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Help Julia End Her Tremors

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Four years ago poet and visual artist Julia Connor developed Essential Tremor, a neurological condition that has taken away the use of her hands, incapacitating her art-making and art teaching in all the fields in which she was once so productive. She can no longer write, draw or paint, and her last stand: ceramics and sculpting, is under attack as the condition worsens. Of course it also affects her daily life: not being able to steady a fork or a glass of water enough to reach her mouth.  Art and teaching were Julia’s main source of income.

Until recently, there was no cure for Essential Tremor.  It can be inherited, as in Julia’s case, specifically targeting the hands, but only when they engage in a focused activity such as writing, painting, or eating—then the hand shakes uncontrollably. The voice and head can also be affected. Now, there is now a non-invasive procedure for essential tremor! Approved by the FDA this past summer, Exablate Neuro Surgery  (targeted sonar energy) has proven immediately effective at reducing hand tremors up to 70% and is being performed at Stanford Medical Center at a cost of upwards of $40,000. Hence the appeal!

Those who know Julia know she has given widely to the community.  She has taught poetry in the California State Prisons, created a three-year project that gave a voice to homeless and marginalized women, taught exceptional young writers at a Summer Institute for the Arts, offered free courses to seniors teaching them how, through poetry, to re-vision and tell their life stories, as well as for twenty + years, offered workshops and master classes, mentoring less experienced poets, both in Sacramento and at numerous workshops throughout the region.  She served as Poet Laureate of Sacramento from 2005 – 2009 where she devised programs that took place in libraries, museums, classrooms and coffee shops.  

Adaptive computer devices and voice technologies have been useful to Julia for e-mails and assisting others in editing their work, but do not allow her to engage the creative source from which her own work is generated – the journal.  Mind to hand has always been Julia’s creative entry. Her forty years of journals are a testament.

Let’s give Julia back her hands.
Thanks from her husband and devoted friend,
Jim Anderson, Theater Artist

Organizer and beneficiary

Claudia Siegel
Organizer
Roseville, CA
Julia Connor
Beneficiary

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