Thank You. This Is Where We Are.

The inspiration we have gained from everyone that has reached out to us, in any capacity, is remarkable. It is propelling us forward and catalyzing us to make this project reach its potential. We are currently sourcing funds through grants sponsorships and personal donation. We are also looking for community organizations to partner with in the event anyone of you need help, you have resources at your disposal. We have been making great strides in this, however, if any of you have any resources that will help us, please make sure to contact us.
Also, if any of you have been impacted by sexual abuse or this project in general, please...please...please! get in touch with us. In the upcoming months, we will begin the testimonial portion of this project. And we want to hear your voice. Whether it be interviews on camera, anonymous stories or letters, or any form of artwork, or, anything else you can think of. We want you to get involved. We want to hear your voice! If you have any ideas for us, please feel free to send them.

Peace, Love, and...Godspeed!

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get in touch with us at contact@childhoodfractured.com 

Creature Creations by Allen Vandever Chicago Artist

Several years ago my neighbor was moving and he decided to give me much of his art and supplies. One day I came home and there were four huge garbage bags sitting on my door step. Within these bags were disturbing dolls made to look like dead babies. They were used in a large anti-war installation and photo project. At first I was repulsed by these toys, and then in a moment of inspiration, a light bulb went off. Lets give these dolls a new life! Yes! it was a eureka moment. These toys have been damaged and scared for life, yet, they can still carry a purpose. So I took parts from other toys and gave them new lives and new bodies. I tried to bring fun back into them. I tried to bring the life back into them. This project echoes my childhood self. My neighbors scared me for life, stole a piece of me and discarded it. This is the sentiment i am instilling in these toys. Even if something is damaged, broken, beaten, battered, torn, it can always be turned into something more beautiful, vibrant, and lively than it ever was. 

I hope you enjoy these videos I have it set up so they will play one after the other so sit back and enjoy.

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My Experience With Painting number 5 "Fracturing of a Boy"

I am writing this on August 5^th, 2016. It is nearing 7:00 pm on this calm, Monday evening. Throughout this continuous stream of consciousness, what I perceive as “me”, has encountered a host of characters, some more base, malignant, and cancerous. Others possessed of fair, decent, and redeemable qualities, yet, with a stroke of my pen, I cannot posit a finite conclusion of another’s character through words as assuredly as I can write: The sky is most certainly blue. This, is of course the trivial uncoiling of my thoughts. NO! This is my declaration to all; I witnessed the most astonishing feat of bravery I have ever seen. A feat that has been braided into my essence. I watched a man, a friend, stand before all, and paint the worst day of his life.We were there, in the studio, and as Allen rolled the cameras, he was undecided as to what he wanted to paint. After centering himself, he stood in front of his canvas with intimate knowledge, and admitted: I am going to paint the worst day of my life. “What a mysterious gesture…” I thought to myself, “To even broach this subject.” Is it not in our nature to sequester “the worst day of our life”, into the catacombs of our memories? Or is that the instinctual response elicited by my young character? I am not the arbiter of such things.Allen began with an abstract depiction of the boy he once was. The boy who was so slighted in his early years. After this, he traveled to his right, with slashes of red paint, absconding with the emotional balance of the room, and declared “Mr. Morgan raped me!”  My heart quivered from an unknown trepidation. And I fell bewildered by the absurdness of this all. Allen began floating beyond the physical world of his canvas, and painted the likeness of the murky cavern deep within the recesses of his being. A cavern that was born through the vile avarice and concupiscence of men. A cavern that was born the moment Allen was raped, and has since been a part of his cosmic makeup. And what It was to watch him paint this.I was watching this loving, gentle giant of a man, weep tears of purity, from the childhood that was stolen, from the childhood that was fractured. And even with these tears streaming down his face, and his soul in knots, his heart exposed, he endeavored to keep painting, in the true spirit of selflessness. He kept on painting the cavern, that he has since meditated back to reclaim his dignity and the boy who was once lost.While Allen was painting this cavern, I was anywhere, experiencing reality through an oblique state, with lucid eyes, witnessing the horrid complexity that is implied when you are born as a human being. In a flash of retrospection, I translated the series of events that has led me to here and now, the absurdity of my life. It’s brings me a sweet solace to know this experience was filmed.I watched a man, who has since healed, rip open the scars inflicted upon him by perverts, to spill this sanguine blood on his canvas, as a loving guide, to show what horrors we can experience as people, and how we must make it our sovereign duty to help all brothers and sisters of this universal cosmopolis. I watched a man indirectly paint “We are all here together”.  

Allen Vandever Painting the fourth work for Childhood Fractured Project 

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