My sister, Lynn Giovannelli was diagnosed with ALS in the summer of 2020. Wanting to do something helpful, I leaned into shat I know, and created Hope Lives: Art for ALS, an annual art exhibition, fundraiser and ALS awareness event that takes place each May during ALS Awareness Month. It is my pleasure and honor to connect with gallery visitors, care givers, people navigating and diagnosed with ALS.
Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) is a neurodegenerative disease with no known cure. It causes the neurons in the brain to lose connection with a person’s muscles, stealing a person’s ability to walk, talk, eat and breathe. There are a few medications that help slow the progression of ALS, but our hope is for a CURE!
I hope that you will read the ekphrastic poems written by local poets, who were inspired by the artwork in the 2023 Hope Lives: Art for ALS exhibition. All artwork for sale in my Little Art Gallery donates 55% of sales to ALS TDI. Read more about this amazing research facility and view available artwork by pressing the Shop button.
If you live in the Bay Area, consider walking with me on TEAM LYNN for the Golden West Chapter's annual Walk to Defeat ALS. The event is Saturday, October 28th at Miller Knox Regional Park in Pt. Richmond. Donate what you can and register today!
My sister, Lynn Giovannelli, leads us through her personal journey with strength and grace. Click on the video button to hear more about her story.
In this video, Brooke Eby tells a synonymous story about failing car brakes and her ALS diagnosis. Brooke shares her ALS story @limpbroozkit on TikTok & Instagram to drive awareness and promote funding for ALS research.
Follow Hope Lives on Instagram to learn more!
Please help me thank the following:
Poets:
Dean Rader is a poet, art writer, scholar, and critic who has published widely in the fields of poetry, American Indigenous studies, modern and contemporary art, and visual culture. Rader is a professor in The Department of English and in the Honors College at the University of San Francisco, where he has won the University's Distinguished Research Award and the College of Arts & Sciences' Dean's Scholar Award, as well as a Distinguished Teaching Award from the Society of Collegiate Scholars. His next book, Before the Borderless: Dialogues with the Art of Cy Twombly, a collection of poems in which Rader's poems and Twombly's work appear side-by-side, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press in 2023.
Sarah Rosenthal is the author of Lizard (Chax, 2016) and Manhatten (Spuyten Duyvil, 2009) as well as several chapbooks including but not limited to: Estelle Meaning Star (above/ground, 2014), disperse (dusie, 2014) and The Animal (in collaboration with artist Amy Fung-yi Lee, dusie, 2011). She edited A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Poets of the Bay Area (Dalkey Archive, 2010). She received a BA magna cum laude in Literature and Society from Brown University and an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. She is the recipient of the Leo Litwak Fiction Award, a Creative Capacity Innovation Grant, a San Francisco Education Fund Grant, and grant-supported writing residencies at Vermont Studio Center, Soul Mountain, Ragdale, and New York Mills. More at sarahrosenthal.net
Peter Kline is the author of two poetry collections, Mirrorforms (Parlor Press/Free Verse Editions) and Deviants (Stephen F. Austin State University Press). A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University and James Merrill House and Amy Clampitt House resident, he teaches writing at the University of San Francisco and with Stanford’s Master of Liberal Arts Program. Since 2012 he has directed the San Francisco literary reading series Bazaar Writers Salon. He lives in San Francisco, and can be found online at www.peterklinepoetry.com.
Brittany Perham is the author of Double Portrait (W.W. Norton, 2017), which was selected by Claudia Rankine for the Barnard Women Poets Prize and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award; The Curiosities (Free Verse Editions, 2012); and, with Kim Addonizio, the collaborative word/art project The Night Could Go in Either Direction (SHP, 2016). Her work has received support from the Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the James Merrill House Foundation, the Vermont Studio Center, the Wallace Stegner Fellowship Program, and Yaddo. She lives in San Francisco and teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Stanford University. (Photograph by Marco Giugliarelli)
Kim Shuck is a silly protein. Shuck also writes poetry, essays, and many very short autobiographies. Shuck holds an MFA in Fine Arts/Textiles from San Francisco State University and has shown work on four continents. Kim is solo author of ten books and has edited, co-edited, assissted in editing, acted as coffee monkey for or wandered through the editing of a further ten. Shuck served as the 7th Poet Laureate of San Francisco. Kim maintains a vibrant visual and written art career. Shuck's latest books are This Wandering State vol. 1, one of the editing projects, and Noodle, Rant, Tangent a collection of essays. (Photo by Douglas A. Salin)
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