Asking a favor - for eight year old Natalie

Announcement from the family of someone I dated in college and still care about very much…his niece has cancer and needs help. Please spread the word via Facebook, Twitter, LiveJournal, etc.

Natalie is 8 years old. She has a little brother, Sean, and lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

After five difficult rounds of chemotherapy last year, Natalie’s leukemia was in remission. Now it’s back and we have just weeks to find the bone marrow donor match that Natalie needs to save her life.

Natalie’s greatest chance for a match is from those of ASIAN descent. Please help us spread the word through the Asian community.

http://www.hopefornatalie.com

To register as a potential bone marrow donor…I just did this - (free and easy, cheek swab test, kit mailed to your home and you send the swabs back in a prepaid envelope, only 1 in 200 donors will ever go through the simple outpatient procedure to give marrow to save a life) go here: http://www.dkmsamericas.org

San Francisco Art Institute winter classes

Highly recommended - Stephen Wagner’s an excellent speaker and very knowledgeable, and each of these classes represents a networking opportunity in itself. Great for photographers, painters, graphic designers - any type of art…or for art writers and publicists.

If you’re not in the SF Bay Area (sorry for all the local announcements recently) perhaps email the event organizers and have them send information and notes your way for a PayPal contribution.

SAN FRANCISCO ARTIST NETWORK Programs for Winter 2O1O:

 Wednesday, February 10th, 7-9PM

“FOUNDATION:  Setting Your Intention & Strategy” 
- Making a commitment to your artwork, understanding your motivation, obtaining focus, making a game plan, with Stephen C. Wagner

 Wednesday, February 24th, 7-9PM

“SOCIAL BUTTERFLY:  Social Networking for Artists”

- Learn to successfully market yourself and your artwork on-line, with strategies, tips & suggestions from those who have mastered the art of social networking & on-line marketing, using e-mail, e-newsletters, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr and other on-line sites & tools - with GUEST SPEAKERS:  Tim Aldridge, Megan Wolfe, Mike Yochum

 Wednesday, March 10th, 7-9PM

“ORGANIZATION:  Developing Your Body of Work”

- Developing themes, creating series, titles, pricing, framing, managing your inventory, with Stephen C. Wagner 

Wednesday, March 24th, 7-9PM

THE JURY IS IN:  Entering Juried Art Shows”

 - Learn about juried shows, how to decide which ones to enter, tips to give you an advantage, how to manage your entries - with GUEST SPEAKER:  Priscilla Otani

Wednesday, April 14th, 7-9PM

“PRESENTATION: Preparing Your Artist Packet” 
- Written materials including artist statement & bio, documentation of your artwork, formats for your packet or portfolio, with Stephen C. Wagner

 Wednesday, April 28th, 7-9PM       

“RISE ABOVE THE CROWD: Presenting Yourself as a Professional Artist”

- Insight from local art gallery professionals on what galleries are looking for and how to approach them - with GUEST SPEAKERS from local art galleries

 ADMISSION:  $20 each lecture

ENROLLMENT:  admission at the door

at ARC STUDIOS & GALLERY

1246 Folsom Street, San Francisco

www.SFArtistNetwork.org

follow SFANART at:  http://twitter.com  and  www.facebook.com/SFANART

Volunteer opportunities for contributors and readers

These are some volunteer opportunities for contributors and everyone else which involve writing, reading, and music and other arts - great for resume-building and references, and also a chance to use artistic and writing skills for others’ benefit. Synchronized Chaos is all about networking and mentorship, so here are some mentorship opportunities! And, come on, singing with preschoolers is just plain fun!

Yes, I know this list is a bit Bay Area-centric…but many of these organizations have chapters in other states and countries, and schools in many countries would love volunteers and reading/writing and art mentors. This is just encouragement from the editors of Synchronized Chaos to find a program where you are to share your skills with children, students, or up and coming people in your field of any age.

