Installation and projection from Preparing the Flute, by William Kentridge (2005).
Received an email from a school in California where the 10th grade students were learning about suicide prevention - saying they “loved the Black Dog website” and were using it for researching their project topic. One of the students suggested adding a useful link on our website that she’d found - so I’ve added it to the links page. Thank you for sending this through - I’m sure it will be very useful to people visiting Black Dog and congrats on being awarded extra credits I hear, for your find!
Words on the card ….. To overcome adversity, is sometimes the only way to survive. To fight against the odds and to win is sometimes the only way to get to tomorrow. So when each new day dawns and you awake to see it, always believe in tomorrow. That dawn will come. When the battle is won – when the fight is over. When the triumph is truly yours…..then each new day can be filled with life. And remember….where there is life there is always, always Hope. (Art by Anna Nielsen/card from Mags as we miss our four legged friend, Chelsea).
And postcards from friends with stories of travels – and art (‘Echo of a Scream”, by David Alfaro Siqueiros, 1937 from Museum of Modern Art, New York) …
Received some pics from those who draw strength from Black Dog. This one’s from Caroline who has framed some of the Army of Ink from the ’21 Postcard’ series and keeps them on her bedside table. She also happens to be a collector of old typewriters too (this is one of her 3).
Elle sent this one in and calls it her ‘strength wall’ made from art and stories from Black Dog. She is also making a mobile out of the ’21 Friends’ postcards too. Thanks for the ideas Elle. Check out her tattoo in a previous post here.
Another use for the Black Dog website is to leave an image up on the computer – or use it as a screen saver. This one is the Patti Smith Clunk & Jam note. Just found it soothing to have close at bedtime.
This one’s a Clunk & Jam note collection on a wall at the Narrogin Mental Health Expo. You can use these notes to create the same on bedroom and office walls too. I use masking tape but you can use blue tac etc. If you’ve got any pictures of what you do with Black Dog art and stories/books and cards, send them in so we can share your ideas with others.
Received this email from friend Harley, and attached painting he’d done - this thoughtful message (left as is, no editing – thanks Harley) … “I was just thinking the other day, and it has beena while since i read your book. But did this thought come from your book. I have been trying to work out where it came from but I am really not sure? The thought was when you meet people, they leave a little person with you…like when you have someone happy in your life and a positive influence, and make you feel good they leave a little happy person inside you or on your shoulder, and when things happen, that little person interacts with you…But on the other hand, when you have someone who is a negative influence on you, and tears little strips off of you everytime you do something and puts you down – when they leave they leave a little negative person in you or on your shoulder, and then it becomes a battle… All the little people end up, the good vs the bad, end up fighting it out in your head…is that kind of a good metaphor maybe? Because I was thinking, that it is easier to be hard on yourself and say I am such an idiot etc, when you think it is ‘you’ feeling this way. When in reality it is usually someone else who has led you to feel this way, and not the real you that has to sit between all these little people… (more of Harley’s work can be seen on the homepage ‘slideshow’.
Thanks to (you know who you are that sent me an email at 1am this morning) for passing on some Black Dog postcards to Paramore at the concert last night. There’s something very super heroish about the Twilight movies – check out this Paramore video. Another bit in the BLOG about Super Heroes is on the way. In the meantime check out Super Hero things through the Joker in the BLOG – and help spread the word by passing it on (as did this concert goer – thanks again) ….
