Convergence

Please join us for the MarbleRoad Launch Party and Fundraising event!

Proceeds will be used to provide financial assistance for families impacted by complex illness.

A complex illness is generally one that is persistent and substantially disabling or life threatening, and requires treatments and services across a variety of domains of care to ensure the best possible outcomes for each unique patient. MarbleRoad focuses on rare or undiagnosed diseases and the needs of community health center patients who seek specialty care services not offered by their primary care providers.

Visit http://www.marbleroad.org for more information about us!

Visit http://marbleroadlaunch.eventbrite.com/ for tickets.

20th Anniversary of Make a Difference Day

Silent Auction (Items Range in Value from $150 to $2000+), Artists Include:

David Foox

http://www.foox-u.com/

FOOX continues the awareness campaign promoting organ donation as a cause to help save lives, after an intimate experience supporting a friend requiring a lung transplant as the result of cystic fibrosis. His ORGAN DONOR vinyl dolls were featured in Kidrobot, Munky King, Zeus Comics, Poptopia, Ultrapop, Super7, and a host of modern art museums. In a recent exhibition this summer at the Lyons Wier Gallery [http://lyonswiergallery.com] in New York City entitled "As Within, So Without" David Foox & company donated 10% of the proceeds to benefit Donate Life NY - the New York Organ Donor Network.

Vesna Jovanovic

http://www.vesnaonline.com

Vesna Jovanovic is a contemporary visual artist whose creative process typically involves the use of randomness coupled with meticulous deliberation, often exploring concepts of time, merging dualities, and science. Jovanovic holds a BA in Fine Arts and a BS in Chemistry from Loyola University Chicago, where she received First Place at the graduating senior exhibition. She also holds a BFA in Studio Art from The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she was granted a Merit Scholarship of Recognition. Her MFA degree in Photography is from The Ohio State University. Jovanovic is a recipient of several awards and grants, including a CAAP grant from City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs and the Illinois Arts Council, First Prize at the Works on Paper exhibition at the Riverside Arts Center in Riverside, IL, and a Curator’s Choice Artist award at the 10th Annual Chicago Art Open, among others. Jovanovic was also recently featured in several magazines and blogs such as: Time Out Chicago, Newcity, Seed, Art:21, and Discover. Her artwork has been included in over fifty exhibitions since 2003, including solo exhibitions at the University of Chicago Gordon Center for Integrative Science, the International Museum of Surgical Science, and the Riverside Arts Center. She currently resides in Chicago, Illinois.

Elizabeth Jameson

http://www.jamesonfineart.com

Ms. Jameson is both a public interest lawyer and a public interest artist. Her journey in art follows a 30-year career representing poor and vulnerable children with chronic illnesses and disabilities in their efforts to obtain medically necessary health care. As an artist, she creates works that contribute to the visual language of disability. Her art tells a story that lies at the heart of narrative medicine. In 1991 Ms. Jameson was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Ms. Jameson's disease inspires her to create images that provide new insights into the brain and, at the same time, make medical imaging and its representative humanity more accessible to both medical professionals and others who view these revealing images. Ms. Jameson creates portraits of herself and others through the use of magnetic resonance images (MRIs). MRIs provide critical clinical understanding of a brain's structure and, for an MS patient, disease progression. But the MRIs produce images of a brain that are naked and without emotional context, without passion or sadness, without all the frailties, humor, and idiosyncrasies that make us who we are. Ms. Jameson's focus is to saturate these cold, two-dimensional MRI pixels with the numerous colors and emotions that comprise the landscape of a life, and, in Ms. Jameson's case, personal reflections within the digital self-portrait. The brain -- even a brain with disease -- is beautiful, complex and intriguing. Rather than turn away from what brings discomfort, her goal as an artist is to encourage viewers to contemplate this amazing biological structure, with all of its powers to change, adapt andconfound. Ms. Jameson's brain etchings have been recognized in the medical, scientific and artistic community.  Her work is on permanent display at the Center for Brain Science at Harvard University.  Her brain series, consisting of over 40 etchings of  Ms. Jameson's brain,  is currently on display at the Mind and Brain Center at University of California at Davis. She has also exhibited her brain series at the School of Medicine at the University of California at San Francisco, and the Commonwealth Club of San Francisco.

