La Loba Life

Lessons from La Loba

2005-06-20T21:32:00.000-07:00

People often ask me who or what is La Loba and why did I name my agency this. I belive in a life of stories, either my own or others. I think these stories are the links the reveal our shared humanity. Story telling is one of the founding principles of my programs.
And La Loba is the story of them all.
Her hair white with wisdom and her face wrinkled with the history of many lives, La Loba walks the cracked expanse of the desert collecting bones of dead wolves. On the night of a full moon, La Loba carefully pieces the bones together on the desert floor. When the moon is at it highest point, she starts a fire and begins to sing. If the wind is blowing just right, you can hear the heavy sorrow of 10,000 mothers’ tears or the tinkling laughter of 100,000 happy children in her song. La Loba’s song has within it the vibrant music of life --- a song powerful enough to transform bones into living, breathing wolves that run and howl into the night. Legend has it that if you ever come face to face with a wolf in the desert and peer into its eyes, you will see La Loba dancing and singing by the fire. And if you ever happen to look into the eyes of La Loba, you will see the spirit of the wolves, running and howling in her.
The story of La Loba is rooted in the knowledge that a life/death/life cycle is as constant and steady as the earth spinning on its axis. This cycle helps us all live on through each other. Teaching the community the power of this cycle is the ultimate goal of the La Loba. When we learn to understand the stories of those who have passed on. We learn the power of our memories. When we learn the power of memories we learn to grieve. When we learn to grieve, with openess and honesty we learn to live. When we learn to live we have a life full of stories.

Dignity after Death, Isaiah Jackson's story

2005-06-20T21:25:00.000-07:00

By Cynthia Billhartz
Of the Post-Dispatch

If there is an afterlife, Isaiah "Fireball" Jackson is likely flashing a
snaggletoothed grin right now and feeling a smidgen proud.

The orphan-turned-convict-turned-artist, who was shipped around most of his
life like a box-car full of toxic waste, is finally getting a second chance at
proving, posthumously, that he was worth something after all. After 64 years of
hard, dismal living and a rapid decline to death, his dream of having his
artwork exhibited has come true.

On Friday, the Vaughn Cultural Center, which is part of the Urban League of
Metropolitan St. Louis in Grandel Square, began staging an exhibition of
Jackson's work. It will be on display through Oct. 31. His work will be
auctioned off on Oct. 29, and proceeds will benefit Project COPE, which helps
prisoners assimilate back into society.

Jackson, a once legendary baseball pitcher who squandered a chance to play in
the major leagues, learned of Vaughn's plans for the exhibit shortly before he
died of liver cancer earlier this year.

Kim Love, division operating officer at the Urban League, met Jackson only
once. But he was struck by how remorseful the quiet artist seemed.

"The one thing I remember is that he was very regretful that he had wasted so
much of his life," says Love. "He was looking to start a new life as an artist.
He kept saying he wanted to leave a legacy. It weighed on him real heavy."

Most of Jackson's paintings deal with either Western or Afro-centric subjects.

The Western ones include renderings of an American Eagle, an American Indian
and a still-life of cowboy gear. The Afro-centric art ranges from portraits to
surreal renderings with references to religion, slavery and prison. One
painting depicts the head of a black male wearing a crown of thorns and a small
key on his forehead. He is surrounded by pieces of chain-link fencing and hands
either in hand-cuffs or being pierced by spikes.

Thomas Sleet, a local artist who also works as a media developer at the
Missouri Historical Society, helped Love hang Jackson's pictures at the
cultural center.

Jackson's brush strokes display a certain naivete that reinforces the fact that
he was self-taught, Sleet says. But he's intrigued by Jackson's subject matter.

"The first impression is that they're the result of deep introspection," Sleet
says. "It seems to me that he uses his surreal imagery to illustrate certain
philosophies or conclusions he reached as a result of that introspection."

Love, who admits he's no art critic, is impressed by the quality of Jackson's
work. But more than that, he feels it speaks volumes about the human spirit.

"He had a rough life," Love says, "but there was something inspiring and
repenting despite the path he took."

A shaky start

The path Isaiah Jackson took through life is sketchy. Most of us have family
members who remember the continuity of our days and years. For Jackson, there
was no such thing. Friends he made along the way have pieced together snippets
from a few official documents, personal memories and the stories Jackson told.

They know for certain he was born on Jan. 17, 1940, in Osawatomie, Kan. But
Jackson always told people he was a New Year's baby.

When Linda Schroeder, executive director of Project COPE, got ahold of his
birth certificate late last year, she pointed out that he wasn't born on New
Year's.

"Oh, I know," the soft-spoken Jackson sheepishly told her. "It's just more fun
that way."

Jackson was the fourth of five children born to a preacher and his wife. When
Jackson was 3, his mother got tired of his father's abusive ways and walked out
on the family, Schroeder says. Soon after, his dad dumped Jackson and all but
one of his siblings in an orphanage. A younger brother went to live with a
relative.

Bill Clark, a retired major league baseball scout in Columbia, Mo., met Jackson
years later while volunteering in the prison system. He says Jackson ran away
from the orphanage and was sent to the State Industrial School for Boys at
Topeka where he stayed until he was 17. Upon release, Jackson hooked up with
his older brother, Moses.

"(Jackson) was out a matter of weeks when he and Moses were nailed on armed
robbery and got 10 to 21 years" in the Lansing State Prison in Kansas, Clark
says.

