DON’T WE LOOK ALIKE? WANTS YOUR ART!!!!!!!!!!!
ANNOUNCING
GIFTS TO THE WORLD: ART BY ADOPTEES
The month of December will be devoted to SHOWCASING the artistic endeavors of adoptees. ADULTS AND CHILDREN are welcome to submit.
We are looking for:
* VISUAL ART–painting, drawing, sculpture, photography, cartoons, scrapbooking, needlework, more (jpg)
* PERFORMANCE ART–singing, dancing, acting , comedy, choreography, directing, musical composition (video link)
* WRITTEN ART–poetry only (Word document)
No, art does not have to touch upon the subject of adoption.
This is the time for adoptees to SHARE THEIR TALENTS with others.
Submit to marishaandluanne@gmail.com.
Videos need to be YouTube, Vimeo, Hulu, Flickr, DailyMotion, Viddler, Blip.tv, TED Talks, or Videolog. We will embed onto the blog.
Other than our right to publish your art on this blog, you keep the rights to your artwork. THIS IS NOT A CONTEST OR COMPETITION. It’s a chance to show off your work. Therefore, whether your piece(s) is selected or not is not a reflection on talent, but on other factors, including space.
AND, YES, WE LOVE REFRIGERATOR ART!!!
Broken Connections, Lingering Questions
by Lisa DeNike Ercolano
“One good thing, at least: you’ll never have to worry about her birthparents just showing up and trying to take her back, like you sometimes hear about.”
I am sure she intended to be comforting, but instead, her comment pierced my heart.
Of course, when we decided to adopt from China, we knew the reality – that in the People’s Republic, children come to “social welfare institutions” (read: orphanages) primarily through one route (and excuse me for using what some adoptive parents consider the “a” word): abandonment.
Babies and children there are often left — without even a note revealing the child’s birth date – in crowded places, such as train or bus stations or busy marketplaces. One orphanage worker told me that it can sometimes feel as if these babies and children – usually wrapped warmly (and clearly, lovingly) in layers of acrylic knit blankets and clothing — materialized out of nowhere.
Some adoptive parents are like my colleague above, and consider this an advantage: the babies’ backgrounds are all clean and pristine, with no messy ties to their old lives and parents. I understand that feeling, having seen more than my share of those “Lifetime” movies featuring a child growing up happily in an adoptive home until the long lost birthparent (usually a drug addict, prostitute or psychopath) shows up and terrorizes the family trying to get her child back. But the truth is, those cases are few and far between and only make the news because they are so unusual and sensational.
To my way of thinking, returning birth parents are not a real danger, but questions that linger in the heart of an adopted person are. It makes me feel terrible, for instance, to know that my daughter, adopted at the age of six months from China, will likely always wonder about things that most children take for granted, from her mother and father’s name to how they look to what they do for a living, not to mention why they couldn’t keep her and raise her. I look at her and wonder whose smile she has, where she got her incredible talent as a dancer (I have two left feet and my husband does, too!), and whether her outgoing, sociable personality is typical of her extended family in China.
Unfortunately, we probably will never know.
Juliet’s dance move at the beach
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