Anastasia is an amazing young woman I met a long time ago. She stayed in my mind ever since.See her video here
In 2004 I was invited to give a talk in Waterford Regional Hospital as part of the Healing Arts Trust Lunchtime talks. The video Fit to Fly ( see here part 1 & part 2 ) was shown and I answered questions about my creative journey with M.E. to date. Anastasia and her mother were in the room. Anastasia was only a teenager when diagnosed with M.E. herself.
She struck me as a very capable, creative young girl. M.E. was not going to get the better of her!
We have been in touch ever since.
Anastasia wrote about her story with M.E. She wrote about the stranger in her life. I still have copies of her early writing. An amazing piece of work.
The idea was hatched to do a book together. Her story and mine, back to back. This didn't happen- yet! I published Hatched in the meantime, and Anastasia was still working on devising the right way to publish her own story.
I am SO PROUD to hear that she has now done just that.
She is putting each of the letters of her story in the letterpress and prints each page separately. A work of art. A powerful story.
If you can at all, please support this amazing work. This amazing young woman.
See the video to see her at work, read more about "Dear Stranger" or help her to raise the funds to continue, please see here
Well done Anastasia and I will be saving up for my own copy of Dear Stranger!
ps... As always it is lovely to know that you stopped by to read my musing and follow my creative adventures. It would make my day if you leave a comment... preferably here, on the blog...?
Many thanks & Lots of love
Corina
9 comments:
Hi Corina. Thank you for sharing this, a great project by a very determined artist. Good on her. I love the use of the letterpress for the book, such an appropriate metaphor for the painstaking process that living and managing M.E. is. Will definitely share this too.
You have a lovely garden studio!
That is just so amazing. I keep thinking of all the full-stops and commas and apostrophes and 't's' and spaces and writing it and proof-reading it and designing it and making the layout and learning the type-setting and DOING it .... just (truly!) awesome.
Thank you both,
A truly amazing work!
my goodness - letterpress!!. absolutely LOVE it. and such a perfect little film too - all power and strength to anastasia. thanks for sharing corina.
Thank you Corina!
I am honoured to be on your blog! Especially since we have now had such a long history of sharing our creativity and thoughts.
In reply to Addons´comment- yes those commas and full stops are truly something! And I have found that everything- the space between the words, the lines between the sentences and the space given for breath- all tells as strong a story as the words themself...
Thank you so much for the support and encouragement that stands here.
Anastasia
You are so very welcome Anastasia.
Wishing you all that is good.
XX Corina
You're welcome Kp! Couldn't leave this story to myself!
XX
Really is an amazing project and I love the video: wonder if A edited it as well. I want to know more about how she got well again...or well enough to move forward with this project
Hi,
John- if I edited the video??
Well my freind has a mac computer with imovies, so though I thought I wouldn´t have a clue how to begin with it, macs are easy to get started with and it turned out that I didnt need any help at all.
As for how I got strong enough for such a project...and simply being upright in the world again...its hard to say really but a big shift happened in me when I was about 18 (I am now 23) I had been working a lot with my inner world through art and so on, and I was going to a homeopathist who truly did miracles with me, I was also drinking 4litres of fresh vegetable juice a day and had managed to finally calm my being enough to be able to simply rest while resting!
The interesting part is that I was actually getting worse and worse in the months leading up to my recovery, it was truly only my innermost self who felt a change and health, phsically I was barely able to sit upright in bed but inside I had already begun my dancing!
Then all of a sudden it was over, I had the thought to walk to the end of the lane of our house knowing that when I got back I wouldnt feel the pain. So I did, and that was the end of it. It of course continued over the years to come back in differernt forms, and I took part in courses and so on without my brain being the slightest bit present. But now, I think that as long as I am the leader I do fine. As long as it is in truth what I should be doing, I am fine.
M.E is such an extra-ordinary illness that it is not so possible for me to know what happened that I recoverd, but through this work with Letterpress I am slowly swimming around in that mystery because I am deeply moved it, my own experiences and that of others. I want to understand!
That is the only way I can really answer your questions John, I learn more and more all the time though and intend to work with what I learn.
Hope I havnt rambled on too long!
Anastasia
Thank you John for asking, and Anastasia for that wonderful and honest response.
XX Corina
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