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 Dear Friends and Supporters:
Last year, I reached out to you to help us take a talented young writer, Roberto Valdez, on our Artist Retreat to Italy. It was truly a life changing event in his young life. Because of the success of this effort, we have set up the Roberto Valdez Scholarship for International Travel for a young artist who has been involved at Medicine Wheel.
This year’s candidate is Devin Brock. Devin is one of the most gifted and visionary young men I have ever met. I am always telling him that some day he will be the Artistic Director at Medicine Wheel.
When I first met Devin, he was a student at the Boston Latin School and his life seemed full of promise. Like many creative souls he soon became caught up in drinking and drugs. For a couple of years his life seemed to spiral out of control. When we were applying for the P&G Gillette Hope and Recovery Grant, Devin told me the most stunning story; that he had smoked heroin before he had started shaving.
Today he is enrolled at the Recovery High School, Ostiguy High. He recently celebrated a year of sobriety. He was also awarded the “Medicine Man” Award for taking such courageous steps in his life. He currently works in our after school program and has become a peer leader, spokesperson, and advocate. He is also a gifted artist. I’m hoping that this retreat to Italy will allow him to connect deeply to the creative process.
Like last year we are looking for 300 people to pledge $10.00 each to make this possible. Last year we met the challenge in the first week.
Thank you for your help with this!
Yours,
Michael Dowling
Artistic Director (until Devin is ready to take over)
mdowling@mwproductions.org
617.268.6700
Donations can be made online by clicking here. Checks (made payable to Medicine Wheel Productions) can also be sent to:
Medicine Wheel Productions
110 K Street
South Boston, MA 02127
Points of Impact Exhibit
What began as a lark, a tremor of the trigger finger during an afternoon at a firing range, turned into a series of works that, unconsciously at first, followed the pathways of personal narrative. Initially the magnetism of these pierced human targets wasn’t all that clear to me, except for the fact that I was affected by the unexpected gravity I felt using a gun for the first time and for the beauty of the targets themselves. Eerily human and carefully concentric, the rings and brilliant red bull’s eye within the target’s field of black and ocher, provided a structured backdrop for the random tattoos the bullet holes left. The holes, whimsical and painful, ripped through the tender paper and curiously upset the sedate symmetry of the target.
This dichotomy of beauty and violence compelled me to draw out the human qualities in the targets. I layered refined and elegant drawings, like those of Leonardo da Vinci, within the human silhouette and incorporated the dark, raw, and ragged bullet holes into the design. It became apparent to me that those marks told the story of individual moments, points of impact or wounds if you will, that we gather all our lives and wear over our hearts as badges of experience. My imagery evolved as I began to work through my own story.
I explored the relationship between the shooter and the target, as well. When seen as a group, these targets form a silent chorus who bear witness to our humanity. Their ghostly presence challenges us, silently beseeching. Whether the viewer sees themselves as the catalyst or the wounded, an unbreakable connection is established between the finger that pulls the trigger and that of the heart, confined within those concentric circles. These bonds carry great power and potential. Their strength can become the guide wire for stepping deliberately through this life.
Points of Impact
I wish to live deliberately.
I am the one that holds the gun.
I am the one with the target placed securely over my heart.
Linda
Burke
January 2012
 Dear Friends and Supporters,
We hope that this letter finds you safe and warm this holiday season! Thank you for your continued generosity and support—we could not do the work that we do without you.
This past year has been an exciting year for Medicine Wheel Productions. We have launched new and innovative community-based art projects such as our Safety Maps, served 350 young people through our four youth programs, exhibited three shows in our Spoke Gallery (including “Southie is my Hometown” by our very own Richie Dinsmore), launched a youth scholarship program for our artist retreats in Ireland and Italy, been recognized as a leader in the art and community-building world, and the list goes on! As we gear up for another successful year, we invite you to participate by making a contribution. Our goal is to raise $30,000. Here are some ways that you can make a difference:
o $50 provides two-hours of Case Management and career readiness training to the young people in our youth employment programs.
o $100 provides students in our Spoken Word and Visual Arts classes at the Edwards Middle School with new voice recorders and art supplies.
o $300 provides a stipend to one of the professional artists exhibiting in our Spoke Gallery and supports our curatorial program.
o $500 purchases materials for our public art projects such as No Man’s Land, the Safety Maps, Medicine Wheel Installation, and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day project.
o $750 provides the young men and women in our Hope and Recovery program with art supplies and support from professional teaching artists during their healing art classes.
o $1,000 provides one of our after-school youth employees with a month’s pay and much needed support services from our staff.
o $4,000 provides one of our full-time Youth in Transitions employees with a month’s pay and much needed support services from our staff.
