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Creative Connections

Michael Sinclair is not afraid to show what he can do
I wrote previously of having my work published as bush poetry, but also small poems for Creative Connections about disabled painters and their paintings. These four are what have been accomplished for 2011, and includes the artists and their paintings. Creative Connections is based in Western Australia and the work was obtained through WA Poets Inc. None of the artists were reserved in coming forth with their artwork. Magnificent people and so inspiring

Michael Sinclair is a resident at Charlesworth in Gosnells and loves his art. He has been working with Elizabeth, his assistant for over 18 months. In that time Michael has developed a very keen eye with regards to his decision with the use of colour, texture and creating various patterns.
This work Michael has selected a vibrant pallet of colour. To indicate which colour he wishes to use, Michael lifts his right arm slightly. Michael also selected the pallet knife rather than a brush for the main body of the painting. To make the selection he looks up to say no and looks down to say yes, when the right implement is produced. The dancing effect or movement with the horizontal lines to the lower half of the painting was achieved using a stick which we picked up from the outside bush area.
Michael enjoys his art sessions at the Kalamunda Community Learning Centre, following many earlier sessions done in his home environment. His art is always accompanied by his favourite music. Michael is a great decision maker, willing to take risks and enjoys the challenge of exploring new ideas. He was very clear that this work was the one that he wanted submitted for this exhibition and is happy with the final outcome.

Here is my arm - see the colour? A pretty hue.
My eye looks up; I paint it true.
Michael takes the risk and his work dances.
With his favourite disk, his work enhances.
He flourishes the brush in waving lines,
This artwork he loves and his face shines.
This for the exhibition he made very clear,
As he moved the brush in dots very near
the waving lines. Such dedication,
he paints away without hesitation.



This is Geoff Sykes and his work

Geoff Skyes – My name is Geoff I live on site at TCCP. I attend the ATE programme “Opportunities” 4 days a week. I love to be involved in all sorts of conversation with my family and friends. I enjoy going to the football and catching up with my family on the weekends. The Opportunities Staff gave me full assistance with my art work. They supported me to hold the paint brush and also moved the canvas around for me. I really enjoyed doing my artwork. I hope you enjoy it too.

A beautiful painting of sand and greenery
Is Geoff’s interpretation of scenery.
A helping hand is all he requires
To get the colours he desires.
A touch of blue between the green
Is the sky’s hue easily seen.
Roadways he did in shades of brown
With other colours portraying town.
There’s the footy field in a splodge of green.
Geoff paints of things where he has been


The beautiful Aboriginal Lana Davie and her painting

Lana Davie
Hi my name is Lana, I live in a group home with 4 others in Brentwood. I love to paint and draw, I like making friends and spending time with company, I like to visit the shops with friends, and love wearing my sunglasses. I am indigenous and like to look at my culture. I am loud, I love to be heard. I have painted a canvas using paints.

A delicate wild rose of soft green,
Surrounded by a pinkish sheen
Of gentle outback background
And pretty leafy scene.
Lana’s work, a dedication
To her people of this nation,
A land that is mostly brown,
Lana’s work is of its creation.


Portrait and artwork of Douglas hard

Douglas Hard
Hi my name Douglas Hard, I’m 55 years old,
One of my favourite things to do is go out for coffee and cake, I also like going to the gym, shopping, collecting photographs, painting and going flying on an airplane on holidays, I like visiting my mum down Mandurah and I like meeting new people, my painting is of Rascal my mum’s dog, I hope you like it.
Douglas

A smiling face holds a picture
Of a dancing dog carrying lettuce
And a carrot. Rascal in tincture,
With a blue hat to set us
On a journey of salad and carrot cake.
Douglas has painted joy in his picture
Of his Mum’s dog. Photos he’ll take,
And flying adds to his daily tincture.
Such a painting we enjoy,
Where Douglas applies his daily employ.

We have authors too

This is great and gives me more confidence in myself as a writer, though I haven't had anything Church-related published, just plenty of bush poetry and small poems for the disabled in Creative Connections.