Please feel free to comment if you are, or plan to start, mentoring - either informally or through a program such as these, and we’ll give you publicity and a shout-out in our magazine! Also, there are plenty of writers, artists, etc right here in our Synchronized Chaos community who’d love mentors - if you’d like to work with someone over email as time allows, please let me know and I’ll drop some folks’ names and contact info your way. Maybe you have some work up in a gallery or some stories published in an anthology and you’d like to give some feedback on a beginning artist’s work…please let us know, we will give you extra publicity in our pages for your service to the community and to the artistic fields.

East Bay Agency for Children - Sequoia Healthy Start. Help with after-school program and enrichment activities, 1 hour a week. Contact Reka Lal, reka@ebac.org

East Bay Agency for Children - Hawthorne Family Resource Center. Seeking Spanish speakers, a few hours a month to work with students and prepare for special events. Reach Allison Delgado, allison@ebac.org

Experience Corps Oakland, 55+ years old folks sought to mentor kids one on one or in small groups with reading and homework. 2hrs a week. Reach David Moren, dmoren@aspiranet.org

Lafayette School Mentoring Project - Get trained in language arts or math tutoring, then help in classrooms. 1.5 hours a week, includes evening sessions. Reach Jessica Bilksy, lsmptutor@yahoo.com

Oakland Parents Literacy Project - Help promote parental involvement and literacy, through Family Reading Nights. 2-3 hours, Wed/evening events. Denise Geer, dlgeer@comcast.net

Oakland Public Library’s Books for Wider Horizons. Receive training, and then read and sing with preschoolers through Head Start or Child Development programs. 1-2 hours a week. Reach Chris Waller, kwaller@oaklandlibrary.org

Reading Partners. Receive training, and tutor a student struggling with reading. 1 hour a week, with semester commitment. Reach Salleha Chaudhry, volunteer@readingpartners.org

Super Stars Literacy - Help disadvantaged K-2 students with their reading. Also accompany them on weekend field trips, 3 days a week for three weeks, and/or 4-5 hours Saturday. Reach Erin Drake or Jessica Berry, erin@superstarsliteracy.org, jessica@superstarsliteracy.org

Brothers on the Rise - Help set up and develop this organization. Looking for men to speak for the Speakers Series, for Fruitvale boys from 8-14 years old. Contact John Gilgoff, info@brothersontherise.org

Faith Network of the East Bay - Training provided, serve as a reading tutor or library assistant, or math tutor, or classroom assistant. Reach Randy Roth at randy@faith-network.com, or Rebecca Buckley at rebecca@faith-network.com

Oakland Unified School District Library - work in the school library, a few hours a week. Ann Gallagher, ann.gallagher@ousd.k12.ca.us

AVID - Help middle and high schoolers to prepare for college, using this socratic curriculum. 1-2 hours a week. Reach Robert Wack, elrwack@aol.com

BUILD - Work together with another person to lead a small group of high schoolers in developing and starting their own business. 1-5 hours a week. Reach Hillary Fernandes at hillary@build.org

Be a Mentor - Training provided, mentor kids socially and academically. 1 hour a week. Reach Ryan Gray, rgray@beamentor.org

WriterCoach Connection - Community Alliance for Learning. Training provided, work one on one with teens on their writing assignments. 1-2 hours a week, 2-4 weeks a month. Reach Lynn Mueller, writercoachconnect@yahoo.com

Oakland Schools Volunteer Office - Ask about a program not listed, such as art or music or science, or a specific school. Reach Risha Riley - rishariley@ousd.k12.ca.us or call 510-434-7765.

Published books from Cynthia Lamanna and Jaylan Salman!

One of our contributors, the Egyptian poet and aspiring novelist Jaylan Salman, has a book published by the MediTheater foundation - a collection of poetry entitled Angel of Darkness. Highly recommended, 47 pp., reasonable price. Jaylan pulls off wonderful work with imagery to express themes such as women’s worldwide quest for independence, international cultural interchange, and awareness/celebration of every moment. We’ve published several selections of her poetry, please feel free to search her name from the front page.

Link to Jaylan’s new book, for online orders: http://meditheatre.wordpress.com/2010/01/27/angel-of-darkness/

Just click the image of the book to order - PayPal and credit cards accepted, $3.33 in euros, $4.75 USD. The page is in Italian but you may enter your PayPal password and user ID as you would with any other page.

Also, Cynthia Lamanna, who sends in descriptive essays and short stories every now and then, has a children’s story out now with X-Libris, entitled Miriam’s Treasure. The book concerns a friendship between two elementary school girls, one Catholic and one Jewish, and how they learn about each other’s traditions. I believe it takes place several decades ago, in California.

Fifty pages, $15.99 in USD. Here’s the link: https://www2.xlibris.com/bookstore/bookdisplay.aspx?bookid=68275

Editor-in-chief here, offering to trade original poetry for donations to a contributor who’s now homeless

Hi, I’m Cristina Deptula, editor-in-chief of Synchronized Chaos Magazine (www.synchchaos.com) and I’m personally offering to send a piece of original poetry to anyone who sends a donation of any amount to the working, but homeless, mother and daughter mentioned in this blog (and all over the news last year.) http://my.lettersoflove.net/lettersforkaty/

I know the family personally and have built a relationship with them over time, as have many others - and they have been diligently job-searching and writing, and I’d like to see them get a break. You may check out the 17-year old daughter’s writing and graphic design here: destinationanywherebuthere.blogspot.com. Their PayPal account is down due to a mixup - so we’re collecting prepaid Visa and MasterCards.

You can mail Visa and MasterCard gift cards to:

Elizabeth and Katy Hughes
PO Box 111525
Campbell, CA 95011

They apparently now have a mentor and a lead on housing and a job, but that’s in Pennsylvania (across the United States from where they are now, in California) and they need to come up with cash for the move.
Please let me know you donated, at cedeptula@sbcglobal.net, and I’ll send you a poem!

UC Davis’ Whole Earth Festival seeks poster designs

Kate Leffler exhibits work in Emeryville, group show

bakery2010poster1

Kate Leffler, artist and bullfighter featured in October’s issue, will show some of her latest work in a group show, Sunday, January 31st, from 11 am to 6pm (drop-in) at the Bakery Lofts, 4600 Adeline Street, Emeryville. Check out the flyer above to see some examples of her work and of her fellow exhibiting artists!

Opportunities for writers: prose from economists, social media mentorship, donate visual art/live music for a good cause!

First of all - Robert Burns Nixon Jr., a business consultant with RGG Global Business Networks, is compiling and publishing an anthology of essays, short stories, and poetry related to economics/business/finance and related fields. He’s looking for writing from economics professionals, and will send guidelines to anyone who contacts him at werkstattedirectorysubmission@gmail.com

Also, Kathryn Salvador, interior designer and milliner/hatmaker, seeks a mentor and publicist skilled with social media and blogging. She’ll trade her professional services and/or write a letter of recommendation or serve as a reference for you in exchange - please contact her at bohemiainteriors@sbcglobal.net

Jacquelyn Neubaur is co-organizing the Social Awareness Fashion Film Festival, where emerging filmmakers will present documentaries they have produced which raise awareness concerning various social and ecological issues local to San Francisco. The event hopes to raise funds for local grassroots organizations and to provide exposure for the emerging documentarians.

They’re expecting the event to take place sometime this coming October and have put out the call for volunteer musicians who would like to perform live, artists who’d like to send prints of their work for possible display, fashion designers and models, etc. Goal is to draw folks in with all types of entertainment, then get them to watch the videos, learn about social issues, and then donate/volunteer for worthy local causes.

Neubaur’s group eventually wants to broaden their focus to encompass the rest of the world, but is starting small and just working with San Francisco right now. They’re also interested in hearing from grassroots groups in SF which are addressing local issues, and possibly from filmmakers, although Neubaur has connections in the film industry.

If you’re interested in offering art/music/fashion design services or you’re with a local SF nonprofit, please contact Jacquelyn Neubaur at jacquelynneubaur@gmail.com

San Jose paint-in and live sale for Haiti relief, all welcome! Come to paint and sell, come to view and purchase!

Friday, January 29th, South First Street Billiards, 420 First Street, San Jose, CA. If you would like to paint, please bring your own canvas and paints and arrive at 7:30 - for everyone else, this 21+ event starts at eight!

Live Music, Live Painting, Live Relief!