Similar to the philosophy of the Native American medicine wheel, we believe that every person has talents and abilities to share with the world and that, through art, they can unlock them. By participating in the art—whether that’s creating the art, experiencing the art, or taking a cultural action in response to the art—we believe that community members are taken on a transformative journey that helps them gain a deeper understanding of themselves, of others, and the overall human condition. We truly hope that you will support the amazing programming happening at Medicine Wheel, and join us in transforming lives!
Click here to make a contribution or send a check to Medicine Wheel Productions at 110 K Street in South Boston, MA 02127.
Sincerely,
Michael Dowling and Lindsay Jensen
Artistic Director and Managing Director
617.268.6700
 Braiding has always been a social art. During braiding of each others’ hair, women came together to socialize and bond. The tradition was passed down from elders braiding younger children’s hair to older children watching and learning the tradition to practice on younger children. In this sense the act of braiding served as a means to weave the past, present, and future together through this generational bonding.
The Cushing House women at Medicine Wheel Studio have engaged in this women’s way of knowing, working mindfully over the past month on the Braid Wave Project. They worked side-by-side, weaving long colorful strips of fabric together to form strong colorful braids. During this activity the studio was at times a place of quiet and mindfulness. At other times, a place of sharing thoughts of the moment, stories of the past, and dreams of the future.
The side-by-side configuration of their braids simultaneously flowing on a common path, symbolize a collective journey through recovery. They also act as a metaphor for the transformative power of human connection and a catalyst for strength in unity. Meditation during the act of braiding with the three strands of fabric woven together was an invitation to contemplate the significance of the mind, body, and spirit coming together to make one whole. The robust current of braids flowing around the carved clay plate portraits of each woman serve to protect, strengthen and unite on their path to recovery.
View the Braid Project at the Amazing Arts Center in Framingham from Tuesday, November 22 through Saturday, December 31. Click here for more details.
A letter from Medicine Wheel’s Artistic Director, Michael Dowling:
Dear friends and supporters,
In 1980, I was working at Fenway Community Health Center and witnessed the beginning of AIDS in Boston-the founding of AIDS Action, the dying years, and the fear! I remember having dinner with my mother. When she realized that she had drunken from my glass she blurted out, “It’s OK, I don’t have AIDS. Do you?”
 In 1992, the Boston Center for the Arts invited me to create a new work to honor World Aids Day, A Day Without Art, which many of you know as Medicine Wheel. That year, I scattered stones in the Cyclorama and asked folks to move them to a pile in the center of the room. Two women struggled with the largest stone, so I and another young man offered to help. They declined. When offered a third time, one of them said to me “You don’t get this! Her son, my nephew just died from AIDS. This is our weight!” She told me how the whole family had abandoned him. From that installation on, I witnessed powerful moments of healing and reflection.
In 1998, a young suicide attempt survivor I worked with lost his mother to AIDS. When he showed up for the opening of Medicine Wheel, someone nudged me saying, “We have trouble. Some thugs have shown up.” The young man knelt in the center of Medicine Wheel sobbing and clutching the only photo he had of his mother, the newspaper obituary. His grandmother had destroyed the rest of the photos because his mother had died a “bad death”.
In 2008, a woman came in just as Medicine Wheel was ending. She was looking at a book entitled Living with AIDS. I offered her the book, but in response she said, “I just wanted to see what they have put in the books.” She then told me that her two sons had died from AIDS, sixteen and seventeen years earlier. She asked me if the wheel was inside, telling me that she came every year to remember her boys. She also told me that when they were sick no one would speak to her, including her own mother. She then carried in two buckets of water to add to the 12,000 we had already installed.
Over the years tens of thousands have gathered at Medicine Wheel to reflect and remember. This year we are celebrating the 20th incarnation. The mystical Poet Rumi says, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there.” I hope that Medicine Wheel has been and will continue to be that field for many.
I am hoping that you will continue to help celebrate our shared artistic legacy and recognize the power of art to heal, nurture, and transform! Where would we be without art? Where would I be without you?
Thank you,
Michael Dowling, Founder and Artistic Director
Medicine Wheel Productions
mdowling@mwproductions.org
617.268.6700
To read more about this year’s installation, click here.
 MEDICINE WHEEL PRODUCTIONS
SAFETY MAP PROJECT
SUMMER 2011
Safety Map Video
This summer, our youth employees have been working on large-scale collage maps of various Boston neighborhoods. We have then taken the maps to the streets and invited community members to tag the locations where they feel safe and included and where they do not. Check out the video to learn more!
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Dear Friends and Supporters:
