Jerome Lawrence - Atlanta, Georgia - I find beauty in both subject and process. I bargain with artistic elements in varying intensity, variety, placement and proportion then shift within styles as if choosing colors or shapes. Beauty exists in every imaginable thing: there it has always lived before we discover it. As with the proverbial glass of water, half full or half empty, whichever we find – neither view affects the level of the water in the glass. My purpose for creating a work of art is to celebrate beauty in those who see it and to persuade those who do not. During my senior year, majoring in Studio Art at Georgia State University (1982) I received a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. Schizophrenia belongs to a group of mental disorders characterized by withdrawal from reality. I continued to paint as I had all my life, studying privately for many years after graduation with Joseph Perriri, a world renowned artist and head emeritus of the School of Art and Design at GSU. I am now many years into recovery, and deeply involved in the creation as well as the business side of art. In 2004 the Carter Center in Atlanta invited me to give a solo art exhibit to an audience that included President Jimmy Carter and his wife Rosalynn. Mrs. Carter has since purchased two of my works to hang at the Carter Center in Atlanta and my art donations to the Center have brought as much as $13,000.00 for a single painting at auction. With increasing media attention, interviews, documentaries and panel discussions, I’ve grown enormously as artist and communicator through paintings and speech. As a serious student of art, I hope that people will find joy in my expressions, and I’ve written a book to tell the story of how my art and illness coalesce – art assisting in recovery, illness teaching me about art, each helping to navigate the ebb and flow of life.