http://radio.securenetsystems.net//v4/index.cfm?stationCallSign=WPIB#.T6PzLWl2U-E.

It was really fun and easy to talk with Joan from Ottawa Broadcasting.

Joan is the program director and host of the radio shows -Talk at ten and Turn of Page for WPCR and WPTB. I understand why she is so successful, she made me feel as though I was having a conversation over tea, and it was not stressful at all. Thanks Joan I enjoyed meeting you and spending time with you and chatting it up.  Thanks Again………………

Radio Interview "Talk At Ten"

I hear the team is doing stellar! Keep up the good work girls!

 Now years later she published and article interviewing me on dyslexia, art and life.

So here goes-

 – While not all Artists are dyslexic, the Artist Mind is the portal through which dyslexics experience their world.

A vivid imagination. An appreciation for color, tone, texture and form. Exceptionally visual and highly innovative. These are some of the characteristics of an Artist. They also represent the positive side of dyslexia.

I met miChelle M. Vara many years ago and, being a fellow artist, our conversation quickly turned to the subjects of art and the creative process. Vara works in a variety of mediums, from sculptural work in metal to paintings and murals, to airbrush commissions, faux-finishes and installations. She is a whirlwind of creative energy.

Our paths crossed again recently as a result of this blog, and as I researched her work and background, I discovered she is severely dyslexic.

Vara has what’s known as “crossed optic lobe”, where incoming information goes to the opposite side of the brain, and is therefore received upside-down and backwards. “I think in pictures,” says Vara. “I remember people, events and ideas as if they were photographed. I also remember feelings, emotions, textures, lighting,…..but no words. I connect very differently from everyone else.”

At a young age, miChelle Vara’s father placed her in a Montessori school system. “I was considered an extreme case,” says Vara. “It took a very long time for me to develop verbal and reading skills. Had I been left to a parent who was not understanding and caring, I would have been labelled as retarded. I would not have blossomed in a public school system, even though my IQ is actually well above average, because I am unable to take regular tests.”

“Neon Flames” by miChelle Vara

How has art figured into her life? “I’ve been an artist from Day One,”answers Vara. “Thankfully. I grew up in an environment that embraced my differences, feeding my imagination. But don’t let me kid you, my path has not always been easy. I still received enormous pressure from the outside world – people would call me stupid, make fun of me. I got picked on terribly by adults as well as children.”

“Art is my refuge,” she continues, “and any uncomfortable situation would send me into creation mode. My best friends were a thoroughbred horse named Socks and a dog named Cherice. I am thankful I have always had the ease of art and the love of animal friends and I think all handicapped children should have a pet and a safe place to escape.”

I ask Vara if art helped her with her understanding of how her mind works.

“No,” Vara replies. “My mind works because of my art.”

“Art is where I feel safe and at home. I am driven on a soul level to create, which is why I feel a compulsion to be in that creative state continually, making visual statements and conversations. My art is my life – it’s all very metaphorical.”

“I draw daily,” she continues. “My life is one artistic picture after another – it is nothing more than visual accounts of time. I create sculptural work because I often feel compelled to create an idea/statement of dimension that is not only ascetically pleasing but structurally sound. I often don’t have time to get all my ideas and thoughts into a physical object, so I may come back to it years later.”

“The Guide” by miChelle M. Vara

Over the past 30+ years, miChelle Vara’s artwork has won numerous awards, and she regularly receives commissions from museums, corporations, individuals and municipal clients. The artist recently created a large-scale sculpture especially for the Adirondack Museum in Blue Mountain Lake, NY, using the museum’s logo as her inspiration for the fascinating work entitled, “The Guide”.

Vara wants to make one thing perfectly clear. “Please understand that I do not see dyslexia as a handicap to who I am and what my work is,” she says. “It is my greatest birth gift. “

Life is what you make it. miChelle Vara knows how to make the best of her life, and she has the artwork to prove it.

- SerenaK

Their mission: to honor Henry Knox and his “Noble Train of Artillery,” to raise awareness of and promote the Knox Trail as a unique American historical route, and to help the American Revolution Association raise needed money for history-based museums and parks with connections to Henry Knox and the Knox Trail. Starting from Fort Ticonderoga on Friday, April 6, 2012, Patriots of the American Revolution Managing Editor Benjamin Smith and Copyeditor Alex Culpepper will march south along Lake George and the Hudson River to Kinderhook, New York, where they will veer east into Massachusetts, aiming to reach Dorchester Heights in Boston National Historical Park on Wednesday, April 18. Along the way they will take photographs of the various markers along the Knox Trail and document their trip for in-depth articles about the Trail that will run in future issues of Patriots of the American Revolution magazine.

Donations received by corporations and private individuals will be collected by the American Revolution Association and distributed directly and equally to the following four museums and parks.

