About 2 years ago, Mick Ebbling and his wife Caskey started a non-profit organization, the Not Impossible Foundation to help a friend, the legendary L.A. graffiti artist Tony “TemptOne” Qua. Tony has ALS– aka “Lou Gehrig’s Disease”–which slowly paralyzes the body until no physical movement is possible. Right now he’s in a hospital bed in Los Angeles. His mind is completely lucid, but he can’t move any part of his body except for his eyes.

In April 2009, they brought together some of the most amazing artists and innovators from the Graffiti Research Lab and Open FrameWorks to make make a low-cost, open source, creative technology and communication tool. And it worked! The EyeWriter 1.0 was born.

Now we need to get this technology to other paralyzed people who need it: disable veterans, artists, writers, painters, etc.

Enter: Pepsi-Cola. Pepsi has a new grant program called “Refresh Everything” where they let anyone apply for funding for a good cause. Every month, you can vote for your favorite cause, and at the end of the month, whoever gets the most votes wins funding. The goal is to WIN this grant and to start by making 1,000 EyeWriters available to anyone who needs them, regardless of their income level or location.

THIS IS WHERE YOU COME IN. Simply CLICK HERE TO VOTE for The EyeWriter. It takes a minute to register, but it’s for a great cause (and you won’t get any more junk emails than you already do.) The voting closes August 31, and you can vote once a day, every day. That’s the key…voting everyday!

Please pass this email along to your friends (or Tweet it, post it on your Wall, put it on your site, whatever…)

Kristopher Strom creates a new drawing on his iPhone every day and posts it to his blog. He uses Sketchbook Mobile or Brushes Apps – check them out.

A few weeks ago I stumbled upon a Java applet that let you track your mouse on screen live. Your co-ordinates converted into lines, your mouse pauses transformed into circles of varying sizes depending on the duration of the pause (longer = bigger) I ran this for a couple days and found great enjoyment in the results at the end of each day. Naturally I shared my results on flickr and via twitter.

The reaction to this little project by Anatoly Zenkov from his flickr feed was outstanding, so much so that its evolved into a full fledged app with the help of Andrey Shipilov

Want to see your mousing habits? How you work? Where you leave your mouse when you go to lunch?

Download IOGRAPHICA

This art piece called “A Tool to Deceive and Slaughter” puts itself up for sale on eBay every seven days. The purchaser must agree to a legal contract which includes the following stipulation:

“1. Collector agrees that the Artwork will remain connected to a live Internet connection at all times, with disconnections allowed only for the transportation of the work from one venue to another.”

Here’s the link to it’s current listing on eBay. As of this writing it’s up to $4,250.

Digital Drawing by Nabil.

I saw an exhibition by Mark Jenkins at a gallery in NYC a few weeks ago. He makes extremely life-like mannequins and shapes out of packing tape and then places them in cities all over the world. Just found a link with photographs of more of his work. See it here.

I’ve just returned from Scotland where I spent an inordinate amount of time with the spirits — the ones that occupy Balvenie Castle (above) and those that come from the Glenfiddich Distillery.

Both are located in Dufftown, a small village in the north, halfway between Inverness and Aberdeen. They say Rome was built on “seven hills”. Well, Dufftown was built on seven stills. The ones that make Malt Whisky. Which is why I was there in the first place.

The story begins last winter when I purchased a piece of conceptual art by Toronto artist Dave Dyment. Dave’s idea, an exploration of emptiness, was to let a cask of whisky mature for 100 years. He involved a number of people from the Glenfiddich Distillery to create the piece, including the most experienced malt master in the Scottish Whisky Industry, Dave Stewart. His piece, entitled A Drink To Us (When We’re Both Dead) offers 25 empty hand-carved boxes  (see picture) together with a legal contract that assures the delivery of a bottle of 100 year old spirit in the year 2108. In effect, you were purchasing nothing.

Here’s the rub. I’ll be dead when the cask is unearthed. That much is pretty certain. So, I can only hope that there really is an afterlife and I can haunt the Distillery and make a lot of spooky sounds.

Which brings me back to Balvanie Castle. As the first person to purchase one of the art pieces, I was invited to stay at the castle for a week with my son Jesse.  Balvenie Castle dates to the 1200s and has a colourful past, to say the least. Robert the Bruce crops up in its history and Mary Queen of Scots once slept there.

In 1460, the Castle was owned by the Fair Maid of Galloway, Margaret Douglas, but following the rebellion of the infamous Black Douglasses against the King, all of the family’s titles and estates were forfeit to the Crown. The King, however, had a thing for Margaret and allowed her to live at Balvenie Castle for the unusual annual rent of a single red rose.

Which is more than I paid.

To see more, go to

http://www.davedyment.com/100.html