SISTER, MOTHER & SOLDIER (2 years encounting) My nephew is my biggest publicist. He tells everyone within an earshot, "My aunt is an artist and she helps kids too!" I always tell him, "Your mom made a little boy just for me."	My older sister is my ultimate muse because she reminds me of everything good that is left in the world.  As strange as it may sound the truth is that we took turns mothering each other throughout childhood. Though I have two other siblings my big sis is my dictionary and I am hers. When one of us can not remember how something should be defined we look inside the other for answers that make the vagueness in the world understandable.    Above anyone else on the planet my sister understands the cost of what I have paid to become whole; the toil to forge a road where there was only wilderness. She holds my undiluted history behind her brown eyes: that I was the ugliest girl in school, have two moles diagonal on my left knee -another on the palm of my right hand. And I remember the mole under her left eye, the day she got a part-time job at McDonald's to pay for her cheerleading uniform because in spite of the fact that we were poor she could do the Russian splits. That she wanted me in the water with her when she got baptized. I pack the fridge with strawberry-banana yogurt whenever she visits and rearrange her thoughts when she is scattered. She knows I do not speak about my feelings much at all. That I love through action.                Being my muse is not an easy occupation.  It comes with responsibility. I expect email updates from Iraq because I have to know that somewhere in the dark her smile is waiting...   My sister will be reading this from an undisclosed location in Iraq. This is her fourteenth year as a military professional / thirty-somethingth year as my inspiration.  Over the next two years I will pretend to be brave for her sake and sake of the son she had to leave behind. And I will paint out the story of our undefeated souls in tribute to the allegiance neither of us could have predicted.     UPDATE 4/7/08   My sister was airlifted out of Iraq to Germany. I didn't know if she was dead or alive for hours. She's alive and was sent to the U.S. for treatment. Uncle Sam is patching her up and sending her back to the desert.   My muse is a sharp shooter. When we were little she shot a pigeon off a chimney on the house across the street with my little brother's sling shot.  We were on our driveway and she jokingly grabbed a tiny pebble and said, "Look, I'm going to hit that pigeon!" She pulled the sling shot back and nothing happened. Five seconds later it fell down and the three of us ran inside in awe. No wonder she became a vegetarian for a couple years. (The Guilt of Pigeon Atonement!)		Ma Soeur (My Sister) Oil on Canvas Without ever having instruction the first thing I was guided to paint was a portrait of my sister in Ma Soeur. Her essence is the legacy I wanted to see handed down for generations to come. New Year's Eve 2003 / Giant LA   (Me, My Sis and Stranger)

TRACK 1: Outcome's Next

TWP T Whistle Productions The future of hip hop is here

TRACK 2: I'm Here

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TRACK 3: The Top

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One day I was visiting the studio of industrial artist Derek Baron http://www.derekbaron.com/. As he worked on a commission for Justin Timberlake a song came through the speakers "Hello" by the group I came to know as Infrared Sunday. The moment I heard Gadi's voice I was haunted. A couple weeks later a day came to me and suddenly I knew what the orange canvas that had been hanging on my wall for four months was suppose to be. Sans Titre (Untitled) was created to Infrared Sunday's "Picture from a  Dream" and Star Sailor's "She Just Wept." I often paint to music. Little did I know the cd I was handed contained a track that would express the secrets buried at the bottom of me. There are no coincidences.                                      Only unrecognized opportunities.

Click to hear Pictures from a Dream

DAVID is a ROCKSTAR      Celebrating the big 1-8!   All David wanted for his birthday was to visit the brother he hadn't seen for almost two years.       CLICK TO LEARN ABOUT POSITIVE RESISTANCE

