Art Programs 2022

Thank you everyone who participated in the art programs this year!  YOU added so much color and creativity to my world.

We held a once a month open studio for women, programs for children with special needs, a 6 week art/character program at a local juvenile detention and a program once a month at a home for men with traumatic brain injuries.

I can't tell you how much this blessed me and those

who participated! 

Friendships were forged.

   

fun was had!

Thank you also to those artisans who took the time and effort to come up with a project and help facilitate it:

Tricia, Ofie, Teri, Michelle, 

You ladies ROCK!

Thank you also for those who have donated art supplies, including JoAnn Fabrics Corporate.  

I was able to bring close to 100 pounds of supplies to Ukraine,

 two weeks after the invasion began. 

I can't wait to see what 2023 will bring!

 

Hey Friends,

I want to share part one (of three parts) of a radio interview that I recently did on Arizona Shine, "REAL TALK" with Ralene Challinor...

/Users/launastan/Desktop/Real Talk Program 7-24-22.mp3

 

https://ralenechallinor.wixsite.com/realtalkprescott/copy-of-latest-interviews-1

Look for the second and third part in the next few weeks! 

 

5:20 / 15:43

Just a reminder-

I give free art classes for kids with special needs, foster children, kids battling physical challenges, 

kids and adults with traumatic brain injury, those in detention situations and in the hospital. I have a 

large artist's studio that classes are held in, but also travel to those in the community who cannot 

come to me.  

We are always thankful for donated art supplies and finances as well as grants for running costs.

Please contact me if you have a group that you would like to have me lead a project or program with.

Poetryartist@yahoo.com     928-533-5965

Beauty From Ashes

I mentioned that I would share more about my trip to Ukraine in March and April.  I think the thing that stands out the most to me is how resilient, strong, brave and relentless the Ukrainian people actually are! Many people have opinions about what is happening in this war, but I want to let these two videos that I shot speak for themselves. They are a couple of incredible women and a small slice of their stories...

Nina escapes from Kyiv...

                                                         https://youtu.be/WQ8Bi5T4fXY

Luda turns tragedy into an opportunity...

                                                           https://youtu.be/Dbnakqfydmw

I encountered so many internally and externally displaced Ukrainians and one thing that I came away with is that they are turning their ashes into something powerful and beautiful.  I hope you take time to view the videos as I believe they will touch your heart and give you a personal perspective on this terrible and unjust war.

It is MORE than Enough

I want to share the latest piece of Poetry Art that I have finished and reproduced, (in greeting cards and signed prints.) I wrote the poetry in Krakow, Poland after traveling into Ukraine four times in 5 weeks to do what I could to help displaced Ukrainians and those who had to shelter in place with their children.  The poetry was inspired by a story that I was told of a young lady who was keeping a journal while bombs were falling all around her in Mariupol. As many of you understand, at least those of you that follow the news, this city has been decimated by constant shelling and bombing. In the diary that someone found, she told how she no longer cherished faraway dreams or even her future, but was thankful to just wake up another day.  It was "enough" for her.

This story changed my life. Every morning, I sit in bed now and pray (as I usually do,) but now I tell God that it is enough that I am alive, it is enough that I can breathe, it is enough that I can see and hear, it is enough, it is enough, it is enough....a million times over.  Life is such a fragile and precious gift.

The girl's journal was found in rubble, but at this time, her body has yet to be recovered.

The sunflower represents Ukraine, as they grow millions of sunflowers every season.  Sunflower seeds are a cash crop, as they make sunflower oil from it and ship it worldwide.  The blue and yellow in the background represents their flag. Blue for the sky and yellow for the crops of wheat, also an important crop for the economy.  While I was traveling in the west and southwest of Ukraine, I saw so many farmers on tractors plowing up the earth.  I was told that these fields and so many more in the west have never been cultivated.  Yet, they are now being sowed because the eastern part of the country is actually the bread basket of this fertile land, but because of the war and all the damage and devastation they cannot plow as usual.  Now the west is having to do the lion's share to make up for the deficit and to feed the entire country.  I painted this piece in record time-one week, after returning from my impactful trip to Ukraine.

Here is the artwork:

If you look closely, the seeds in the middle are people's faces, those whom I know, whom I met and several whom have perished.  Along the stem are people in various positions of displacement,  Around the stem and leaf are portions of Psalm 91 in the Ukrainian language and in the blue background is the entire chapter of Psalms 91.