February’s Synchronized Chaos: (Re) Incarnation

Hello, and welcome to February’s issue of Synchronized Chaos! This month the theme is incarnation, or re-incarnation: personalizing, embodying, entering into another’s life and experience.

Victory-Girl, a company creating vintage military-history and airplane nosecone art, helps pilots, history buffs, and others to personalize and develop a relationship with their planes. As with American art-car and classic-car culture, the planes (or jackets, bags, etc) which Victory Girl adorns become more than transportation machines, but almost living beings, interacting with the pilots.

Cynthia Lamanna’s elegant piece on Valentine’s Day and the month of February brings older-style vintage writing and a nostalgic conception of the holiday back into today’s consciousness. Return of the spring to the Northern Hemisphere represents a form of physical re-incarnation, re-inhabiting the Earth after a long colder winter.

Frank Allred’s new film Beat Angel presents the physical reincarnation of Jack Kerouac, come back to inspire a crowd at a poetry slam. Yet, through the imagery and dialogue, the movie brings his resurrection beyond a mere fantastical thought experiment and shows how it illustrates and symbolizes the larger process of creative people’s building off of each other’s work over time.

Owen Geronimo also describes the cumulative process of artistic influence during our interview with him concerning factors contributing to San Francisco’s fashion resurgence. He speaks of San Francisco’s cultural mystique over the centuries as a place of innovation and discovery - from the Gold Rush to the hippie to the information-technology days. Still, for Geronimo and others within the San Francisco Fashion and Merchants’ Alliance, style can be affected by where one lives, but ultimately becomes a matter of personal confidence and choice.

Empathy also involves individual choice, and represents one of the best ways we here on Earth can actually enter into another’s situation and state of mind. Tony Long illustrates what happens when people choose against empathy, or simply stay so preoccupied with themselves that they don’t use their capacity to understand others, in his humorous short piece “Leaving So Soon?” In contrast, Patsy Ledbetter illustrates empathy in action during her vignettes: imagining herself in the place of a homeless woman, which brings her to a place of gratitude, and sharing health information with others.

Empathy represents an intellectual and emotional challenge and can bring great rewards during our social interactions - yet becomes a difficult task in modern city life, when we are surrounded by literally thousands of very different people. Connie Noyes illustrates these feelings through her mixed-media collages, where various colors and materials blend into one another throughout the collection, entitled, “Human Steps.” Yet, Noyes finds beauty and poetry in the assortment of imperfect interactions - and uses ordinary materials, even ‘garbage’ about to be thrown away, to constitute her collections. Perhaps, to Noyes, ordinary people, like ordinary materials, can find the strength and heart to attempt empathy, and thus ‘incarnate’ themselves temporarily as someone else.

Richard Ghia-Wilberforce and Noel Dawkins philosophically explore the experience of multiple minds within one body, whether and how the human mind and brain can generate multiple, distinct individuals. Rather than describing this phenomenon as a mental illness, they examine a different way which some people experience ‘incarnation,’ or sentience, consciousness, the capacity for self-reflection. Finn Gardiner’s poetry mimics the rhythm of conversation, presenting a cafe as a unit of social organization, an organism in itself, coming into being through simultaneous, spontaneous interactions. Separate-bodied humans make up the cafe, but the piece echoes Ghia-Wilberforce and Dawkins’ ideas about what constitutes consciousness and existence, in a more poetic, abstract format.

David Selsky attempts to set up a self-organizing system through his photography, snapping spontaneous scenes which attract his eye. To Selsky, intentionally ‘composing’ a picture might actually detract from what is really happening subconsciously behind the scenes. As with Gardiner’s self-organizing cafe, the theme comes into being without conscious direction - yet, merely because Selsky does not define the collection’s theme or even know what it is beforehand, he does not turn towards nihilism and assume that no unifying theme can, or does, exist.

Perhaps the search for meaning can itself become a source of meaning, can represent our current best efforts towards finding whatever is out there. Through that search, we, like the Beat writers, can leave ideas behind which become ‘reincarnated’ philosophically into subsequent generations, who then continue and proceed with our search.

Please feel free to search for meaning within the posts of this month’s issue of Synchronized Chaos - Happy Valentine’s Day to those who celebrate.