http://reginaholliday.blogspot.com/

http://www.open-health.us/topics/reginas-advocacy-timeline

Regina Holliday is a DC-based patient rights arts advocate. She is currently at work on a series of paintings depicting the need for clarity and transparency in medical records. She placed her first mural in the series in May of 2009. After the death of her husband, Fred Holliday II, on June 17th 2009, She began a large Mural Titled “73 cents.” This piece can be viewed at 5001 Connecticut Ave. Washington, DC 20008. This piece depicts Holliday family’s nightmare journey through the medical system during Fred’s cancer care. The painting became part of the national healthcare debate and was covered by the BBC, CNN, CBS, AOL, VOA, NPR, The Washington Post and the BMJ. In June 2010, she gave a speech before the National Partnership for Women and Families and US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (which Sebelius referenced 3 times in her own speech). Ms. Holliday has a son with autism and lost her husband, Fred, in 2008 to kidney cancer at the age of 39.

Elizabeth Cohn

http://web.me.com/febes36/Sense_of_Imagination/Welcome.html

Beth Cohn is an emerging artist with a positive outlook on life. She is a University of Delaware graduate with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, with a concentration in painting. Working out of her home studio in New Jersey, she works mostly in acrylic and charcoal. She recently won 3rd place in a juried art show held at Anshe Emeth Memorial Temple. Her artwork is currently displyed at her father's office where he has his family practice. His patients love to come and see her work, and occasinally her dad will even sell a piece or two. Beth's paintings are inspired by her dreams and imaginings that become part of her reality. She often uses blind contour to maintain a loose and whimsical feeling, along with warm bright colors. There is always a story behind her work, and she hopes the viewer will search for meaning within the symbolism, whether intended or not.

Julie Gidion-Smith

http://www.flickr.com/photos/juliefaith/

Julie was diagnosed with Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis (FSGS), is a disease that attacks the kidney's filtering system, as a toddler. She lived the first 34 years of her life (including 5 years in New Zealand, a year in Canada and having two children) aware but pretty much symptom-free. So, in February 2002, when it seemed to be taking an extrodinarily long time to recover from the flu it didn't cross her mind that she was actually experiencing renal failure. Yet, there it was... Eventually, through the ABO Incompatible Transplant protocol, Julie found an organ donor. Plasmapheresis, IVIG therapy, powerful immunosuppressants and spleen removal are combined to enable recipients to receive kidneys from live donors with blood types that have traditionally been deemed incompatible. This revolutionary series of procedures made it possible for Julie's blood type A sister to override Julie's high PRA and donate her kidney to type O+ Julie. On September 28, 2004, after 36 years of progressive kidney disease, 19 months on dialysis and 5 transplant centers, Julie received the gift of life from her baby sister. Julie and her family are now Donate Life Ambassadors.

Meredith Towsand

http://meredithtowsand.com
http://musicequalsart.wordpress.com
http://www.mtowsand.etsy.com

Meredith Towsand is a painter, photographer, and sketcher extraordinaire from Ithaca, NY. Inspired heavily by music, Meredith has an eye for capturing the essence of local musicians, thus adding a very personal visual component to the Ithaca music scene. Meredith is a self-taught artist; she attended Broome Community College for a semester and took a few classes through her high school only. Her work has been featured by the Ithaca Times, and exhibited at The Giving Tree, Wildfire, and the 4th Annual Ithaca Festival Paint Off.

And many, many more!

Also to be auctioned off, a professional studio photo shoot worth $3500 from

Rick Guidotti of Positive Exposure

Plus a special film screening of:

"Mito-Kids: 'Living with the Disease Behind the Disease'"