A blown chance

According to Schroeder, what happened in Lansing provided Jackson with the one
and only bright moment in his life and his first chance at redemption - a
chance he blew.

In the 1960s, she says, when the Department of Corrections wasn't so
overcrowded, it allowed outside people to come in and compete athletically with
prison teams. It was there that Jackson picked up a baseball, and within a few
years, had honed his pitching skills to the point where he'd become a legend
known as "Fireball" in baseball circles, both inside and outside prison.

Clark, who was a scout for the Pittsburgh Pirates at the time, heard about
"Fireball" Jackson and made arrangements to meet with him under the auspices of
coaching him in weight lifting.

"The warden wouldn't let scouts come in to see him," Clark says.

What the scout saw that day in prison was impressive. "Fireball," he says, had
an "above average major league fastball and unbelievable velocity that could
have beat the best semi-pros and ex-pros in the Midwest at the time." He also
remembers a quiet, sensitive man, who nonetheless bristled with confidence when
it came to pitching.

Jackson was eligible for parole, so Clark got him out in the fall of 1963, and
brought him first to Columbia, where Jackson painted apartments for the Housing
Authority.

"He had to learn to count money and how to buy things," Clark says. "We put him
in an apartment with a woman who fed him all his meals and basically was like a
mother to him, because he was like a child. He'd never faced the world. He had
no idea how to behave."

During this time, Jackson also began painting pictures and entered several
pieces in an art show sponsored by the Columbia Art League. Clark says they
were well-received.

Elizabeth Vega runs a nonprofit organization called La Loba Life Services that
helps dying people reach closure in their lives through writing. Vega worked
with Jackson during his final days, and he told her that, during one of his
stays in prison, he remembered his fourth grade art teacher handing out
pictures to color. But Jackson had an urge to do something different. So he
flipped the paper over and began drawing on the other side, unaware that the
teacher was standing over his shoulder watching. Instead of admonishing him for
going against her word, however, she told him, "Isaiah, someday you will be a
great artist."

In March 1964, Jackson left Columbia for spring training in Florida, then moved
on to pitch for the Reno Silver Sox of the Class A California League. His
record for the season was 7-10. The gambling Mecca was a place of overwhelming
temptation for a man with little discipline or street smarts.

"Here's a guy who had no contact with the real world for the first 24 years of
his life, now he's in Reno," Clark says. "Quite frankly, he had no chance. He
wound up within a few days of every payday with no money. Other players knew
when to quit. He didn't."

The Pirates had signed Jackson to a 10-year contract, but he skipped out on the
team three days before the season ended and took a bus back to Columbia. Bill
Clark gave him $20 and that's the last he saw of Jackson for years.

Jackson bought a pistol and robbed three taxis. He was arrested and sent back
to the state penitentiary in Lansing.

"Why he did that, I don't know," says Clark. "Maybe he felt like he couldn't
cope with the outside world."

Back in prison

According to the National Baseball Congress, Jackson was voted Most Popular
Player in 1965, 1966 and 1967 in the Kansas State Tournament even though he
threw for the Lansing State Penitentiary team. Earlier this year, he was
nominated for the organization's Hall of Fame.

When his time at Lansing was up and Jackson was paroled, he again committed a
burglary, this time in Missouri, and ended up in the Missouri State
Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Clark saw him there occasionally during the mid
'70s.

Upon finishing that term, he hooked up with his younger brother, Granville, who
had also recently been released from prison. Almost instantly, the two found
trouble - only this time, the consequences were worse than ever.

They were involved in either a burglary or a holdup in Kansas City during which
Granville was shot and killed, says Clark. He's not sure if the victim or the
police shot Granville, but Jackson was charged as an accessory to murder and
was returned to the state pen on a much longer sentence.

At some point during this stay, Jackson called Clark's wife, Dolores, and asked
her if she'd send him money to buy art supplies. She did.

He would tell Kim Love years later that he'd read numerous books on how to
paint and that he "had all the time in the world to practice." Sometimes he
also taught his fellow prisoners to paint.

The Clarks acted as Jackson's liaison to the outside world, helping him sell
paintings here and there for $40 or $100 each. Those he didn't sell, they
stored for him. Prison officials also entered several of his pieces in the
Missouri State Fair art show where he won several ribbons. Jackson and Dolores
Clark often talked about how he would establish himself as an artist once he
got out.

Soon, Jackson's confidence in his painting grew to the same level of hubris he
had in pitching baseballs. He often wouldn't sell pieces because he felt the
price being offered wasn't right.

"I'd say, 'Fireball,' you're not going to get it. You might as well sell 'em,'"
Bill Clark remembers. "He wanted $500."

Clark was amazed at how upbeat and optimistic "Fireball" was even when he was
denied parole over and over again. It was, no doubt, optimism fueled by the
notion that he'd one day be a successful artist.

A confident artist

About a year ago, Jackson was moved from the state pen to the St. Louis
Community Release Center - the first step in gaining parole. A former inmate
who knew Jackson put him in touch with Schroeder at Project COPE in St. Louis,
which provides transitional housing for prisoners as well as a team of mentors.

Schroeder was struck by two things when she met Jackson. First, was his
appearance. He looked gaunt and sickly with a mouthful of really bad teeth.

Second, she was struck by his confidence in his artistry.