Fort Ticonderoga (www.fortticonderoga.org)
New York State Military Museum (http://dmna.state.ny.us/historic/mil-hist.htm)
Boston National Historical Park (www.nps.gov/bost/index.htm)
Montpelier, The General Henry Knox Museum (www.generalknoxmuseum.org)

Patriots of the American Revolution and the American Revolution Association will keep none of the donations.

 Artist miChelle M. Vara of Ballard Road Art Studio, Wilton NY used event painted by Tom Lovell called

“The Nobel Train of Artillery”

The famous painting consisted of Col. Henry Knox and men was used as the reference and name sake of metal sculpture.   The sculpture was created using recycled materials and galvanized in finish. The Hudson Crossing; Knox Trail

Through this place passed Gen. Henry Knox in the winter of 1775 – 1776
To Deliver To Gen. George Washington at Cambridge The Train of Artillery from Fort Ticonderoga
used to force the British Army to Evacuate Boston.  Commissions

During the winter of 1775–1776, Colonel Henry Knox left Boston, marched to New York’s Fort Ticonderoga, and—with a team of men and oxen—hauled more than 50 tons of cannons and other arms back to Boston’s Dorchester Heights. The threat of these cannons firing on British ships in Boston Harbor led to the British evacuation of Boston, a major victory for the fledging Continental Army.

In 1926, New York and Massachusetts began installing commemorative markers that traced the so-called “Knox Trail” at locations in the two states.

http://www.hudsoncrossingpark.org/master-plan/knox-trail.cfm

Keep an eye out for these men they may need some upstate Hospitality!

Edward Ristaino

This is my cousins obit and  last flight.

As the wind blew harder in suddenly stormy skies, Edward Ristaino told the five skydivers in his hot-air balloon he was going to buy them a few more seconds.

He pulled the chain, the flames ignited, and the balloon went higher into the sky over east Georgia on Friday.

The skydivers landed safely less than a minute later, but Ristaino’s body was found Monday after a helicopter pilot saw what was left of the Cornelius man’s balloon. 

Brian Wesnofske, one of the skydivers, said if they had remained in the gondola for another minute, they all would have died.

“He went up that extra thousand feet to get us some more time,” he said Monday.

Peering over the side of the basket Friday, they spotted a 10-acre field the skydivers could use as an impromptu landing zone.

As they floated to the ground, Ristaino and the balloon were sucked into the storm. The balloon rose more than 17,000 feet before it collapsed over a wooded area, authorities say.

Ristaino, 63, who’d been flying hot air balloons for 15 years, was taking skydivers up as part of the Wild Chicken Festival in Fitzgerald, Ga., about 175 miles southeast of Atlanta. The festival is attended by skydivers across the world, who get the chance to jump from a variety of platforms – a helicopter, a biplane, a hot air balloon.

Wesnofske and his family had jumped from Ristaino’s hot air balloons for the past three years. Brian and daughter Jessica went up with him on Friday.

Wesnofske said his family trusted Ristaino, who owned several balloons, including the dragon-shaped “Loch Norman Sea Serpent.”

He always mandated a safety meeting in the morning, even for experienced skydivers. He was a skydiver himself, and knew what kind of conditions jumpers preferred. And he was cautious around bad weather.

When the balloon took off, there weren’t any signs of a storm. 

“It started off as just a red dot on the radar, and then it mushroomed very quickly into a big storm. This one just popped up out of the blue,” Ben Hill County Sheriff Bobby McLemore told The Associated Press.

The wind grew stronger and the people in the gondola could feel raindrops as the balloon climbed to 3,000 feet.

That wasn’t enough altitude for the skydivers to land safely, Wesnofske said.

Skydivers jumping from hot-air balloons need more time to build up wind resistance to angle their bodies to safely deploy a parachute, Wesnofske said. More altitude would give them critical seconds if something went wrong and they had to “cut away” their first parachute and use a backup.

So Ristaino, who didn’t have a parachute in the crowded gondola, took the balloon higher, and told the skydivers they needed to get out.

The skydivers made a rough landing a few seconds later, their parachutes buffeted by the wind as they neared the ground. When they looked up, they couldn’t see Ristaino’s balloon. 

Authorities say it was carried to the northeast and, minutes later, got caught in the storm.

“It started spinning and twisted his ropes up,” McLemore said.

After the balloon rose and collapsed, it began falling at about 23 miles per hour, according to TV station WALB.

Ristaino had radio contact with ground crews during the fall. The last thing he radioed: “I’m at 2,000 feet and I see trees.”

Afterward, a group of 50 to 75 searchers used images of the storm from the National Weather Service to focus on a 12- to 15-square mile area.

A helicopter pilot spotted the balloon late Monday morning, and search crews on the ground reached the site a short time later.