JUNE 2008 HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATE    Number of High Schools Attended: 15+                        GPA: 3.0  In 2005 Positive Resistance was contacted by a social worker who said she had an amazing teen who was losing faith in himself.  She requested that I specifically intervene and mentor David.  I phoned him at his group home (which is akin to a small orphanage). He said very little. Most foster youth are shy when interacting with adults and the world outside the system. Knowing Easter was around the corner I sent him a basket filled with things I knew a foster teen would appreciate: lots of junk food, a journal, and a mixed cd.  He had never had an Easter basket before. David shared all his goodies with the other youth because he has such an amazing spirit. His social worker told me that he said, "Had it been my birthday, it would have been the best present I've ever gotten!"   One day David called me during office hours. I was heading to a meeting. Later that night he apologized for interrupting me at work and was reluctant to tell me why he called. I squeezed it out of him. He got an A on his math test and he just wanted to tell somebody. He has never gotten my voicemail since. Now I leave meetings, listen, say "Good Job! I'm proud of you," and get back to work. Most foster youth don't have anyone to report to, which may be why 50% of youth in care don't graduate high school.   After three years of mentoring David, I have had to track him down through countless moves, negotiate with the adults in his life, remind him of his worth when he couldn't see it, and cope with his pushing me away during the first year because he didn't believe someone would care for him even when he was bad.  In the three years I have known David he has moved at least twenty times, attending so many high schools I've lost count, but in all this the one remarkable thing has always been David. That he keeps trying –in spite of the moves, difficulties or the fact that his new school was further along in algebra than his last!     One day he was tired of fighting (even though he knew he was right). A mix up with his transcripts almost robbed him of his graduation ceremony. I refused to let him give up.  I told him, “…you’ve come too far to throw in the towel at the finish line.” The calls and faxes happened with a little help from yours truly.        You change a life by loaning your strengths and being consistent over time.     HERE'S FOR GIVING YOURSELF EVERYTHING YOU DESERVE

David finds a new talent.     David's first outrigging lesson was provided by Dave Martyn, Vice President of the Newport Beach IMUA Outrigging Canoe Club.