"He sat here and told me how he was gong to make his fortune with his artwork
and I thought, 'Yeah I've heard that before,'" she says. "Many (ex-offenders)
have unrealistic dreams about how they're going to make their fortune and
conquer the world."

When Schroeder expressed her skepticism, Jackson's inmate friend backed him up.

"You've got to believe him, he's not exaggerating," he told her.

Schroeder was duly impressed upon seeing Jackson's work, but insisted he get a
paying job anyway. He reluctantly agreed and took a job cleaning offices in
Earth City. For that, Schroeder accepted him into Project COPE. She set Jackson
up in transitional housing and introduced him to a small team of mentors from
the St. Louis Mennonite Fellowship. They would become his advocates and closest
friends until he died.

One of them, Wes Boshart, who is also development director of Project COPE, was
forced to pause several times during a recent interview as he tried to suppress
tears over Jackson's death.

Since age 3, Jackson had lived outside an institution no more than two years.
So Boshart remembers how experientially deprived he was. Boshart and the others
had to teach him the simplest of tasks, like how to put on a seat belt. Jackson
once tried to converse with an answering machine. He was slow to realize that
it wasn't responding because it was a machine.

"And of course cell phones, the first time I handed him mine, I had dialed his
probation officer and, without thinking, I just handed it to him. He wasn't
able to deal with it at all," Boshart says.

Jackson was sometimes deeply embarrassed by his inability to deal with new
things.

He remained confident in his artistic abilities, however, and continued
painting and shopping his art around to local galleries. He also began looking
for a place where he could live on his own that had a studio.

Death comes quickly

Jackson started complaining about not feeling well. Schroeder referred him to a
number of free clinics, but he never went. Eventually, the once-robust
"Fireball" grew gaunt and weak, and couldn't clean offices anymore. His eyes
mysteriously turned yellow.

That's when Boshart and his fellow Mennonites stepped in. In early June, they
loaded Jackson in their car and took him to the Community Health in Partnership
Service, a free clinic for the uninsured. A nurse there scheduled a doctor's
appointment for Jackson the following week. He never went.

Within days of the missed appointment, Boshart drove Jackson to the
Barnes-Jewish Hospital emergency room. Doctors there told Jackson there was
nothing they could do for him; his Hepatitis C from years of drug use had
progressed into liver cancer. They told him that he had two months, at most, to
live.

Schroeder says Jackson took the diagnosis calmly. Doctors set him up with a
visiting nurse and a social worker and sent him home. Within a week or two,
Jackson's health had deteriorated to the point where BJC Hospice was called in.

Finally, on Monday, July 26, 2004, Project COPE and hospice workers decided to
check Jackson into Grand Manor nursing home.

Both Vega and Boshart spent a lot of time with him in the following days. They
surrounded him with his beloved artwork and Vega was finally able to deliver
good news: The Vaughn Cultural Center would hold a one-man exhibition of
Jackson's work.

On Friday, four days after entering Grand Manor, Boshart arrived to find the
artist in a semi-conscious state. His eyes were fixed in an unfocused stare,
and he wasn't speaking.

"I talked to him all day as if he was aware," Boshart recalls. "The only
response we got from him is, we'd ask if he could blink and he did."

Boshart reminisced with the dying artist about the time they'd spent together,
the things they'd done and the things they wanted to do but never got done.

And even though Jackson wasn't a religious person, Boshart talked to him about
seeing God and going onto another phase of life - a phase that could only be
better than the one he'd just passed through.

A few hours after Boshart left, during the early morning hours of Saturday,
July 31, 2004, Isaiah "Fireball" Jackson died.

What might have been

It's hard for those who knew Jackson to sum up his life.

Elizabeth Vega thinks he was an inspiration. His perseverance and efforts
toward redemption, she says, are the legacy he left us. "If a man in prison can
create this kind of visual beauty, how much more could we make out here in the
free world?" she asks.

Boshart has mixed feelings. He knows Jackson did bad things, and he doesn't
blame that on anyone else. But he also believes Jackson was dealt a shoddy life
and that he did the best he could.

"He didn't have a lot of opportunity, he didn't have much education, he didn't
have a family to speak of, and yet he was able to create and be creative way
more than I will ever be," Boshart says.

To this day, Bill Clark firmly believes Jackson was fundamentally a good
person. And he prefers to think about what Jackson's life could have been had
he been given a fair shake from the start.

"He probably would have been a major player in the world of men who might have
been," Clark says. "If he'd been born in the right place in society he probably
would have been a major league pitcher. And he probably would have been a major
league artist."

Reporter Cynthia Billhartz
E-mail: cbillhartz@post-dispatch.com
Phone: 314-340-8114

