Notice for Presentations

Our First MAD HeARTS Festival seeks to bring together creative people with mental health histories who are engaged in art, not just for arts sake, but for personal healing -- for changing and re-designing existing mental health programs, to memorialize and celebrate—and to create a broad dialogue of voices aimed at promoting hope and changing hearts and minds.

This arts festival will be a revolutionary departure from other types of conferences. While one of the goals is for personal skill building and healing through the arts, a major thrust is for the creation of a national platform for the future that defines ways to integrate the arts as a major force of healing.

This unique conference will be a CALL to Action; we know ART works, it brings about wellness, but we need to do more than identify and categorize how it works, we need an action plan to tell the world and implement these programs in every mental health setting, both traditional and non-traditional, throughout the country.

To create healing and change through a national network of MAD Healing and Change artists: This is our goal!

The Festival will be held at the DaySpring Conference Center near Sarasota, FL from July 17th through 20th 2008. Information on the festival is published on the Altered States of the Arts Web Site at www.alteredstatesofthearts.com and information on the facilities at the conference center can be gleaned from the web site www.dayspringfl.com.

Our Philosophy:

As Healing Artists we seek first to create change within ourselves; taking what we have, who we are, and where we are at a given time and molding it into something rich and strange and wonderful. We see that art and creativity can be calming or revitalizing; it can provide hope and cause within us a change of heart.

As Change Artists we seek to transform our mental health system. We recognize that a major “adherence to the tried and true” has caused our system to appear immobile and rigid. Through art we will explore a kaleidoscope of ways for color to replace lackluster environments, for alternative methods of healing to be introduced, for a plethora of promis-ing arts practices to become ordinary, not extraordinary parts of programs.

As Changing Artists we seek to change how society and the world think of us. As we change, the world changes. ART may be the best way, perhaps the only way, to translate people’s experiences into something that others can truly understand. We bring together people who are engaged in art and creativity that contains messages that come from the heart. ART is the jewel, the pearl, the richness of threads that make up a quilt that tells our stories so that true changes in people’s minds and hearts can occur.

About This festival:

Language:

What we call ourselves: We separate ourselves from the mainstream to call ourselves, “Crazy Folk Artists”, “MAD Artists” “Visionary Artists” or “Healing Artists” or just artists.

The word MAD: We use the word MAD-- to mean that true healing involves understanding the mind. True understanding involves not just touchy/feely euphemisms; it involves ap- preciating and accepting the light and the dark, the yin and the yang. Madness, like art, encompasses the reality of the mind. Without the altered state that is called madness, art itself would not exist.

Our goal: Our approach is to integrate the arts as a major force of healing to give new meaning to the madness of our altered states, which among other things can be merry, frivolous, frenzied, infatuated. We are not opposed to art therapy but we are not about making art clinical. We look for new language that supports humor and lightness, that promotes wellness and healing, and for words that re-claim words that have been unac- ceptable. We look for the uncommon; words that are illustrious but yet have meaning and contain a message that carries us to the unknown and new.

Our Workshops: While they will be varied and cover many different types of arts and creative expressions, they should all contain the element of CHANGE; how one can change personally, strategies for changing our traditional mental health system; creating new in- novative programs that can be replicated and how we can use art to change the world’s im- pressions of us.

Presentation Tracks:

Building skills: Hands-on workshops including painting, drawing, collage, songs and song-

writing, creating skits and other performances; writing, storytelling, journaling, dance, movement, newsletters and film and video making, media,

Spirituality, renewal and wellness: Yoga, Tai Chi, holistic practices, meditation, spirituality, massage, taking care of our bodies, exercise and outdoor arts, nutrition, alternative medicine, etc.

Developing innovative artistic environments: Use of color, healing designs, arts displays, healing affirmation displays, art exhibits, comfort and sensory environments, Living Room crisis alternatives, architectural design

Sharing Information of Special Projects: memorial projects, national quilt and other exhib- its for touring; anti-stigma projects, diversity projects, including ethnic, race, culture and sexual orientation, arts businesses, including cards, calendars, media projects, etc.

Who Should Attend:

• Visual artists, writers, performance artists
• Directors of consumer operated arts programs, organizations and special projects
• People interested in systems change through the use of art
• Arts students endeavoring to achieve mental health through their artistic talents.
• Policy makers at local, state and federal levels who are interested in arts as best practices
• Providers who are our supporters and partners
• Potential funders and resource providers for our future projects

Agenda planning: (Beginning Thoughts)

Workshops: Formats include 75-minute workshops and 3-hour institutes—two days

Each day has built in time for a plenary followed by dialogue and planning among all participants—late afternoon- (or is this for people interested in creating the national agenda

while others are doing other things?)

Evening with the mystery guest—reception, dialogue with guest

Talent Showcase one evening

Open Mic performance other evening

Free time for fun, nature, networking

Art exhibit ongoing

Arts entrepreneurs—people selling their crafts, jewelry, etc.

Videotaping: individual interviews, plenary sessions, workshops, examples of hands on arts activities

Sunday morning final sharing open mic, possible plenary, planning of agenda, prioritizing

Single presenter on a subject:

Panel presentations—multiple presentations on a single submission

Workshop: Participatory, hands-on instructional Exhibits:

Review Process:

Clear statement of objectives for the presentation

Clear relevance to the integration of using arts in mental healthcare

Abstract is focused on specific, accurate concepts or ideas

Abstract has the potential to add new knowledge or solve critical in the arts in mental healthcare.

Deadline for submission is about April 30, 2008

Please address responses/comments/questions to:

mikeskinner@comcast.net

with cc: to

ed@alteredstatesofthearts.com


Michael Skinner

141 English Village Rd, #11

Manchester, NH 03102



Edward Pazicky

21509 Winlock Avenue

Port Charlotte, FL 33952