Help me get to 100 portraits while I still can
“Before my diagnosis of motor neurone disease, I was an artist. Now the disease has affected my arms and hands and I am finding it harder to paint. I want to continue to work for as long as possible and use both my work and my story to help the Motor Neurone Disease Association create a movement of incurable optimism. This is why I’ve set myself a challenge to draw the portraits of 100 incurable optimists before I lose the ability to paint forever.
I’m looking for incurable optimists to paint. If you think you or someone you know is an incurable optimist, nominate that person here. Just tell me why you think they are an incurable optimist in a few words and leave your email address, and we’ll get in touch if we like your story.
And your portrait may just end up hanging in a gallery someday…

Kath is supportive, loving and caring. Without her I would be lost. The writing in her hair is something she said to me when I was first diagnosed, “I will always look after you, right until the very end.”

Martin is a neurologist and a tireless and innovative MND researcher. He has become a friend and has inspired me to become an amateur neurologist. I feel lucky to have met him.

Sarah is an inspiration to me. As a single mum she has brought up two lovely children, despite being unable to walk, speak or use her arms. She helped me when I first got MND, when I felt very scared.

Sarah is there every morning to help me get up. She is always cheerful, always looking for extra things to do to help me. She is a wonderful person, and makes the world a better place.

Mark is my friend, and has bulbar MND. He struggles to breathe and has just had a tracheostomy, which is the ‘Cut Here’ bit in the picture. He is a lovely man, so full of life.

I am an amateur inventor but I bow down humbly before Earl’s talent. Despite having bulbar MND and being unable to speak, he has set up a business making his inventions for disabled people.

Visit Patrick’s website or his blog for more information about this wonderful man and to find out how you can help.
Follow Patrick on twitter or like him on Facebook.
Thank you, Osocio, for sharing!

via pentruochi

]]> http://www.oitzarisme.ro/index.php/2010/07/28/mike-worrall/feed/ 0 http://www.oitzarisme.ro/index.php/2010/07/15/the-1000th-entry/ http://www.oitzarisme.ro/index.php/2010/07/15/the-1000th-entry/#comments Wed, 14 Jul 2010 21:19:10 +0000 oitzarisme http://www.oitzarisme.ro/?p=2763 I started this website in order to develop my passion for visual arts and advertising and here I am at the 1000th entry in which I will remind you about some interesting hot-spots of oitzarisme. The first artist featured was Loretta Lux, on 15th January 2007. Mr. Toledano is the second one and he is featured three times: first with random works, then with Days with my father project, and this year with A new kind of beauty. The third entry is about Olive and Rose’s photographs on April 3rd 2007. After that a long gap of artist entries appears and the updates continue with prints for social campaign, personal very amateur photos, kind of emo personal stuff and some funny history of myself being a teenager, both written in Romanian.

In January 2008 something “magic” happened. I featured Alin Ciortea, a great Romanian photographer, after I asked him for credits in private. He said “no problem” and there he was, on my growing website. After I published his works, a friend of mine, Alina Prodănescu, reminded me in a comment that I have to take care of the copyrights of the photos, because I’m only allowed to publish them with the written consent of the author. Otherwise, it’s illegal!!! I said “Don’t worry, he gave me the rights to do it!”, but dummy me, Alin Ciortea was the first artist that I’ve ever asked for copyrights. So I started a sending e-mails campaign to all the artists that I featured on oitzarisme until that day; some of them gave me the permission and some of them didn’t, and this explains the big gap that I’ve told you about.

Alina also said that the most beautiful entry on oitzarisme was Doru Yoana; too bad that’s written in Romanian and extremely bad that didn’t had some guts to take him some photos last summer when he was playing backgammon on the beach. On my little story about Doru Yoana I featured Vlad Eftenie photographs.

In March 2008 something strange happened on the Hywel Jones entry, starting with the first comment. Enjoy!

Something even stranger happened after I posted Elif Sanem Karakoç works on March 14th 2008 and I featured Michel Shapcott almost two years later. A few months ago I discovered this:

(source)

In April 2008, I found that Rob Gonsalves is the author of all those PowerPoint surrealism paintings that we all know since the beginning of the internet and I also found that his grandparents were Romanian Gypsies.

In September 2008 the first photo-project with a statement is posted. Vincent Bitaud tells us about his Sleeping Beauties and tells me that he quit his web-designer job a year before to go for professional photographing. Later he wins the 3rd place on Imagine 2009 European Prize, Creativity and Innovationand also becomes member of Young Photographers United.

In February 2009 I featured Carlo Gianferro with his Romany Interiors project, winner of the 1st prize on WorldPressPhoto 2008.

In June 2009 my girlfriend, Andreea Cioran, wants me to wear a mustache and take some shots with it. At 11 AM on a lovely Sunday I was walking down the streets with a funny vintage porn mustache on. All the modern men were envying me. Andreea is featured on oitzarisme with the Society series also, and one of the photograph is among the State of Creation contest winners.

In January 2010 I created my first project that I’m proud of. “Ten years among them” is a photo-story about my colleagues and their spare time. I spend some great time with ten of them and shared the results on an inside office exhibition with the photos spread on the walls. I wonder if I should take them off, it’s been six months since then…

In February 2010, celebrating my 3 years, I presented to you a useful (I think) project. United Artists of Oitzarisme wants to be a summary of all the artists featured on oitzarisme. I tried to create it on my own with my html knowledge, but a friend of mine, Flavius (what link should I put here, dude?) told me “You’re nuts!” and I agreed. He helped me put all the html in a simple php table and all I had to do is update, update, update! Last update: February 4th, 2010. Reasons: job, trying to fill them all, artists, love… I do have the data in an excel document and in a couple of weeks this data will be on that database. I promise!

In March 2010 inspiredm.com puts my website in an entry about indie photo-blogs that I really enjoy. I featured Denis Rouvre when the article was online and I’m very proud that African Digital Art and Creative Roots discovered my website.

Also in March I tried for the first time to be an agent. Featuring Bogdan Meseșan with his New ID project, I wrote about it to some websites and blogs that I thought could be interested in his work. And they were. With his powerful semi-political message in his project, Bogdan was featured on Osocio, the best social advertising website, on Sargasso.nl, a Dutch non-profit news website, and also on lots of other websites like crossmode.it, Humanitarian News, Mire Magazine or Unscathed Corpse, thank you all! I also wrote to Jonathan Cherry interviewed him for Mull It Over. I was very satisfied by the results and I’m trying to do this again with other artists.

At the end of March (what a month!) I discover that David Leventi has some great photos on his website, shot in Romania. I wrote to him to ask for permission for the Opera series and congratulate him for the photos taken here, in my country, especially for the one with the Samsung Building. He allowed me to publish his works and told me that he loves Romania and that he’s currently working on a book project/family history of my country. Both his parents were born in Romania, but left to the US around 1959 and after that there’s a long story that I hope to enjoy on a coffee break with him during his next visit in Romania.

Later that week, I enjoyed a coffee with Bogdan Croitoru and asked him live for permission to put his dirty miners/clean miners on my website. Great work, isn’t it?

In May 2010, ArtClue wants to publish an online Contemporary Art Magazine and I’m ready to help with layout and design. The first issue was under my expectations but the second one was much, much better. I’m proud of my work and I hope I will be getting better and better.

I hope I’m getting better and better with this website, too. I’m starving to fill it with quality content, to share projects that you have to see, photos that you have to feel. Until my projects will pass the “written on paper” phase, I’ll comfort/disturb/cuddle/embrace you with others’ projects.

Thank you all,
Constantin