Accepting Death while Embracing Life

2005-04-13T13:11:00.000-07:00

Accepting Death While Embracing Life
By Elizabeth Vega

Hope is a fluid strength. It is capable of bending around obstacles and smoothing off the rock edges of extremes. In black and white arguments, hope is every other shade -- it is the colors within the complexity. So why then in the Terri Schiavo case are we choosing to focus our eyes on the black and white? Because it is simpler to stand on the edges, than walk and feel the power of dimension and breadth. It is easier for our politicians to argue for a single individual than for them, to implement compassionate thoughtful policy that will impact the population. It is easier to see an issue through the narrow lens of a single family instead of taking the time to understand how our community collectively approaches suffering, death and life.My abuelita used to say La Vida is joy and sorrow poured together into a single cup. Sometimes we can pick out the differences, but it can be an endless waste of time trying to discern where one begins and the other ends. For this reason it is best to let all La Vida has to offer simply wash over us. We can not individually or collectively choose to bypass our sorrow by beating death. We will never ever completely understand death, trying to exercise our power by clinging to the notion that we as a society can somehow define life and moreover define “quality of life” will not change this. There are no easy solutions. We as human beings are constructed of bones and muscles as well as minds and spirits. Medical science does not hold all the answers, and neither does religion, in the wake of the unknown our best navigation is often our hearts.
I know this from my own experience walking the tightrope between science and spirituality. In the days before my daughter’s birth an abnormal ultrasound flipped my world upside down. I scrambled to pick up pieces. For days, I listened to the parade of doctors who walked through my door. Each was armed with a case study. They would stand by my bed, clear their throat and say, “We saw a case just like this.” They then presented an ambiguous offering of information that usually brushed against the grain of the physician who had come before. One would say, “We put a shunt in and they were fine.” The other “case study” had “zero quality of life.” These physicians gave me lots of options, but while they spoke with authority they offered few certainties. I don’t blame them for not providing answers I just wish they had been more honest about the fact that there were some things they simply didn’t know.
In the fray of voices shouting about Terri Schiavo, I choose to hear the hushed tones of an operating room broken by my daughters cry-- a cry that came a full 20 minutes after she was pulled from my body. Confident that souls are endlessly wise we trusted our daughter to choose for herself. We had asked that she not be resuscitated. Our medical staff honored our wishes. I know it was difficult for them to step back. Then a miracle, Gabrielle went from blue and lifeless to literally coming to life in her father’s arms. She was content and sucking a bottle an hour later. More doctors with more bad news came 24 hours later. Gabrielle was born with a fast growing brain tumor. The part of her brain not destroyed by the tumor had been crushed by fluid. She technically had less than ¼ of her brain. According to doctors, she would have a non-stop reflex called a neurological cry. She would be in a vegetative state. Nevertheless options were offered. Surgery could be performed although it offered only a 5 percent chance of survival. Chemotherapy would mean there would be a 99 percent chance she would be completely brain dead. I found myself wondering just how I should play the numbers. It was like playing god with a blindfold on. I chose neither option. Instead, I put medical science aside for a moment. When in the dark your heart is a reliable compass.
The heart sees things the mind doesn’t. When I see the pictures of Terri Schiavo, staring into her mother’s eyes I am immediately taken back to the intensity of my daughters gaze. Only two days old Gabrielle would study my face. Our eyes would lock and something small and quiet was exchanged. Gabrielle had perfect hands. Her tiny feet were miniatures of my grandmother’s with the second toe stretching out past all the others. It was a sign of intelligence and continuity -- my grandmother had died just nine months before. Gabrielle clearly wasn’t perfect. Her head as my sons so astutely pointed out made her look like the cartoon character “The Brain.” I laughed at their honesty. Truthfully I never really noticed after the first time I held her. Gabrielle spent her life doing a lot of things she shouldn’t. She did not have a neurological cry instead she spent her waking hours quiet and alert, checking out the world. On her brothers’ suggestion, she tasted cotton candy. Only seven and five they were aware of the medicinal power of sugar. Gabrielle heard lullabies and poetry, smelled flowers and saw colors. Instead of waiting for death we chose to show her all life offered by bringing her magnolia blossoms. My daughter with only ¼ of her brain responded in kind. She used every ounce of spirit within her to reach up and touch my face. You see there is no accounting for the will of a soul and the affects of love can’t be categorized scientifically.
Like Terri Schivo parents I also had to fight. I fought Gabrielle’s doctors -- the very ones who told me she couldn’t be doing any of the things I saw her do. The ones that thought they were being kind by inserting reality in my hopes. The ones who passed off everything she did as reflex. I fought these same doctors so I could take my daughter home so she could die. It was a frustrating dichotomy. They urged me to let her stay in the hospital and argued that by pulling out her shunt she would die in days instead of months. I asked them pointedly just how she would die. They told me the shunt would cause an infection the fever would come next. She would become septic. I was persistent. What if we pulled out the shunt and let her die naturally at home? The tumor would cause pressure, the pressure would cause a stroke and she would drift off to sleep. Fate had put me in the wrenching position of choosing the best death for my child. I chose grace, gentleness, dignity and love. This decision meant I battled the doctors – the same ones who wouldn’t allow me the indulgences of hope -- just so I could bring Gabrielle home. I asked for hospice. My doctors cringed uncomfortably and offered me visiting nurses instead. I loudly demanded hospice. I knew intuitively that they were better equipped to offer support in dying - not just physical but spiritual and mental support as well. I argued for two days with my physicians. They were finally persuaded by this simple truth. If I as Gabrielle’s mother could accept that my daughter was dying then so could they. What the medical staff didn’t understand is that I could accept death while simultaneously embracing life-- one with quality and meaning. Only 25, I knew then that hope and reality are not mutually exclusive.Hope is what sustained me while I made numerous difficult choices for my daughter. I didn’t doubt for a single minute that she was going to die but my heart as well as my daughter’s response affirmed that life in the midst of dying is its own miracle.
As human beings we are naturally equipped to face death, but the joy of this is that we can live and celebrate right until the end. We can navigate sorrow and come out on the other side better and whole. I know this from experience as well. When my daughter died at 16 days old in her father’s arms, I grieved. My arms ached with the need to hold her. Was it hard? Yes. I suffered, cried and got genuinely mad at God. But eleven years later what remains are the gifts and lessons my daughter taught me. I touch these often, most recently on Monday when I witnessed the beauty of La Vida through the eyes of one of my dying patients.
Several weeks ago, I asked Barbara what she wanted to do with the time she had left. Her eyes glimmered with possibilities. “I would love to ride a horse one last time,” she said. I didn’t know if it was possible but I promised her I would try. While the Supreme Court grappled with the definition of life – I watched a woman who could barely walk hobble up a ramp so she could mount a horse. She had serious doubts whether she could do it, but hope kept her trying. I watched her relinquish control and give into trust. Volunteers and her family literally supported her while she sat down on the horses back. Her son gently guided her weaker leg over. Barbara sat up and realized she was on horseback. A triumphant, gleeful grin made its way across her face. In the tumultuous world of cancer and terminal illness, La Vida still offered wonderful surprises. Barbara rode for 45 minutes and during that time those present savored her healing – one that could not be defined within the lines and pages of a medical textbook. There are things we can’t imagine as we walk to death’s door but we have to allow our minds and hearts to journey there. As a society we need to stop talking about life and actually start living it. This bears with it a responsibility to also embrace death. We need to stop stashing death behind closed doors and in institutions and invite it into our homes. Instead of seeking technological miracles and holding on to them with all our might we need to accept that death is not defeat because as human beings we will most certainly die. When we refuse to engage our mortality, we misplace our compassion and humanity. When we hide from our broken hearts and the strength of all its pieces contained we forget our openness. If we chose only joy, we miss the beauty of complexity. If we cry only sorrowful tears we miss the joy streaming down our face. We flatten out our human experience by choosing a singular extreme. So instead of debating the politics of a feeding tube, let us choose to remember that as human beings we suffer pain, we become ill, we die. But we also hope, laugh, celebrate; we can know the joy of caring for one another, and the sorrow of walking them gently to the other side. Let us remember La Vida. When we do dying will become as much of an art as living. Then we all will be healed because it is only then that we truly reside in all our humanity.