Jeanette O'Keefe 1972 - 2001        A MOTHER'S HEART: 12/07 LETTER   “Jeanette had the ability to excel in anything of interest to her. In secondary college, her subjects she liked best were Indonesian, Art, Mathematics, Geography and Music.  She received many academic awards of distinction each year. She graduated in 1993 with a Social Science degree, majoring in Sociology. In 1994 she undertook a Graduate Diploma in Computer Science (which is equivalent to a degree in Computer Science, but completed in one year). She liked the course so much that she took an overload of subjects including Artificial Intelligence.    I reported her missing to the Australian Embassy in Paris, who contacted the French Police and hospitals. I immediately emailed a photograph of Jeanette to the Embassy and French Police and the foyer, where Jeanette had lived for two months. For the next nine days and nights, I was on the telephone and sending emails to people who were connected with Jeanette and then passing all this information to the French Police.  I can not really put into words what that nightmare was like for our family.    The Police came and told us a body had been found in Paris and it was believed to be Jeanette.  She had been identified by people at the foyer, but for confirmation, family members traveled to Paris to identify Jeanette.  The murderer had removed Jeanette’s belongings, including passport, laptop computer, cameras, money and backpack.   Our family has never been the same since then.  We could not believe how cruel the murderer was –to attack a small innocent young lady, who did not have the strength to stop him.  The family was devastated and still finds it hard to come to terms with Jeanette’s death.”		CAN ART CATCH A MURDER?  There is no point in fighting who you are. I was born a nomad. When I was nineteen I decided to celebrate myself and go on vacation to Europe. I asked several friends to accompany me, many said yes, but when the time came they each made excuses for staying in the confines of their porches.  I understood. They were not like me. I grew up in the back of a '77 Thunderbird that raced cross country. From the outside, some would say that I never stayed in one place long enough to have a home. And my reply would be that the unfamiliar was home because I had the consistency of picket fences inside me. My identity has always been embedded in a value system that was not reliant upon external influences, lovers and friends were not like the math I was dependent on for stability; lovers and friends were not variables that dictated my given outcome. I booked my flight the following year and traveled alone for six weeks.  Upon my return I spent the next year living off Cup of Noodles to save and invest heavily in the stock market, which ultimately paid for my relocation to Paris.   By the time I met Jeanette in the winter of 2000 I had a thorough awareness of what it was to lose, more than most people anyway. I had attended at least a dozen elementary schools. All of my grandparents had died before I was thirteen. I went to three high schools my freshmen year alone.  And in spite of my familiarity with loss Jeanette’s death wounded me in hidden places, spaces I could not cover with shaky hands, gaps where pressure could not be applied to stop the leaks. Her death marked the beginning of a deep erosion as the confidence in the world outside me evaporated. I was not the one in question. Inside me the sun was shinning, it was eighty degrees and not a cloud in sight. Outside me there was chaos, an unlimited space where people got away with murder…   …every belief I had slipped from my hand like a rope that was snatched in a game of tug-of-war, a cord I would search for repeatedly in the middle of my reoccurring nightmares.  I am not fragile. Nor I am not afraid to lose. The truth is anyone can break at any given time. Lose too much all at once and it is almost inevitable.   Jeanette’s death was the first in a series of three immense traumas I was to experience back to back over the span of a year. So, in a sense, her death marked the beginning of the end.  I have spent the past several years slowly piecing together my faith in the world outside me.  Working through the agoraphobia (fear of spaces and new people) I developed from the post traumatic shock of having to identify the body of a friend. A friend I will always feel closer to in death than in life.    The Sacred Stones Collection is inspired by the heroic act of mourning. Because I believe that we are never more vulnerable than in a moment of grief.    Violent deaths take away more than the victim. Such acts kill trust in justice, principles too.  In speaking to members of the O'Keefe family I found that we all, to some degree, lost hope in gaining closure to this tragic event. And so I elected to give (not donate, not write-off) an undisclosed sum of the Sacred Stones Collection to the Chief of Police of Versailles with the hope that money will be an incentive to someone who knows something.   This is something I am willing to fight for forever.  In moving all over the world and having a life that defies normalcy, on all levels, I will share the only truth I have been able to claim. It is a concept I made a point of emphasizing to the last group of foster teens I gave a presentation to. I told them:   "You will walk through a lot of doors in your lifetime. Not all doors will have good things on the other side of them, but the only thing I know to be true is this: as long as you walk through each door with integrity -the best of who you are, good things will always eventually find you."   So I do not fight who I am. If I have to fall apart, I must, and I do. And it's okay. As long as I pull together so I can try to enter the next door with as much honor as I can manage. I try to approach each door with a newborn confidence like it's the first time all over again. It isn't as easy as it sounds. After all this time I have disembarked from the greatest journey of my life, having gained a soul I can never misplace.     I am honored to have you as a witness and participant to my journey. You are here, when you can be anywhere and that means a lot to me. So thank you. I love you.   -KEARIENE MUIZZ

This anonymous email, from  howyadoin~x~x~ @ ~blahblahblah~.com, reached one of the consultants and was forwarded on to me.  The MG Team was unanimous in their belief that I should share it with you. It was inspiring to have my artistic theory completely understood. So my sincerest thanks....whoever you are. Hello... Just wanted to send a note from a person that has taken respite in the home of those that have moved on to another journey.  Often, my friends may have thought me strange, for walking amongst the stories and stones that no one gave second thought. I often felt that each stone, and thus each person, had a story to tell. I thank you for giving them (the stones) more than just the exterior texture that the world can see. I thank you for giving them a voice that the world can finally hear.

THE MAN INSIDE THE NUMBER. The way he put it to me. He was was working his way out the number. Instead of having the number decided for him. He said people are defined by numbers: social security, swiss bank, prison, student id, 401k and atm digits imprinted on receipts. Even fortune is labeled by integers on lottery tickets. It was like he was the only one who could see the pattern. That we are always a number -numbers we respond to robotically whenever  we are called out at restaurant and DMV lines.  Well, he decided to choose his own number. A number that would always remind him of his significance as he viewed life from behind the lense like a silent witness recording the biographies of others. ...and I just liked the way that sounded.             307 / Divine  Continuous  Perfection / Faith and the continuous struggle to be ever-perfecting

3 Divine 0 Continuous 7 Perfection http://307productions.com