Details:

            

Here is the poetry:

IT IS ENOUGH

It is enough that I have awakened to a new day

And that the sun warms my face

It is enough that I can taste another gulp of breath

And that it is delicious

It is enough to feel my chest rising and falling

To know that my heart is thumping in rhythm

It is enough to see the faces of my family

And hear them bantering like downy chicks in the yard

It is enough that our Father in a turquoise heaven adores me

Has memorized my name-Precious

It is enough to rejoice and worship unfettered, completely

In this simple sacred moment

It is enough to understand that all of these things are

Unwarranted gifts, irresistible and magnanimous

Now I realize that I don't need faraway dreams

Nor audacious plans to sustain my silent soul

Because of this present anguish and bewilderment

Ideas have melted like a mist

Today, in this very moment

I see with perfect lucidity...

It is enough

Being alive is more than enough!

This is being offered on WWW.Globalimpactworldrelief.org & https://www.etsy.com/shop/PoetryArtbyLauna 

as signed prints for $35. and cards 5 for $20.

All sales benefit Ukrainians and work being done in that country with our partner,

Mercy Projects. (Mercyprojects.org)

Living Like a Displaced Person

in a War Zone

Ukraine, March & April 2022: I just returned from 5 weeks in Ukraine, Poland (and a tiny jaunt into Hungary and Slovakia.) 

(Because of the vicarious trauma I believe that I am still sorting through, I am going to share this trip, my impressions and some of the things that I saw and experienced in multiple blogs. I have to piece it all together like a patchwork quilt and then lay those thoughts out on paper. This is part I am simply attempting to step into a displaced Ukrainian's footsteps.)

Is it possible to know what another human being is feeling, experiencing and grieving? I don't know.  Even if you walk right behind them, putting your feet directly into the mark that they have pushed into the dirt with their shoes, that human is living his or her own story.  But I believe empathy and Christian love demands that we come close to the surface of their reality to get a better understanding, to know what it means to be "them."  And so it has been here in Ukraine for me.  I have had the privilege and opportunity, to not only hear another's pain drenched account but to trudge behind thousands wearily waiting at the border, for too many hours to count-in hopes of being safe.  

I too have been hungry; thinking that there would be food soon only to watch it evaporate. As darkness happens and another curfew falls, I had to wait again for the sun to rise in order to eat. To figure out where I could get food. 

I have been awakened by air raid sirens at 4 am and have had to wait in the hallway with others, wrapped in blankets, trembling but not from the cold.  Uncertainty in every breath.  Tense and quiet, sharing a surreal experience together in a crumbling, concrete apartment block.  All anticipating what might come next.  

It could be an "all clear" signal or the crashing sound of a bomb, decimating and changing the histories of many-including myself.

 I didn't have to be here, I chose to be.  And yet, I have praised the Lord each morning for surviving the night.  I too have walked homeless, not knowing where I would lay my head that evening.  At times it with others who were just grateful to have a couple of square feet to stretch out and block out reality for a few hours.

Refugee shelters in churches and in basements of buildings. I slept in both of these for three nights.

 I have been unwashed for days, wearing the same clothes over and over until they smell like the fires that soldiers make in oil cans at night.  So many young men in army fatigues waiting by Molotov cocktails in used wine and vodka bottles at the checkpoints.  Tons of sandbags and concertina wire and cumbersome steel hedgehogs that wait to stop the invader's tanks.  I am not displaced and I am not a refugee, but I have tasted a morsel of the bitterness of this role that has been thrust upon so many people, who just want to live their lives as before. I understand a little better because I took this road. 

These people are brave.  

And still, even in all that, I am still just an observer in another's pain.  Perhaps, I can touch upon their existence-just a little closer emotionally than someone who is at home transfixed to the televised news.  Still I am separated.  Set apart by more than language and nationality.  Unity comes from shared desperation.  Each individual Ukrainian has a story to tell and much like the year that Chernobyl gave them bigger water to drink, this tale is again of uprootedness and uncertainty. I hope each one gets to share their trauma and that there will be a compassionate ear that will listen without judgement!

-Launa Stan (written in Lviv, Ukraine after sleeping in a shelter for refugees for the first time.)

To be continued....

HELLO! I am back from Poland and Ukraine.

I had the privilege of aiding internally and externally displaced Ukrainians.  When I catch my breath, I will post about it here on my blog but also share photos, videos and thoughts on the soon to be revamped Global Impact website. 

 Tears and Prayers

for Ukraine

This painting is on permanent display in the Chernobyl National Museum in Kyiv, (Kiev) Ukraine.

It has been there for 22 years and I painted it and dedicated it to the Ukrainian people who have

suffered so much over the years. It especially spoke to the horrific nuclear accident in 1986. I awoke

on February 24, 2022 to the invasion of their country with heartbreak, as I have been following this

build up for some time. My husband, Marty had just returned from Ukraine where he ministered to

troops on the border with Sasha, a Ukrainian chaplain who we have known for over 20 years. He 

traveled the countryside with Jeff and Paula Thompson of Mercy Projects and other Ukrainians to 

deliver gifts, supplies and emotional support to those with special needs children and families in the Chernobyl region.

