THE LAMP ART PROJECT is, most specifically, a community of working artists,
all having diagnoses of mental illness.
The Lamp Art Project is part of LAMP COMMUNITY.
Lamp Art Project Artist-Members, Maurice "Yoshi" Walker & Xochitl "Gaby" Casillas
Above : Maurice "Yoshi" Walker. "The Black Lions of Judah"
As this 100+ page website is predominantly visual, it can be viewed suprisingly quickly,
and very enjoyably....
P.S. We add new image/pages continuously...so come back often!
"A FEAST FOR THE EYES"
awaits you of our art work. ...
we deeply thank you, in advance, for your visit....
sincerely, The Lamp Art Project....
ALL THE ARTWORK ON THIS SITE IS BY LAMP ART PROJECT ARTIST-MEMBERS.
(all photography, photoshop work, text & web design/construction is
an independent work by rory white, founding manager of project).
Lamp Art Project is an outsider art project in Los Angeles' Skid Row,
a sector containing the highest concentration of homeless persons
and the homeless mentally ill in America. The art project is, first, a
high level fine arts project, a studio environment comparable to a graduate
school MFA program in structure. It is unique, however in that it accepts
artists from "absolute
beginner" to "highly advanced" levels in
experience. Furthermore all its member-artists have been challenged
with homelessness and mental diagnoses.
It operates on the simple premise that the persons challenged with homelessness
in Skid Row have, at minimum, an equal level of artistic
genius as any other segment of the population.
Ironically, due to a higher percentage of persons having
artistic genius, simultaneously having higher percentage of diagnoses of mental illness,
(for example Vincent Van Gogh, Virginia Woolf, etc., see the book
"Touched with Fire" by Dr. Kay Jamison, Ph.D., among others),
there is, therefore, a higher level of artistic genius found upon the streets of Skid Row
with its large percentage of homeless mentally ill. (Perhaps 50% or
more of the homeless persons in Skid Row have diagnoses of mental illness).
Furthermore, other dynamics common to the person touched with artistic genius
create a greater tendency for financial vulnerability and, in many cases,
ultimate homelessness. Our society does not provide a broad secure
basis for employment in the fine arts. Those choosing to pursue this
discipline, sometimes quite knowingly, are chosing to risk ultimate homelessness.
This level of existential fear inherent to the artist's life is forgotten
when we applaud the small percentage of artists, who have achieved success.
"Artists" includes classical musicians, composers, choreographers,
dancers, writers, screenwriters, actors, directors, cinemaphotographers,
and still photographers, among other disciplines,
as well as those in the visual arts).
The Lamp Art Project, an integral part, and visual epitomization,
of the highly successful cutting edge human service agency, Lamp Community
has received many serious awards including grants from
the Frederick Weisman Philanthropic Foundation
Founding project manager Rory White has received two Eli Lilly Welcome Back Awards: Outstanding Community Service in the field of Depression and mental illness, (2004) and Person of the Decade, (2008)
The Lamp Art Project website, which he designed and built, has been designated a "Virtual Treasure"
by the University of British Colombia's Archival and Library Science's
Virtual Museum Project.
Again, the art project is an extreme epitomization of the amazing genius,
often hidden, but herein made visible, of the homeless people of Skid Row,
and those now no longer homeless, through the work of Lamp Community.
this site was designed and built by Rory White,
copyr.
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