Ristaino’s family couldn’t be reached for comment. On Monday, his neighbors mourned the man with the balloon mobile on his front porch who used to delight them by taking off from his front yard.

“Everyone’s sending their prayers,” Holly Beckham, a neighbor, told WCNC-TV, the Observer’s news partner.

Wesnofske, who lives in east Georgia, said he plans to drive to Cornelius to pay his respects for the man who saved him and his daughter.

“He went up, he got us out,” Wesnofske said, “and the way I look at it, I call him a hero.”

- Cleve Wootson Jr., The Charlotte Observer

Published in Charlotte Observer on March 20, 2012

About the sculpture-

This piece offers active movement, while still –it is a sentry watching over, guarding gathering and protecting. The metals were chosen for their embodied aspects and color, subtle but purposeful. The artist process was slow and methodical. Waxed finish. 24”T x 8” round.

Material:

Chosen in part because of its name the diamond plate was cut into a square, Vara sandblasted a shape of negative space that surrounds a Pyrite stone and finished by force rust. The sand blasted square paddles air across energy and light by an altered hand drill. The action releases the pyrite stones metaphysical attributes. Changing energy and connecting spirit. The Pyrite stone was chosen for its known metaphysical attributes including creativity and clarity. The brass chips were chosen for color, reflective qualities and intricate nature of each small piece being different, yet chosen. Brass chips where milled in a slow cutting away process then rejoined as a detail and placed on the base used in reference to grounding and regeneration.  The base is a circle enhanced by the 3 circles, one of which is a ruff tooth saw blade, stained transparent blue as in water.

I the artist have worked through this piece. “My work is the refining of one’s individual life.”

About Pyrite-   Encourages the holder for doing creative work. It leaves a spark of new ideas into brains. So that one can keep creative ideas and do not hesitate to communicate them to others. This gemstone provides protections at physical, intellectual and emotional level. This gemstone acts as a shield to prevent bad ideas coming from various sources. It brings an end to the feeling of inertia from a person and brings out the sense of inadequacy from a person. This gemstone can be brought in use in the area where the holder lacks energy. This gemstone mainly provides energy, power, and safety to the holder. This gemstone helps the holder to freely communicate with others and express he ideas with loyalty. This gemstone increases self-confidence in those who finds difficulty in taking decisions, and mostly get stuck with situations.

The reflective properties of this gemstone, makes it unique. It is helpful in meditating. In ancient times people used to use this gemstone form meditating and yoga. This increases the strength and physical endurance. It helps the holder to move its intellectuality in the right direction and implement the thoughts with intelligence. This gemstone is helpful to increase. It provides energy to express ideas.

It removes the aura of negative energy and helps the holder to focus on his attention. It brings the mental stability to a holder and develops the ability to argument. The holder is able to analyze things. This gemstone brings the holder to a turn, where he can establish his own perceptions.

 Healing Ability Of Pyrite-   This gemstone helps the holder to receive oxygen in his/her blood. It helps in the increasing the quantity of oxygen. Provides the force to the communication tool and is beneficial for lungs. This gemstone is extremely beneficial for those who suffers from asthma. This gemstone controls the imbalanced hormones and makes them balanced and controls the menstruation cycle in women.

This gemstone helps to remove the hallucination in a person. Surya Pyrite brings out all the pain of the person’s body and in helpful in easing out the symptoms of depression. It is beneficial for those people who are often struck by fever. It also removes the swellings. To overcome the physical illness, this gemstone should be worn directly on the body.

These gemstones hold the energy of fire and earth element. Also captures golden color & light of the sun. It is helpful in controlling the rationale cycle of the body.

Cherry- Mixed Media

2pcs just finished one sold. This one is available for purchase but in the works of finishing 6-12 more.Of course they are different sizes and attitudes of life’s process and story.

Material:

recycled background (this piece Cherry bed head board) paint (enamel, poly), brass chips, vinyl,1970 Bingo chips- Highlighting spirit points & the energetic and intuitive relationship to unique therapeutic function of moving energy , healing. Does anyone remember these bingo chips with the metal edge and magnetic wand to pick them up with. I found a bag in the Schuylerville used store and had to have them. The woman who runs the operation for the school told me they were from the 70’s and what would I want with them?

“I Love the Visual hunt for material items to incorporate in my process of life and digestion, encapsulating a new vibration of visual intent.”

Aluminum Welding

“My experience with them was amazing they welcomed me with open arms and showed me around and gave me a tour of the place. I brought my Aluminum welding project and i met with Chad. I must of talked with him for 2 hours before we even started talking about my project. The welds look amazing and it does not leak at all. I would highly recommend them to any one they are just friendly people and are very down to earth. They will be seeing me in the future”- Mike Harm