Kundalini Splendor

Dear Friends,
I am forwarding this announcement to you, mainly because it relates to my remarkable friend Patricia, who is perhaps the most unusual person I have ever met.  She is the friend who set up this site for me years ago and she is the person to whom the site is dedicated.  She is seriously impacted by her MS, yet she is certainly one of the most creative and exuberant people I know.  She has just finished --after 5 years--the book she describes here--and--although anyone is welcome to contribute to the "Kickstart" fund she mentions, it is mainly to share her video piece that I am sending this to you.  You can click on the site below to see and hear from this truly unique woman, who is leaving next week to travel to Belgium to work with the printer on the final copy of her book.
Love all around,
Dorothy

Begin forwarded message:

From: Patricia Lay-Dorsey
Date: September 26, 2013 10:40:41 AM MDT
To: Patricia Lay-Dorsey
Subject: my book - press release & Kickstarter campaign

My dear friends and colleagues,

As most of you know, since 1988 I have been working on a self portrait project called Falling Into Place. Over the past five years, images from Falling Into Place have been seen in personal presentations, print magazines, gallery and museum exhibits, online websites, blogs and ‘zines. Falling Into Place has won international awards and is in the process of being published as a book by Ffotogallery in Cardiff, Wales with a projected release on November 23, 2013. That is the date Fovea Exhibitions in Beacon, NY will be hosting our Book Launch featuring an exciting collaborative slideshow by Patricia and electronic music by DJ illich Mujica of Brooklyn, NY. Of course I'll be there to sign copies of the book too!



After months of long-distance collaboration between my publisher David Drake, UK based book designer Victoria Forrest and me, the book Falling Into Place is now ready to go to press. As you can imagine, printing and distributing a photography book in today's market costs money. We are fortunate that Ffotogallery and a generous donor who asks to remain anonymous have already raised $15,000. We just need $5000 to complete the job. And that is why we have launched a Kickstarter campaign to raise $5000 by October 25th. For Kickstarter, the world’s largest funding platform for creative projects like mine, requires that you meet your goal within 30 days or none of the pledges will be collected. So time is of the essence. If we exceed our goal of $5000, that will allow us to distribute the book more widely to schools, disability organizations, rehabilitation centers and more.

I invite you to join the community that is forming to see that the book Falling Into Place gets out into the world where, hopefully, it can raise awareness of what life is like as seen through the eyes of a person with a disability. Please read the following press release by Ffotogallery to see what we hope this book will offer to the world. They say it better than I ever could.

To view my video (created by David Snider of the The Photography Channel-TV), read the introduction (written by Ffotogallery's Anne Siegel), see the rewards (yes, rewards!) and make a pledge if you wish, please click on the link below:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2074170015/falling-into-place-a-photography-book-about-living

I thank you for considering this request to become a financial supporter of my book Falling Into Place by contributing to my Kickstarter campaign. As they say, it takes a village...


With warm wishes,
Patricia

Patricia Lay-Dorsey
Website: http://www.patricialaydorsey.com
Email: playdorsey@comcast.net
Mobile: 313-410-0454
Skype: patricialaydorsey
Instagram: patricialaydorsey
Detroit, Michigan USA

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FFOTOGALLERY PRESS RELEASE

27.09.13



Falling Into Place Kickstarter

A photography book about living with MS

Ffotogallery, the national development agency for photography in Wales is collaborating with Detroit based photographer Patricia Lay-Dorsey to produce a unique publication Falling into Place. The book is a legacy project of Diffusion 2013, the first biennial Cardiff International Festival of Photography.

Lay-Dorsey was diagnosed with chronic progressive Multiple Sclerosis in 1988, and in 2008 began taking daily self portraits with the intention of showing from the inside the day-to-day life of a person with a disability. The photographs chronicle the struggles and achievements of the artist as she learns to accept the limitations of her body and celebrate her abilities rather than her disability. Taken together, the images build a compelling narrative about the artist's daily life which is both moving and offers a fascinating inside perspective.

Designed by Victoria Forrest, the hardback publication includes 50 colour plates and with an initial print run of 1000 copies. The book also contains texts by David Alan Harvey, Magnum photographer and Burn Magazine Editor, and David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery and Diffusion.

As well as being a beautiful document in its own right, Falling Into Place is an invaluable resource which the artist hopes to be able to distribute to schools and and disability rights organisations in the UK and USA. In order to guarantee this, Lay-Dorsey and Ffotogallery have launched a Kickstarter campaign to help contribute towards the printing and distribution costs of the publication. The campaign is aiming to raise $5,000, which, when added to the $15,000 contribution that Ffotogallery has already raised, will guarantee worldwide distribution of the publication.

“Ffotogallery is very proud to be publishing Falling into Place. In these self portraits Patricia has succeeded in producing an eloquent illustration of a life lived with disability, which will resonate far beyond the usual photographic audience.”

David Drake, Director of Ffotogallery.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2074170015/falling-into-place-a-photography-book-about-living

The publication will be launched on 23 November 2013 at Fovea Exhibitions, Beacon, New York, USA, prior to worldwide distribution.

For further information please contact Rebecca Thomas at info@ffotogallery.org or 029 2034 1667.



Notes to Editors:

Ffotogallery

As the major force for contemporary photography in Wales, Ffotogallery is recognised as the forum for contemporary debate and a focus for new developments in British and international photographic art. As a national organisation, its view is naturally outward looking, with an exhibition programme featuring photographers from Wales and the rest of the world. Ffotogallery seeks to widen its range of influence through touring exhibitions, collaborations with other organisations and galleries, through publications, and an expanding education programme.  In 2013 Ffotogallery launched Diffusion, a new biennial Cardiff international festival of photography, which takes place in venues across Wales’ capital city.

www.ffotogallery.org



About the Artist

Born in Washington, DC in 1942, Patricia Lay-Dorsey brings her training as a social worker (MSW, Smith College School for Social Work, 1966) and over three decades as a visual artist to her work as a photographer.

Patricia’s self portrait project, Falling Into Place, was awarded 3rd prize in the 2010 FotoVisura Grant for Outstanding Personal Photography Project. It took a 1st prize award at the 2013 Photo Annual Awards in Prague and is being exhibited during the summer of 2013 in the Final Wall Gallery Exhibition in Teplic, Czech Republic.

Falling Into Place had solo exhibits at the Griffin Museum of Photography in Winchester, Massachusetts (January 17-March 3, 2013), and at Fovea Exhibitions in Beacon, New York (April 13-July 7, 2013). It has been featured in Newsweek Japan and New Mobility Magazine and on the New York Times Lens blog, PDN Photo of the day, Visura Magazine and Burn Magazine, among others.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey’s website is http://www.patricialaydorsey.com

I wrote the following poem, which will be included in the book:



The Photographer
(for Patricia)

She has transcended body,
left it behind.
She lives in a brain-ferment,
a buzzing hive of mind,
a tossing sea of perception.

She gathers fragments
of the presented world
and translates them
into a new medium,
a cosmos of images
held in a different frame.

In this uncovered order sun
and darkness meet,
old and unaccustomed bleed into
one another's space.

She is the eternal creator,
eyeing, composing, unmaking,
turning life over
into new soil, new beginnings,
unexpected revelation.