbridgeable. I believe it is my responsibility to do my best to help build bridges, and I will vote my conscience and ideals in November. Until then I won’t say who I will vote for, except that it won’t be for Donald Trump. 

MORE ON THE ART OF ALAN MOUNTAIN (1956 - 2015)

 The art show continues throughout the month of May at the Wintergreen Arts Center in Presque Isle. Bidding continues at the Center and online . For enthusiasm, hard work, and encouragement through all this very moving process, I am deeply grateful to the Wintergreen staff & Board of Directors, Dottie Hutchins and Dione Skidgel, Martha Grant and PIBQ, Brian Bisette @Morning Star Art & Framing, all the attendees and bidders at the reception. Thank you all!

THE ARTIST AND MENTAL ILLNESS

Gallery Talk at Wintergreen Arts Center May 6, 2016

Thank you all for being here: Family and Friends. Wintergreen. Martha Grant and the PIBQ. All my encouraging FB friends.

In Civilization and its Discontents, Sigmund Freud says, ‘It is rather the rule than the exception for the past to be preserved in mental life.’ Alan’s art suggests to me endless interpretations about how his character was affected and formed by past traumatic events and in the interplay between disabilities from his illness and his artistic abilities.

My concerns about Alan’s mental and emotional health started when he was very young. At 4 years old, he was diagnosed with nephritis, a kidney disease. He was hospitalized several times over the next 2 years and treated continuously with steroid drugs. The last time he was hospitalized, he was not expected to live, and they tried an experimental treatment, painful injections of albumin into his veins that required a large needle. This treatment worked and he recovered. The steroid treatment continued for another 2 years until he was pronounced cured from the nephritis at 8 years old. The hospital experience was very traumatic for him and for the whole family. Even his pediatrician would get wet with sweat from the strain and tension of injecting a struggling 6-year old while I held him down.

The treatment saved his life. But during this time, I noticed a change in him from an outgoing cheerful little boy to a withdrawn, fearful child which showed in his art even at that young age. Before his illness he loved making colorful pictures with smiling faces and lots of sunshine. By the end of the treatment he was drawing frightful monsters in black and white. I spoke to his pediatrician about my concern for his emotional health. He shrugged off my concern, said, “Kids change as they grow. Just be glad for his recovery from the nephritis.”

No one knows with any scientific certainty what causes mental illness. My family has a history of both bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, so there is quite likely a genetic predisposition. But Alan’s early trauma certainly affected his sense of himself for all of his life. He often asked questions about it, and he would say, “You don’t believe me Mom, but I know I died back then, went to Heaven, went to Hell.

I recently read a novel in which a character is described as having a moon face and drawing wavy lines on paper. I immediately thought of Alan’s self portrait with wavy lines over his abstract face. The moon face he often expressed in his art is literally tied with that nephritis experience. The steroids gave him a pronounced moon face, and for the first time I made the connection between his moon face in many of his self-portraits and one of his most consistent aliases for himself. He often signed his name on letters as Moonway. We gave that name to the character in the book which he and I collaborated on, and which is for sale here, Oppression for the Heaven of It.


Another image which recalls his early hospital time is the Nurse in Red- Cross colors in foreground with self in background, and the large hypodermic needle. Needles remained a dreaded preoccupation throughout his adult life.

His early monsters morphed into a lifelong preoccupation in his art with demons, serpents and dragons. He never lost his love of color, though, and he eventually integrated his demons into his colorful worlds.



His splashes of color in the Abstracts & Fantasies are crowded with people and creatures, and they reflect tensions with Family, Community, and Cultural values and Expectations. “Feminist Alchemist Seducer& her Family” and “Woman in Green with Religious Figure in Front” remind me of his disturbance at times by my lack of religious belief: the woman in green might be me with my sometimes big curly hair back in the 70s. He would often say about our religious or political differences, “I wish you would believe me, Mom.”



In his art and in his life he was conflicted about couple’s relationships as in the “Couple in Black, White, and Red. Is that a vampire image?

In Western Lapland, they practice a therapy they call open-dialogue which has proved very successful as measured against American medicalized treatment. In this therapy, they believe psychosis arises from severely frayed social relationships. A psychiatrist there, Tapio Salo says, “Psychosis lives in the in-between of family members, and in the in-between of people. It is in the relationship, and the one who is psychotic makes the bad condition visible. He or she ‘wears the symptoms and has the burden to carry them.”

Families are the primal unit of all cultures and the first purveyors of cultural values and expectations that Alan often found too burdensome and contradictory to live up to. I suspect we all experience these tensions in our relationships, but those of us thought to be sane find a way to function and carry on the work of our civilization. People with serious and chronic mental illnesses are said to be dysfunctional; that is in large part how they are diagnosed.

Many of these pictures might suggest chaotic disorder at first glance, but the more I study them and remember him, the more I believe he used his art for trying to work through the disorder in his mind. He often said about problems and tensions he felt, “I have to work it out.” Sketches in one of the folders labeled Dragons of Madness indicate his preoccupation with good and evil. He tried to reconcile the contradictions in a kind of personal theology, such as “Mary with Sword Confronting Dragons”

In this landscape, is Christ carrying Alan before he climbs to the cross? Or is Alan carrying Christ from the cross, He
did have delusions of grandeur, and he saw himself at times as some kind of divine savior.

In his art and writing, Alan tried to develop a grand unified theory of everything like the physicists and religious leaders in all faiths attempt. Alan declared, “Buddha unites” (in “The Feminist Alchemist . . .” above). On a portrait in one of the folders he wrote, “The abolition of war leaves the arts free to unite the classical with the modern. The unity of the cosmos consists not in law but rather in grace, mercy, and love.” He believed Christ and Satan had to reconcile for there to be peace on earth, and he often referred to the poet William Blake’s, “The Marriage of Heaven & Hell.” The pink serpent couple is to me an image of relationship harmony.

Alan called his creature with the bug eyes on antennae Speam. One of the many demonic creatures in his art, Speam is pictured here being offered a rose from a benign-looking dragon. They are both at the bottom of stepping stones leading to Heaven. I think this is a good image to end this talk.

Do you have questions, observations, interpretations, or stories about his life you would like to share?