Our hearts go out to the Ukrainians, as we have so many friends there! Please pray for the safety of

these dear people as this war is not what they want or deserve.  Also for the Russian people, because 

just like the Ukrainians, they will lose loved ones too. Their young soldiers do not want to do this. 

The present unspeakable atrocity is being done by governments, not by the innocents who want to live 

in peace and raise their families without fear. (On both sides.)

The poetry that follows is called "Uprooted."  The painting is created from the words of this poem.

It speaks so clearly about what is happening right now in the country of Ukraine, just as it did when

I wrote it about the Chernobyl nuclear disaster:

Uprooted

If a man's thought dye his soul

What kind of stain do his deeds leave?

A hazardous spill on himself and upon the laps of others

Who share the same air, breathing in and out, in and out

Now there is bitterness that abounds in the breadbasket to the north

Uprooted family trees and forgotten people in yellowed photos dangling down

Wooden cradles set ablaze in the forest

Where blue light sprang from place to place

Luminescent, deadly beautiful, reminiscent of sparklers

Crackling at a May Day parade

The rain has become hot tears pouring down

Falling down, dropping to the earth

The fragmented rivulets on a musical score

Splash on these paper lives, fragile and all too brief

The muffled sobbing is a melody, but only to the ears of Him unseen

It is the aria of the heart that sings a Capella

The high pitched notes of pain

Yet he who suffers much speaks a wordless language

That can be understood, although the tongue is mute

It transcends dialects, country lines, political ideologies

Uprooted, yet not alone

I have seen lives irrevocably changed in one moment of time

From one thoughtless choice, a careless decision

Leaving ancient villages empty, doors swinging on empty hinges

For all eternity, plus seven years more

And plastic dolls of stolen youth sit on dust covered window panes

Vacantly gazing at the loss

Uprooted, yet not alone

Heartbreak and tragedy are no respecters of persons

Traditions, religions or plans

It is blinded by skin color and the coins in one's purse

I have been told that fear is like rust that eats away hope, little by little

Corroding all confidence

This invisible acid obliterates desire

Until we are mere shells with nothing left inside

Uprooted, yet not alone

I believe love is a salve

To be spread on the wound to heal and to soothe

Able to mend the uttermost places that are hidden from men

Faith causes that page to turn

Just because today's sunshine is blocked out by the clouds

Doesn't mean the sun is gone

If God seems silent, it doesn't mean He has left us

Or doesn't hear our cries

Perhaps we are the ones who are not listening

To the voice that is gentle and low, tender and always near

We must be quiet and still

He is here and anxious to woo us to Him like a lover

He will be revealed once more

Uprooted, yet not alone

There is a day that dawns upon all of our broken lives

That we are able to see clearly, if we look with unjaded eyes

We can see that we are all people with ruined dreams

With unrealized plans

Yet somehow they can fit perfectly into His bigger picture

And will be breathtakingly beautiful in time

Uprooted, yet never alone

From these strange ashes-hope will arise!

©Launa

This is how it looks in the museum installation today.

I created this piece, "Hungry for Love" in 1998.

It features a mother and her three children in the Chernobyl region.

It was sold to benefit a home for children who had been rescued from living

on the streets of Kyiv called, "Father's House." I feel that because of today's

invasion of Ukraine, it is appropriate to share this image and poem as well.

Hungry for Love

I asked for vision

To see them through the eyes of God

I received more than I expected, more than I wished

That day, I viewed them with indescribable clarity

Seeing not just their faces, but their souls

Hungry for Love

Thirsty for Truth

Blinded by darkness, longing for Light

I saw the young women with broken dreams

Because of husbands who had severed vows

I saw lonely widows

Whose partners had been cruelly snatched away

By bitter waters and poisoned air

I saw grandmothers

In bright red babushkas

With hot tears streaming down

Who were left to raise the orphans

To find a way to make nothing

Stretch into something

So their little bellies

Wouldn't growl from enormous need

Hungry for Love

Thirsty for Truth

Blinded by darkness, longing for Light

I have been broken open

To be a fragrance throughout the earth

So that the tender aroma

Of True Bread can be sensed

And all who are hungry for love

Will be filled

And will never feel famished again

And to drink

From the Source that is clean and pure

Streams of Living Waters

From this day on

They will never be thirsty again

©Launa

This is a photo of an elderly women in her 90s who lives in a freezing home in the Chernobyl region.  Marty took this photo while he was in Ukraine in January 2022. Pray for vulnerable folks like this precious one!

This is a photo of Sasha ministering to the Ukrainian soldiers on the eastern border.

Marty and Jeff Thompson are also shown. The faces of the soldiers could not be 

photographed, due to security reasons.

To hear Sasha's recent report from the front lines:

https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=961302484525322https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=961302484525322

To donate to Ukrainian Refugees