Chris and Ted Stewart’s newly released book, “The Miracle of Freedom: Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World,” is a book after Glenn Beck’s own heart.
Beck, an international media personality, interviewed Chris Stewart on his radio show Thursday and told him so.
“This is one of the best history books I’ve ever read,” Beck said on his nationally syndicated radio program. “Every library in America should have this history book in it. Unbelievable. You’ll love it.”
Jason Olson, Deseret News
Chris Stewart co-authored "The Miracle of Freedom: Seven Tipping Points that Saved the World" with his brother Ted Stewart. As a result of Beck’s endorsement, book sales have gone through the roof. As of Thursday afternoon, “Seven Tipping Points” had climbed to No. 8 on Amazon’s best-selling books list.
In “The Miracle of Freedom,” the Utah brothers examine where freedom came from and how rare a gift it really is today. The co-authors contend that less than 5 percent of all people who have ever lived on the Earth have lived under conditions similar to the modern definition of freedom.
The book focuses on seven examples, including the defeat of the Assyrians in their quest to destroy the kingdom of Judah; the victory of the Greeks over the Persians at Thermopylae and Salamis; Roman Emperor Constantine’s conversion to Christianity; the defeat of the armies of Islam at Poitiers; the failure of the Mongols in their effort to conquer Europe; the discovery of the New World; and The Battle of Britain in World War II.
“These things don’t take place just passively. They take place because people stand together and don’t lose their faith,” Chris Stewart told Beck. “This book is a book of hope. It is a book of faith. It brings out the idea that we have great reason to hope in our future, but we have to be willing to stand together as others have done in the past, and we have to be willing to pay the price.”
Chris Stewart, a world-record-setting pilot and Air Force veteran, and Ted Stewart, a federal judge, live in Davis County, Utah. They also authored “Seven Miracles that Saved America.” Beck's interview has also increased sales of that book, moving it to No. 61 on the Amazon Top 100 list.
Beck sang the book’s praises throughout the eight-minute interview.
“It is a history book that you will read, as I am, in the middle of the night and not be able to put it down,” Beck said. “I’ve been waking up in the last few days with my glasses halfway off my face and lights still on at 2 a.m. in the morning, I’ve fallen asleep reading it every night, I can’t turn my light off. I love this book.”
"The Miracle of Freedom" is on sale now from Shadow Mountain. It can be found online and in select bookstores nationwide.

Mormon Movies

Its fantastic to see that our Church members can make movies that become popular - good, clean wholesome movies. I hope 17 Miracles can somehow get to Australia, though no doubt eventually it can be purchased on DVD. I hope there will be more such wholesome movies with a religious theme. We are so blessed to have such talented people among our members that they can independantly make these movies. soldier on Saints and bring out more. I wanna see it.

Utah isn’t the only state with recent access to movies the LDS culture might appreciate. Excel Entertainment, a division of Deseret Book Company, is working quickly to keep up with the significant demand from multiple theater managers in cities across the nation who want to show the entertainment group’s most recently released movie.
17 Miracles, the new film from producer/director T.C. Christensen, who helped bring us Testaments, and Only a Stonecutter, released June 3. In its first week, the film played in 10 theaters along Utah’s Wasatch Front. In the second week, five additional theaters added the movie to their listings. The third week, three more theaters in Utah and two in Nevada started showing the movie. Now in its fourth week, 17 Miracles will be playing in a total of 23 locations, including newly added theaters in Arizona and Idaho. As of July 22, the film will be playing in Plano, Texas.
“In virtually all of these theater expansions, the theaters are callings us – which is the opposite of how it usually works,” said Dave Brown, business operations manager for Excel Entertainment. “There have been some theaters that have called us to request the movie because moviegoers were complaining that their local theater wasn’t playing 17 Miracles. People really want this film in their area.”
In Monday, June 20, more than two weeks after its release, 17 Miracles saw its highest box office gross yet, which, according to Brown, is practically unheard of.

