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Here’s some super exciting news! It feels like Kris Haas and I have sometimes moved in parallel lines. And now we have made a circle.

My first idea for making “Who Am I To Stop It” came because I wanted to share with the world my appreciation and admiration for Kris Haas. Her abstract expressionistic art is simply beautiful and thought-provoking. What’s more, I can see and relate to many of the obstacles she faces due to her own traumatic brain injury. If you just look at her paintings, you won’t know the price she pays to create them. You wouldn’t right away think “Hey, here’s a painter who almost never leaves the house because she is so sensitive to lights, sounds, movement, and is too fatigued to stay up all day! Here’s someone who is terribly isolated!” You see the art. I wanted you to see the person behind the art. I wanted you to see that the life of a disabled artist isn’t all glamour and fun. But also, the life of a disabled artist is the life of an artist. And we just don’t really see artists make art. So now you will!

Oh yes, the full circle!

I raised the initial money to begin this film through the non-profit online crowdfunding site USA Projects. And guess what! Kris is up there now, doing her own campaign for her own arts project: to create 10,000 paintings in one year on live-streaming video. The live-streaming video gives folks the chance to see the creative process, to see how a brain injury can make some things tougher and some things smoother, and to give her the opportunity to interact with people from her home. It’s extremely innovative. And while it also sounds ambitious, this lady can do it. She did 10,202 pieces in one year before, something she did to find a way to set and achieve exciting goals after her traumatic brain injury.

Please support Kris’s USA Projects campaign. You will love the results of her beautiful project! Visit www.usaprojects.org/project/1_year_10_000_pieces_1_artist to learn about the project in her own words  and to contribute.

Find her work on Etsy, under Abstract Xpressionism and on her own site, www.KrisHaas.com.