and we had a lot of interesting conversations there which i think we're going to be able to continue today and also talk a little bit more about the way that people can use different art forms  in hard times like poetry photography painting and so i just want to start i was a poem that's a poem by mary oliver she said i think a pretty well known american poet and i'm going to read what i believe is probably her most well known poem a lot of people have found a lot of comfort in this poem it's called wild geese you do not have to be good you do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting you only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves tell me about despair yours and i will tell you mine meanwhile the world goes on meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes over the prairie and the deep trees the mountains and the rivers meanwhile the wild geese high in the clean blue air are heading home again whoever you are no matter how lonely the world offers itself to your imagination calls to you like the wild geese harsh and exciting over and over announcing your place in the family of things writing ones thank you as funny read that one i went down to addison and and just funny how they seem to know where to go and there's all kinds of colors and people just tend to go down there and draw them and do a lot of photography there just it's amazing sight thousands and thousands at one time that's really interesting i didn't know about any of that yet it's the room i'm just talking about them flying in and they go down there and it's kind of a summer home for them or something yeah i i think that's a lot of what nearly all of us poetry it is about i think as a poet she spends a lot of time in a chair like more like she goes out walking for entire days and and just kind of finds her inspiration and i those those beautiful moments and in those painful moments of nature and and just comfort in them and then is somehow able to put it into beautiful words that give comfort to other people and calmness and peace i agree and what's interesting is we've been doing a lot getting ready for our hop coming up and which is coming up in september about a month from now it's going to be fun and we're learning about all different kinds of our as well and poetry is part of it the shadow art which you again go back to nature and whatever you see in that other seed maybe with a different name and bring it out and draw on color and i'll use the photography and i see a little different stuff as well but with our we're going to have a chance to see all the different forms of people looking at nature and like mary oliver was talking about so it's a real nice connection between and and so david you're a photographer i am so i'd like to hear a little bit about that about your photography practice well i've been doing it since i was eight years old of all things i want the wilson school here and and wilson is definitely a little progressive which is nice and while go on the regular stuff was also thrown into photography and basket weaving and cooking so by the time i was nine i was able to start doing stuff in the darkroom and my grandfather just taught me basically what to look for and he had a beautiful garden and so i just and  shooting ever since and then i've been lucky i run into people you know writing and i shot a album couple record album covers which are kind of fun and and but he there's several folks that are amazing at writing and doing some interesting poetry there's folks that do oil painting this folks and to pottery in the jury and there's so many differences at that place but all of different and come together and makes us very strong community and a very active community they are what's nice we've been having to drop in aren't so since yeah where you've come in their career and qur'an is another lady that does some fantastic paintings and you'll see that  and then other people see a little bit of pride in there and i know it's going to be a neat experience for everybody yeah i think alan i think you're right about that the the pride that comes with showing off your art materials and then submit it to the contest and then those pieces that were accepted were put in the frog hollow gallery on church street i love it i play yeah and it's usually a gallery reserved for like fine artists but to be a high school student showing off our work in this beautiful gallery space like really built up our confidence and and you know gave us gave us sad sense of accomplishment and it's kind of funny you kind of type talk about people are concerned about war not being find a place to live a lot of medical issues and i think art and music and poetry all that has a way for people to both communicate about it but also to some protesting about it i mean when times are rough music tends to start out maybe a little down but then there's a groundswell and people start it starts pumping up and it's just a way to bring people together and i don't know i'm finding more more and that's in place like burlington that people really want the same thing they just want good housing they want something the good medical care they don't want war i have friends that live in russia has the right pen pals who's a right small time they want the same thing we do it's kind  affable friend who answered to mark i'm not sure i can fully answer on my part what i didn't know about him i'll probably say he was a man who lived his life most each and every day he was not a man with many limitations in his head if you saw his affection for his kilt little more need be said a life of his own beckoning questionable or not he surely led from this mouth astonishing facts and intelligence often bled he was always polite friendly and fair i don't often see him rocking to music hidden by the headphones in his hair my claris the beast of a dog a special kind of affection animals no genuine kindness of this i surely reckon he was always inviting happy and willing to share he did what he wanted saying some of us