2005-04-13T13:07:00.001-07:00

Feeding time

2005-04-13T13:07:00.000-07:00

Barbara enjoying her wish

Lessons from Isaiah

2005-04-13T11:36:00.000-07:00

I met Isaiah twice. Our first meeting occured five days before he died. His friends and social worker had shared a little bit about his life. I came to realize that he was one of those people who fell through the cracks of society and spent the rest of his life fighting his way back up. His mother abandoned his family at three. His father overwhelmed with the responsibility promptly dropped Isaiah and his brothers at the local orphanage and never looked back. He spent most of his life in one institution or another -- ophanages, juvenile detention and prison. After spending 25 years in prison he was ready to move forward with the one thing all his own -- his art. Cancer struck four months later.
My last moment with Isaiah occured the same day I gave him the news that his life long dream was about to come true. I showed him the date for his art show. Together we circled the date on his calender then we talked artist to artist. He showed me more of his sketches. I shared one of my poems with him. At that moment, death and dying took a backseat to living and sharing our mutal creativity. I took his hand and told him that had circumstances been different we would have been good friends. "But we're friends now," he said. I had to agree. My new friend died two days later. When I got the news I mourned his passing even though I had only known him for a few days. Intuitively however, I also know you are supposed to meet people when you are supposed to meet them. For this reason, when I think of Isaiah I think of a quote by William Baziotes. “Each painting has its own way of evolving...When the painting is finished, the subject reveals its’ self.” I was lucky enough to meet Isaiah at the twilight completion of his masterpiece, a life created from the ashes into art. Nevertheless, I have to admit I spent quite a lot of one on one time questioning God. For a moment I wallowed in the unfairness of Isaiah’s life and even got all filled up with self-pity because he wouldn’t be around for the art show we had scheduled. I mean how unfair is it to finally have a life which is your own only to have it cut short by cancer. I was a town crier for a bit. Then I settled. Isaiah knew his art would live beyond him. As I touched his legacy I thought about a story a wise and creative man told me.
There once was a boy who at the age of 10 had most everything stripped away from him. His mother left. His father left. He was alone in the world except for his creativity and imagination. Once the boy was given an assignment by his fourth grade teacher to color and stay in the lines of an image. The boy being independent and a bit stubborn didn’t follow the directions. Instead he flipped the page over and faced with the endless possibilities of a blank white page, began to draw. He was so immersed in his project he didn’t even notice his teacher standing behind him. The boy looked up and was startled. He was convinced he had once again done something really wrong. But instead his wise teacher commented on the lines, beauty and color. “Isaiah,” she said, “someday you will be a famous artist.” The boy never forgot those words. Neither did the man he grew into. Those words kept him company in his darkest hour behind prison bars and he picked up a paintbrush. The moment he touched paint to canvas he started to give birth to himself.
Yes, Isaiah’s life was marked with unfairness but it was also steeped in beauty—a beauty only he could see and that he had the courage to share with us all. I decided his life touched me for two reasons, in the midst of despair a tenacious hope and beauty prevailed. Kahlil Gibrand talks about how your sorrow carves you out for your joy. Isaiah spent a lot of time being carved out, but in the midst of his sorrow Isaiah became a deep cup, one overflowing with color, hope, beauty and the waters of resiliency; one which speaks of the power of creativity and imagination and our ability to push beyond our own bars and borders and evolve. Isaiah’s legacy is his art. The art that helped him survive. The art born at the intersection of sorrow and creativity, the art that now gives us permission to create and visualize as well. If a man behind bars can create and see beauty then how much more can the rest of us do? For this reason, Isaiah’s art lives on as an inspiration to us all to live our lives artistically, realizing the power we have to create every single day not just on a canvas but how we touch one another. We can plant seeds with our words. The fact that we cannot see the fruits of praise and encouragement doesn't diminish the power of the crop.

I also think that survival and art are not mutually exclusive. Life is art. Even behind bars Isaiah chose to live an artistic life, one where he allowed himself to evolve and change as much as the images on his canvas. One where mistakes were integrated instead of discarded or denied. One that unfolded taking each color as it comes, choosing a direction instead of destination. Michele Shea said, “Creativity is seeing something that doesn't exist already. You need to find out how you can bring it into being and that way be a playmate with God.”
Life is Art. Self-expression can be found on canvas, on a page, kind words or compassion. Art is one of the joys of being human and a space to create is essential to celebrating our humanity. It doesn’t matter if you are a woman or a man, a child or an adult. Everyone needs room to breathe life into their imaginations and a space to create their own reality--one that is far removed from the scrutiny of the world, where personal demons can be greeted and tamed, where angels can be entertained and minds can freely swim the waters of contemplation. Because it is here in this safe quiet, we touch divinity and for a moment hold in our palms the power to create and give birth to ourselves.

BJC Today article on Tributaries

2005-04-13T11:27:00.000-07:00

BJC TODAY
July 2003

Living on through art
Show to celebrate hospice patient’s lifelong love
By Karen Stewart
785 words

Jim Wells is dying. You can see it in the slow way he moves, in the way he leans on his cane, in the pallor of his face. But Jim Wells is alive and energized by the fulfillment of a lifelong dream - a showing of his art at one of St. Louis’ hottest galleries.

His dream is coming about through almost impossible circumstances, in a manner where you know it was meant to be. He happened to mention his lifelong passion – making art. The art gallery happened to have an opening. A hospice volunteer happened to have an interest in art and worked to put it together.

BJC Hospice volunteer Elizabeth Vega had been visiting with Wells, 59, for about a month. Vega had been working on his biography, which she gives to the patient and his or her family in a bound book as a memory project. During one interview, she discovered that Wells had always loved art, but had never had a show.

“I ask questions that make people think about their lives. Inevitably, there is a life task that was never completed,” Vega says.

“The idea of the show became a reality in less than a week. It was one of the most amazing brainstorming sessions I ever had. We decided to have a show at a gallery as a life celebration, but Jim didn’t think he had enough art. That’s when we thought of including Ashley’s work as well.”

Ashley, Well’s 15-year-old daughter, has always loved art. “If there is such thing as a hereditary gene in art, she has it. I’m thrilled we will be displayed at the same function,” Wells says.

Vega made some calls and found Mad Art Gallery, housed in a restored and converted 1930s art-deco police station in the Soulard area. Shows were booked until next spring, with one small window of opportunity. “The timing was uncanny,” Ron Buechele, gallery owner and St. Louis county police officer, says. “It made it really easy for us to say yes. This is the first time we have encountered being able to do this for someone as a last wish while time still remains.”

At their home, Wells and his wife Beverly are discussing whether or not to permanently part with any of the precious pieces. Each one is being evaluated as it is matted and framed as to whether they can bear to let it go. They decide there will be some pieces for sale.

They study a watercolor of a tree silhouetted along California’s coast that Wells painted while in high school, around the time that Time magazine named him one of the most promising young artists in the country. Empty hooks dangle on walls where other pieces already sent to the gallery used to hang.

Wells’ face lights up as he explains his art. He has always been independent, utilizing unusual materials and painting what he liked. He has been known to smear concrete on canvas to get the texture he was looking for. In the early days, he’d buy quarts of returned house paint and mix his own colors. He once carved a block of cedar his uncle had used to prop up his car.

As Vega enters the room, Wells pulls her into a hug, the two a contrast in heights, but their shared affection written on their faces. She brings out a book, a sample of the biographical project that started the idea for the show.

The idea for these books came from her background as a crime reporter for the Belleville News Democrat and her interviews with families dealing with tragedy. She faced her own experience with death in the 16 days her newborn daughter lived with a malignant brain tumor. Those experiences showed her how much life can be lived in the midst of dying. Her daughter’s time in hospice left Vega with memories of singing lullabies and introducing her to the sweet taste of cotton candy.

“When people walk away from the art show, it will make them go home and see their life in a different way. We are living now,” she says. “We create life day-to-day through our relationship with others. This is a show about how we live on through each other, through several generations.”

Wells looks away as he gathers his thoughts. “They tell me I am dying, but I’m not dying yet,” he explains. “One life is coming to an end, but this will demonstrate that the art still goes on.”

Sidebar:

Tributaries: A Legacy Flowing Beyond Rivers
The works of Jim and Ashley Wells
6-10 pm
Friday, July 11
Mad Art Gallery
2727 S. 12 St.
Admission: Free

For more information, visit www.madart.com

Tributaries News Story

2005-04-13T11:22:00.000-07:00

This is the news article about the Tributaries exhibit.