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A treasured place

Susan Dayley writes in her blog of having a special place to go to read her favourite books, or spend time with her siblings and friends, away from adult eyes. Her's was a willow tree. Mine was a patch of bush with a large trunk of a dead white gum tree in a small cleared area. This was my 'home'. here I laid out my bits of pretty broken crockery, used a small tree branch to sweep around. At times my little brother Billy would join me, and he would march up and down the dead log, with a stick over his shoulder, pretending to be a soldier protecting his home. I was aged from about 7-10, Billy a few years younger. I don't think youngsters of today would be involved in such a pastime. AsI headed towards the teenage years, Water Babies, all the Ann books and the Biggles books were my beloved companions in a small enclosed area of our veranda that had an ancient and decrepit black leather amrchair. That and green apples was all I needed. I shared that spot with no one. I still search in my heart for a little hidey place where I can do my own thing in peace. Thanks for sharing your blog and article Susan.

The Perfect Haven
by susandayley on June 3, 2011
I grew up in a Willow tree.
It’s not true, but that’s how some members of my family remember it. I know I came down occasionally, like at meal times, and for winter.
My favorite companions (with siblings coming in a close second), were Heidi, Frodo, Hans, Jo, and a dozen others that I smuggled into the leafy branches on a warm summer afternoon. I gripped them in my teeth while I swung myself up around the first large branch, twisted around the wide trunk and was able to deposit my treassure in a gap between the four main supports to the canopy above.
I wasn’t all about books. I played as hard as I read, and did my chores dutifully, if not with the same passion. But the allure of our backyard tree, the solitude, the breezes, the greenness, and the triumph of lying back on a branch with no side support, escaping to another world, and never falling out, could not be equaled.
Eventually I grew up (in theory). But I’ve not yet found a sufficient replacement. I keep looking. When we planted trees in our yard, I begged for a majestic hard wood (since a willow was long ago vetoed), but I had to concede to smaller trees that better fit the size of the lot. I wonder if I was subconsciously still looking for the perfect place to read.
Everyone who enjoys a good book, needs a haven

Offical Church Statement

Though I would give anything to immigrate to Salt Lake and be amongst stalwart members and the historical area of the Church, I draw the line at trying to enter under false pretences. It is amazing just how this occurs. We in Australia are always having problems with illegal immigrants, commonly called boat people, who sail from Asian countries in an attempt to seek a new country. Many are genuine seekers, but many more are just plain troublemakers, ready to stir up our nation and course a heap of mischief for our government and police. I'm against this senseless attempt at migration and prefer entrance to our poor beleagued nation via the proper channels. Australia's coastline is more and more becoming jam-packed with cities and people, while a vast, inhospitable inland is mostly ignored and empty. This is not right when modern technology can open the country up for immigrants and Aussies

Immigration: Church Issues New Statement
10 June 2011 — Salt Lake City
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints today issued the following official statement on immigration:
Around the world, debate on the immigration question has become intense. That is especially so in the United States. Most Americans agree that the federal government of the United States should secure its borders and sharply reduce or eliminate the flow of undocumented immigrants. Unchecked and unregulated, such a flow may destabilize society and ultimately become unsustainable.
As a matter of policy, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints discourages its members from entering any country without legal documentation, and from deliberately overstaying legal travel visas.
What to do with the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants now residing in various states within the United States is the biggest challenge in the immigration debate. The bedrock moral issue for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is how we treat each other as children of God.
The history of mass expulsion or mistreatment of individuals or families is cause for concern especially where race, culture, or religion are involved. This should give pause to any policy that contemplates targeting any one group, particularly if that group comes mostly from one heritage.
RelatedAdditional ResourcesResponsibility of Church Members: Avoiding Being Judgmental
.As those on all sides of the immigration debate in the United States have noted, this issue is one that must ultimately be resolved by the federal government.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is concerned that any state legislation that only contains enforcement provisions is likely to fall short of the high moral standard of treating each other as children of God.
The Church supports an approach where undocumented immigrants are allowed to square themselves with the law and continue to work without this necessarily leading to citizenship.
In furtherance of needed immigration reform in the United States, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints supports a balanced and civil approach to a challenging problem, fully consistent with its tradition of compassion, its reverence for family, and its commitment to law.
Responsibility of Church Members: Avoiding Being Judgmental