wouldn't dare the point he was our friend neighbor and known to so so many the last years of his life spent at decker towers surrounded by family his departure was swift sudden and surprising but i have no doubt his soul really beautiful and and you know shows a lot of i don't know mark but it shows a lot of love for him you know we find where we live a lot of folks again we all come from different factors those folks that had quite well off lives and great jobs and then they ended up at decker towers those folks that end up different kind of handicaps and disabilities and folks like mark who just was community found a lot of us we just you know all over downtown burlington homeless a lot of times and we end up with a place like decker towers mark because we do really get to know each other and folks they do common cry on our shoulders we help each other with garden that was there and then people are really excited again about the art thing they want to they make photos for people there's one lady that paints wheelchairs in the stuff different kind of paint on the chairs or pink pictures and when it's all on the wheel love these folks to live along you know in their own apartment but we've all become friends we've all become basically on calls and on sisters and brothers and it's so  doesn't always darkest hours hasn't always had the best reputation and i think folks there are trying to make it better make people understand the situation and i don't know and through one of things and one start to do things together the stories that drop in our chance to do the projects at what we're going to do with the our hop and i mean it's the idea of the places changing people some alone do tend to stay in their apartments and stay a little isolated but more and more people are sharing their lives housing we do have they have a lot of different they have family housing situation and they have strictly i believe have thing they do have the places where folks with disabilities can communicate and live in a productive life you know not feel isolated or something like that and the set we have sas coordinators people that help brin care about stuff and that doesn't always happen and i think people in this building i think people are certain realize there are people that do care about the situation through these are things that are doing impressed by the and and the way that people are in writing really each other and all and you know it's so simple so these are organized by current who's the artist you mention and yeah and yeah and everyone uses those those colors in their own way you know some people lay it on really thick and create this beautiful texture abstract thing other people water it down and use it almost like water color and make these delicate little flower done that was funny because the colors thing come out as brave as we thought they were going to but was still really interesting yeah people love these ideas and go for it well i remember at first she asked me she's like is is anything happening with these cups of dirty water and i thought she wanted to know where to dump it out and get fresh water and then she said no i don't throw anything away i use everything and she does it and she she brought down a couple of sweatpants and like white t shirts and started nodding them off and putting rubber bands around and did tie dye right there was a dirty paint wanted and you're right they came out great y and it's that kind of energy that motivates people to start thousand small community like that and then it spread to other places and hopefully between the poetry and everything it's kind isolates a little bit from the real world maybe yeah art can be a can be kind of a way to to either get with the real world deal with these hard things or it can be a kind of respite from that and you know when it gets too much you know i think a lot of it poetry is was all things they might you know see something like flowers or something and they start writing about it and then it turns into descriptions or whatever and so a lot of times i think the poetry part of it because i leave them to other art forms leads and photography in the there i think and it's funny how our it's really become more of a tool activists tool because words motivate and i think pictures do a great job yeah yeah i think i know art does have the capacity to like tell those truths that might be hard to say in a more simple way or maybe our is the simple way of saying the and i really appreciate it when people use it to share their art and share you know like something beautiful they saw in the world and you know and instead of just using it as some i think  facebook started out as a way to like complain about something rather than well you know the steve done it in such a way where they've shown a lot of negative stuff but somebody's always find something positive out of the most that's really i did bring along one other thing to me so if it feels like it fits our conversation about the importance of our in everyday life so this of different things and even down the washington name and all kinds of yeah worldwide so so they're brought in puppets so they have the performance aspect of it the big puppet shows and then they also have the cheap people have been thinking too long that art is a privilege of the museums and the rich are is not business it does not belong to banks and fancy investors are is food you can't eat it but it feeds you has to be cheap and available to everybody it needs to be everywhere because it is the inside of the world art suits pain art wakes up sleepers art fights against war and stupidity art yeah i'm really excited about the art ha we don't have too much time now so let's just let everyone know that what we're talking about the art is on september eighth ninth and tenth in the south than are still strict  towers were flaying hopefully other buildings showing their art it's so that if if you're on our top route it's directly across the street from the space gallery and the sort of plant there so it's