An indelible memoryBy Lorraine KeePost-Dispatch07/10/2003

Jim Wells is a father facing his own mortality through a long struggles with cancer. Through his art he is proud to celebrate a crative connection with his daughter, Ashley.(Kevin Manning/P-D)

"The only thing you take with you when you're gone is what you leave behind." - John Allston, on an invitation to the art show "Tributaries."

J. Reginald "Jim" Wells, 59, is dying from colon cancer. Whatever time he has left, Wells wants to spend a large part of it with his teenage daughter Ashley. On Friday, the show "Tributaries: A Legacy That Will Keep Flowing" at the Mad Art Gallery will celebrate their mutual love of art. The art show features Jim and Ashley Wells' artwork and celebrates their "creative connection" - before long to be broken physically though not spiritually. "It's really nothing to dance around," Jim Wells said recently of his losing battle with cancer. Wells sat back against the L-shaped couch in the living room of the comfortable Chesterfield home he shares with his wife Beverly and their daughter, 15. Around the house, some artwork leaned against walls or furniture waiting to be packed off to the Mad Art Gallery. He'd taken a break midway through an interview to rest for a few minutes, but he was back, gamely fighting off a rapid surge in his body temperature. He pressed a cold compress against his side, where the tumor's ragged edges poked against his skin. Wells' shirt and full beard hide the 40 or so pounds he has lost since being diagnosed with cancer three years go. He has outlasted his original prognosis of only months to live, but he's now exhausted all treatment options. The bad periods outnumber the good ones these days. Wells is usually robust of mind, thought and spirit, but his body is angular, thin and frail. "Last year, at Christmas, I didn't know if it would be my last Christmas," he said. A patient in BJC's Hospice program, Jim Wells is living out the rest of his life with as much dignity as he can. Friday's show will help accomplish that. A volunteer in the hospice program helped arrange it. The show will be a personal milestone for Wells. He earned a good living in sales for the Joseph C. Sansone Co., but he loved expressing himself through art. He's never had a show. But that's not why Wells is doing it. "Can you imagine what it will mean to Ashley when she's older?" said Wells, a lifelong artist. "Can you think how powerful this will be?" Conflicting emotions The bonds uniting father, mother and daughter run deep. They'd been established 15 years ago at Ashley's birth. She'd spent two weeks in a hospital neonatal intensive care unit and when she recovered, they dubbed her the "miracle baby." One of her two middle names, "Golden," turned out to be not only a testament to family ties - it's her mother's maiden name - but also a reflection of how preciously her parents' saw her birth. Fifteen years later, the connection is stronger still. It has been a hard and confusing time, said Ashley, who is composed and thoughtful. She remembers when things were different, when her father was well. Jim Wells used to travel a lot when he was working. Often he was gone all week but almost always made it home on the weekends. He'd usually bring her a gift - a stuffed animal - upon his return. She has loved having him around the house more since he's been ill. At the same time, it has been painful for her to see him in so much pain. She is coming to terms with his impending death, but she is conflicted. "It's not wanting him to go away," Ashley said, "but also not wanting him to be in any more pain." Beverly Wells has similarly mixed emotions. She and Jim Wells met in 1979. It wasn't love at first sight but close. Within 2 hours and 45 minutes, Jim Wells said, they were enamored. Sometimes, Beverly said, she cries tears of sadness. Sometimes, she is "angry about the whole situation." Other times, she is grateful that the family has been able "to spend time together and relive memories." "The people at hospice have been really wonderful people," Beverly Wells said. She's excited about the show. Living legacy The show was the brainstorm of freelance writer Elizabeth Vega. Vega is a volunteer with BJC Hospice, a program that attends to the "emotional and spiritual" needs of the terminally ill and their family. "Jim has always wanted to have an art exhibition," Vega said. "Naturally, he thought he'd have time to do it." Vega called a few galleries, including the Mad Art Gallery, a contemporary art gallery located in a former art-deco police station in Soulard. Ron Buechele, an artist and Mad Art Gallery's owner, said he was surprised and moved by Wells' request. A petition, like theirs, doesn't come every day to a gallery. The Wellses got Buechele to thinking. "How would I act if I was in that position?" Buechele said. "What would be important to me? What would I want to leave behind?" He agreed to help, shoehorning their show between engagements at the busy gallery. Artistic ties that bind Altogether "Tributaries" has 29 pieces: Fifteen of them will be his, 14 hers. All of the pieces reflect stages of their lives. There's a piece by Ashley of a bird flying toward a nest containing eggs. She drew it when she was in second grade. There's another piece she drew in pencil of a child's wooden whale toy, a lacrosse racket and an art figure. She graduated to a scratchboard portrait of a dog being called by a little boy and an abstract in blues and lavenders with rays in red, orange and yellow. When Ashley was 3 or so, Jim Wells recalled, she'd be underfoot while he tried to paint. He bought her a set of her own paints. A few years later, the family got a call from a fast-food restaurant owner. She'd won a coloring contest. All the other kids had colored their drawing in pinks and reds and whites because it was Valentine's Day, but not Ashley, who had done her character with green hair, Jim Wells said. For that she earned a gold ribbon and a couple of kid's meals. "I could tell she had some talent, some real talent," the proud father said. Much of his work is done in an abstract expressionist style. Some pieces he did when he was just 16. There is a later portrait of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, a hugging mass of arms and legs. Another lovely portrait shows his wife called "Rose" dolled up in a red hat. There is a portrait of four jazz musicians called "Foreplay Blues" and a piece reflecting New Orleans' night life called "Grapes by Chiquita." Father and daughter like creating collages and giving their work a "tactile" effect. Jim Wells, who won a national art award when he was a teenager, talks of loving the act of creating art, of "wanting to get out of me that which I need to release." Ashley, who will be a sophomore at Parkway Central High School in the fall, is thinking about becoming a doctor someday because she likes helping people. But she also feels deeply about her art "because it gives me something to do. I like creative stuff. It's always something I've been good at." Ashley's looking forward to the show, mostly. She's a bit nervous. "It'll be interesting," she said. "I think it's special that we're having a show together. I will definitely remember it." What: "Tributaries: A Legacy That Will Keep Flowing" When: 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. Friday Where: Mad Art Gallery, 2727 South 12th Street in Soulard How much: Free Information: 314-771-8230

