Showing posts with label artist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label artist. Show all posts

Girl ignores homeless man to pose for a photo, causes a worldwide stir - www.houseless.org




Image: Rich Michalowski/Facebook

Tourist selfie taken in Los Angeles sparks debate about homelessness and empathy


A picture of a young woman posing in front of a mural on Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, has gone viral, not only for what it does show, but also for what it doesn't — empathy. 

The image that is getting Internet users so riled up was taken by estate agent and Silver Lake resident Rich Michalowski, who posted it to his Facebook page on Sunday with the caption, "Really?"
It shows the woman getting her photo taken by a companion, with her hands outstretched and a beaming smile on her face, in front of the mural by artist and author Dallas Clayton, which invites people to "stand here and think about someone you love." Also in the shot, lying at her feet, is a homeless man.
Really?
Posted by Rich Michalowski on Sunday, 6 March 2016
Whoever she was thinking about it wasn't the man on the ground behind her.

"The photographer was directing the woman on where to stand, how to pose and suggested she take off her jacket," Michalowski told website TakePart. "At one point the photographer directed her to move closer to the homeless man so she could center the photo. They were still at it when I drove away. [sic]"


Most people have condemned the two women for taking the photo.

"There's a certain amount of irony involved in posing for a warm fuzzy picture while trying not to stand on a homeless man's head," wrote Patrick Morris on Facebook.

However some have defended the women. "When there is a homeless man in front of the grocery store camped out asking you for money… most people still walk right by and do their shopping… so I am not going to be pissed at these girls for wanting an instagram photo," wrote Crystal White-VanCleemput.

The artist Dallas Clayton told TakePart that he "felt sorry for everyone involved" when he saw the picture.

"It's unfortunate that any person would have to sleep on the street. It's unfortunate that someone could be so disconnected that they would step over someone to take a photograph and also it's unfortunate that the spectacle of documenting this is easier to discuss and comment on than the root issue is to solve," he wrote in an email to the website.

Clayton also made an important point about how society as a whole treats the homeless. "I think a lot of people want to judge others when they are in situations like this — make comments like 'this is what's wrong with the world,' but I don't assume the girls in the photo are cruel or terrible people who hate the homeless or think themselves better," he wrote. "I just imagine there to be a disconnect, likely a systemic disconnect that allows someone to move through the day like that."

This photo many have been taken in L.A. but homelessness is an issue across the world. Think about how many homeless people you see on the streets of every U.K. city. Will Michalowski's image make you think twice about ignoring them?

"If it takes this photograph for you to realise [sic] that [a disparity between the haves and the have nots exists] I don't imagine you've been paying attention to society as a whole for the past fifty or sixty years," Clayton wrote on his Facebook page. He also announced that he would be giving 100 percent of the proceeds from a new range of illustrations to an organisation that helps the homeless.



Lest we not forget!


Sisters of the Road stores decades of art made by homeless (Pics) - www.Houseless.org



Via
By Sara Hottman, The Oregonian 
 
Brenda Morgan, development co-manager for Northwest Portland's Sisters of the Road, holds an ink drawing done by a homeless man who draws to help him through painful heroin comedowns. Sisters has a storage space in Northwest Portland full of artwork done by homeless people who have used their services for more than three decades.
Sara Hottman, The Oregonian
To get through painful comedowns following highs, the heroin addict draws -- bright colors and strong lines with a sure hand, creating beautiful surrealist images. 

He's about 50 and has lived on the street for a long time. His drawings are being stored with scores of others, some dating back decades, in a Sisters of the Road storage space in Northwest Portland.
"Imagine a person, hurting enough to be an addict, reaching inside to extract such beauty from himself," mused Brenda Morgan, development co-manager for Sisters of the Road, as she examined one of his pieces. 

He's still on the street, still struggling with addiction. But the art supplies Sisters and other organizations have long provided are an escape for him and others living on the street. Soon some of their art will be on display, during the organization's first Journeys Art Festival in May. 

"Art is healing for folks," says Jeannie Lawyer, who used Sisters' programs while she was homeless for many years. "It's nice to go inside, get warm, and forget." 

Now Lawyer has an apartment and co-manages the cafe at Sisters of the Road, which has offered a cafe and programs for Portland's homeless since 1979. 

In her spare time Lawyer is tracking down the stories behind the artwork in the storage closet; some dates back to Sisters' founding. The background stories will accompany the selection of the artwork to be displayed at the Journeys Art Festival fundraiser. Morgan hopes to find funding to someday make the pieces and their back stories a traveling exhibition. 

Lawyer knows many of the artists and their stories first-hand, from when she was homeless. 

Jeannie Lawyer was sitting beside the artist at the Sisters cafe counter in the early 2000s while he drew Sarge sleeping on the sidewalk -- technically not allowed. Sara Hottman, The Oregonian
She laughs at a realist ink drawing showing a man sleeping, hat pulled low over his face. 

"That's Sarge, and he wasn't supposed to be sleeping there," she laughs. She was sitting beside the artist at the Sisters cafe counter in the early 2000s while he drew Sarge sleeping on the sidewalk -- technically not allowed. 

Lawyer gets a somber look on her face with the next piece: Bright colors frame red figures, screaming in anguish in the bottom corner of the canvas, but dwarfed by the brightness that overwhelms the canvas around them. 

"I look at this like that could've been me," Lawyer says. "A few years ago this was me." 

Another piece, a figure made of tissue paper pasted to poster board, is captioned on the back: "Think of me as one of you. Do not take me for a fool." 

A series of large canvases painted by Moe Schwartz in 1993 and 1994, when he was homeless, are done in a classic 1930s American style, with bold colors and near-realism. Lawyer says they scavenged the canvases from garage sales; other paintings are underneath. 

One painting shows people lounging around a fire under the Hawthorne Bridge as a bus full of wine-drinking aristocrats crosses. Others depict some seedy realities of homelessness. 

"Some people do art not to make something beautiful, but because it's what inside," Morgan says. "People can relate to art in a way they can't relate to other things. It gives a voice to people used to being silenced." 


Canvases large and small, rolled and stacked, are stored in a Sisters of the Road storage closet. Some pieces date back to the outreach organization's founding; all are done by people who at the time were living on the street.

Jeannie Lawyer says Sisters of the Road would get large canvases like these at garage sales, and customers would paint over them.

A homeless artist made three of these large-scale paintings in 1993 and 1994. This shows people sitting around a fire under the Hawthorne Bridge while a bus full of aristocrats drinking wine crosses above. The others depict the harsher side of homelessness.

Jeannie Lawyer, co-manager of the cafe at Sisters of the Road, examines a piece painted in the 1990s and now stored with scores of other pieces painted by homeless people using the organization's services. Lawyer, who used to be homeless, says at one point, she was like the screaming people depicted in the painting.


Sisters of the Road artists whose work is being stored in a Northwest Portland storage closet display varying levels of talent: Some are very skilled and practicing technique; some are just passing the time; some are both.


Canvases large and small, rolled and stacked, are stored in a Sisters of the Road storage closet. Some pieces date back to the outreach organization's founding; all are done by people who at the time were living on the street.
 
-- Sara Hottman


Lest we not forget!

15th St. and M St. in DC, "The Houseless" at http://Houseless.net
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