The glass book project
An amazing project began in a most unexpected way, the day I met Nick Kline at a traditional mental health meeting.   He was there to creatively photograph the proceedings; I was there to speak on self-inflicted violence. I was thrilled by the presence of an artist in our midst. He was moved by what I had to teach about trauma, self-injury, and how the mental health system Is, hopefully, changing to better meet the needs of the people it is supposed to be serve. So began an unexpected and joyful collaboration. Helga Luest, of Witness Justice (witness justice.org), organized us as we began to collaborate on a brilliant idea. Nick wanted to have his art students at Rutgers-Newark to take on the challenge of creating a glass book on the topic of SIV. I was mesmerized by the idea.
The art students received a stack of The Cutting Edge newsletters and other info. I had the opportunity to dialogue with them via e-mail. Then they created their books and I had the privilege of going out to Rutgers the day of the critique. The books blew me away, they were much more profound than anything I could have imagined and I had high expectation to begin with. The words of people living with SIV touched the hearts and souls of these students and their books reflected that. I had tears in my eyes for hours, and even get teary writing this. The books are so moving.
I haven’t written about the books before as I was waiting for the web site on the project to go online. Well, it’s up! Please check out glassbookproject. org and let me know what you think. The collection has traveled to some conferences and we hope to take it to many many places as people who see the books are deeply touched and begin to understand those of us who have lived with SIV in a very different way.
Ii have been waiting to tell you about this and am eager to hear your reactions!