CUPS (A poem about navigating sorrow)

2005-04-13T11:21:00.000-07:00

CUPS
By Elizabeth Vega

I once tried
pouring rivers into cups
a coupe de ta
over being carved out
by this absence of you
that had me conducting
revolutions on riverbanks,
vigilantly plucking out bitter roots
in the spaces you once roamed.
All the while searching
for buckets and bowls
To tame a torrent
Till I was soaked in this truth
I will always love you.
The answer lied not in resistance
But innovation
I would become a structural alchemist
Mixing essence and space
create a broken heart
with all our pieces contained
Wide enough to hold
your kisses
our passion
my disappointment
over this messy unfinished love
strong enough to recapture
this phoenix that hatched in my chest,
broke me open
flew away
leaving me
on muddy banks
fending off rivers
with useless tools.
But it is simply impossible
to fit two hearts in single box,
Or to hold nature back with your palm
weary and battered
I found strength in surrender
let myself
get swept away by this sorrow
pulled under by this powerful vulnerability
And I do not drown
No, I do not drown.
It is here immersed in the
Quiet void of you
I take my first separate breaths
untangle them from yours
still taste the nights
they danced
became
one heart
one mind
one soul intertwined.
It is here
I rush forward
carving a new path
Overflowing
with life’s abundant elements
joy and sorrow
loving and losing
I entertain them all
all my beginnings crashing into endings
until I become
I become river
immense like universe
unconstrained and free.

The healing power of art

2005-04-13T11:14:00.000-07:00

The Healing power of Art

The bad deaths still prowl my memory. The bedridden incoherent 89-year-old man subjected to another heart surgery because his family and his doctor couldn’t let go, spent his final days in extreme pain only to die alone. John was shunned by his family and his nurses because he had AIDS. In his last hour I tore off my gloves and mask. I wanted to hold his hand, skin to skin because no one should be walked to death’s door through a latex glove. I was only 20 but I remember thinking something about the way we institutionalized death was all wrong.
Death has become impersonalized in the move from home to hospital. The personal bonds of family and other societal connections that once supported this most basic human process have eroded. We fear facing death alone and have pushed it into back rooms and behind closed doors. In doing so, we lost important lessons. We misplaced our compassion and humanity, forgot our openness because we refuse to feel our broken hearts and the strength of all its pieces contained. Art is the way in which we retrieve all this because it presents a non-threatening way for people and communities to feel first and process later. A hospice patient may be resistant to reviewing her life with a chaplain or social worker but will easily open up for the purpose of a written biography that will be a legacy passed onto family. A community may squirm uncomfortably at the mention of death and dying, but embrace it when it is presented on a page, canvas, or framed in an artistic life celebration.
I have witnessed the results first hand through the Tributaries Art opening. During an interview for his bio, Jim Wells expressed regret he had never had an art show. Our conversation quickly turned into a ten-minute brainstorming session. Our mutual creativity danced and a joint art show for Jim and his 15-year-old daughter Ashley was the result. Neither of us completely understood what a profound affect this new memory would have on the St. Louis community until we watched literally hundreds of people fill the room and at every turn new stories birthed. A couple from North Carolina heard about the show while passing through. They stood in line for an hour so they could tell Jim how his courage and love for his daughter inspired them to tell their children how much they loved them. A doctor who attended the show said it completely shifted her ideas about healing. Jim’s family and friends literally laughed and cried their way through a difficult goodbye, all while truly celebrating a life. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch nominated the Tributaries exhibit as one of the most meaningful stories of 2003. All of this was generated by the simple act of sitting down with someone and giving them the time and space to tell their story. Amazing, until I think about a moment I had right before the show.
Ron Buechele, the owner of Mad Art Gallery donated time and space. We were pounding nails, rearranging frames and canvas to carry the eye from one painting to the other. In unexpected synchronicity we both found ourselves in the center of the room silently absorbing what was before us. This was more than just art. This was an intersection of lives-- the artistic outline of a father and a daughter and the colors of continuity. We stood side by side complex tears of sorrow and joy flowing down our faces. This was life at its barest essence and we were links in its chain. The moment soared of both humility and power. We felt connected to something outside of ourselves-- something that didn’t demand we surrender our individuality but still honored our collective humanness. Ron talked about his father’s death. I talked about my daughter’s 16 days of life, marveled at the impact she had on me and now so many others. A full circle of memories and people came together. We created community -- one feeling the impact and learning the power of all its endings crashing into its beginnings.