If you think about recyclable art and healing in a way that, the past is all bad and you never want to look at it again, you really do yourself and everyone in your life a disservice.  I've been on a path for several years now of opening pandora's box of my memories and taking an inventory of my life.  Not to blame or inflict more guilt or shame, but to take responsibility for actions and looking at all angles of the situations.
After the information becomes transparent to me and I gain all the wisdom from that experience, then I can transform that experience into healing.  Removing the emotional charge of an experience and seeing it for what it truly is, 'a life experience'.  Then basically reprograming my mind to see it as a valuable learning experience and not an opportunity to inflect more pain to myself or anyone else.  Just like you reprogram your computer or perform an upgrade on your computer you can do this with your mind.  Our minds are a very powerful tool in the healing process.  After I have reprogramed the emotional connection of the experience then I can delete the part of the file or experience, that is no longer serves me for the learning process.
     Now to relate this to ART and healing.... As I start a process I pull inspiration for all types of sources.  Images I collect in daily life or research, looking through my boxes of items that I have saved or salvaged, gathering items in my neighborhood, or from items I collect from literally from the trash.... Everything has a value, just like our personal past!  Reprograming is how I look at an item from trash to treasure.  Looking at my life experience as a treasure from what I have learned from it.  I feel art weather it be music, dance, painting, sculptures, really anything that someone has created can speak to someone else....

Hello everyone,

This is my sister Christin.  She lives in MO. This image is from earlier this year.  I visit her at least once a year and we do a complete makeover and photo shoot.  She is my little angle of inspiration.  She is 35 and has been fighting a battle with Endometriosis for over ten years.  She is so strong and has been through so much.  This image means so much to us... The pill bottles are just a small example of what she deals with on a daily basis.  This is only a small sample of the bottles she has gone through over the years fighting this disease.  Endo is still a fairly new disease and behaves similar to Cancer.  It can spread through out the body.  Like all the bottles up in the air so is her life.  Her quality of life has done a 180.  She is unable to do the simplest of daily life actives.  Things we may take for granted.  Driving, being with family on the special occasions, working in her garden, preparing a meal for her and her husband, painting, having a job, taking a walk, traveling, intimacy, and most anything during her monthly cycle.

If Endo wasn't enough of a life sentence, now she is having new systems that are not characteristic of Endo.  I spoke with her yesterday and it broke my heart.  She has been experiencing seizures for the past 2 years and in the last few months the attacks are coming more frequently.  She has had 2 in the last 2 weeks.  To hear her disoriented and confused is so upsetting.  How can I  hear my sister my flesh and blood being attacked and I can't do anything about it... Feeling so helpless and filled with so much anger that I can't change this I can't fix it!!!!   I'm her big sister I suppose to protect her and make it all better...

  I give her and this disease to God and have to believe He will do His will and heal her..

She is a intelligent, articulate artistic soul.  To hear her repeat details of what she is going through or share stories of what is going on and forget that she just said the same thing over and over again.... It is unbelievable how much this horrific disease has changed the Christin I knew when we were children.  

I wanted to share this with all of you to ask simply to pray for Christin.  Keep her in your thoughts and prayers... Endo is a new disease and million of women have this and may or may not even know they have it...  I have shared some links below about this disease. Please, share this with any women in your life that have this disease.  My hope and prayer is that their will be a cure or remedy to reduce the pain and suffering that Endo causes in all the women we love so dearly.  Thank you for your love and support!!!!!

http://www.endofound.org/endometriosis

http://www.endometriosisassn.org/press3.html

Endometriosis is a painful, chronic disease that affects at least 6.3 million women and girls in the U.S., 1 million in Canada, and millions more worldwide. It occurs when tissue like that which lines the uterus (tissue called the endometrium) is found outside the uterus -- usually in the abdomen on the ovaries, fallopian tubes, and ligaments that support the uterus; the area between the vagina and rectum; the outer surface of the uterus; and the lining of the pelvic cavity. Other sites for these endometrial growths may include the bladder, bowel, vagina, cervix, vulva, and in abdominal surgical scars. Less commonly they are found in the lung, arm, thigh, and other locations.

This misplaced tissue develops into growths or lesions which respond to the menstrual cycle in the same way that the tissue of the uterine lining does: each month the tissue builds up, breaks down, and sheds. Menstrual blood flows from the uterus and out of the body through the vagina, but the blood and tissue shed from endometrial growths has no way of leaving the body. This results in internal bleeding, breakdown of the blood and tissue from the lesions, and inflammation -- and can cause pain, infertility, scar tissue formation, adhesions, and bowel problems.