The first night Sascha and I met we stayed up all night talking about all the brilliance and complexity we suspected so many folks labeled bipolar held inside, and waxed grandiose 3 a.m. dreams about how great it would be to have an artshow one day for"¦ I was about to say The Icarus Project, but The Icarus Project didn't exist yet. For misunderstood people like us who struggled with their personal breeds of madness but made visionary things"¦

2 years later we found ourselves obsessively designing a promotional postcard for "Radical Visions from Bipolar Worlds: An Artshow and Community Gathering, brought to you by The Icarus Project, a community-based website and media project." You really never know how your dreams can turn out until you try to make them happen"¦ The show ended up bringing together the work of 40 artists whose lives were touched by madness in some form, as well as bringing together a whole cast of volunteers and Icarus Project support group members who worked together to pull the whole thing off. The opening, which was held at ABCNoRio, a former punk squat and now an amazing community artspace, was attended by so many people they couldn't all fit in the room at once. There was home-made miso soup and all kinds of food prepared by Food Not Bombs to keep everyone warm on a cold December night. The event was so inspiring we're hoping to see them happen all over the country.

One of the main organizers was Kevin Loecke, an artist and Icarus Project member who has now moved on from Brooklyn to Minneapolis. Here are a few of his thoughts on the event:

One of our main intentions with the Icarus Project Art Show was simply to showcase the amazing creativity of those labeled mentally ill and to let them speak for themselves about their experiences. We wanted to begin a discussion about radical visions of madness. We also wanted to push the art show structure beyond the standard passive commodity-exchange gallery format. We envisioned the art show as a living, breathing experiment in the creation of a self-empowered healing community; a space where people could connect and feel at home among all the complex beautiful facets of humanity. We imagined, along with the art on the walls, workshops and discussions about various aspects of mental health and weekly Icarus Project support group meetings taking place in the gallery space during art show hours. We planned to distribute zines with information about non-mainstream approaches to mental health. We imagined the gallery as a warm, inviting social space with food, herbal tea, and folks hanging out.

Being a first attempt, some aspects of the experiment were better planned out than others and we were able to devote more time and energy to some than others. It was an amazing group of people that coalesced around the project, giving us their art, helping hang the show, cooking food, making zines, and organizing last minute workshops. Most rewarding of all was simply seeing how thankful people were to see these issues being dealt with when they stepped into the gallery. Our hope is that people all over are inspired to organize their own experiments with this art show structure, and actualize their own visions and voices.

Here is some basic advice and a few thoughts about things I'm going to try to improve on the next time I try this experiment:

1. The first step towards realizing a show is finding a space sympathetic to the idea. This could be a traditional style art gallery willing to let their space function as more of a free-flowing social environment. A community center, mental health organization or even a café willing to have some intense art on its walls and occasional meetings in its establishment are other potential options.

2. Once you have a space it's time to pick a date. This will be determined partly by the schedule of the space. Ideally you'll have a few months to pull everything together. Give yourself plenty of time"¦

3. Solicit art. For the New York show we utilized the Icarus Project website to put out an open call for entries as well as putting up fliers at art schools and cafes and personally inviting people to be in the show. It was pretty amazing to see people who had work in the exhibition show up for the opening from as far away as California and Canada. Keep in mind that casting such a wide net requires more work as far as selecting pieces for the show, getting the work shipped to you, and shipping it back. Either way the involvement of local people in the show is important.

4. Start planning whatever sort of workshops, discussions, music performances, etc. are going to take place during the run of the show at the same time you start soliciting the art. That way you can have the whole schedule worked out by opening night. Opening night will be your biggest turnout so it's the best opportunity to promote the other events during the run of the show.

5. Get people to commit to certain tasks, for example selecting art, staffing the gallery, hanging the show, etc. Spread the work out among a group of people. You'll be able to get more done and won't get overwhelmed if different folks are heading up the art selection, workshop schedule, publicity, food, etc.

6. Publicize the show. Put up fliers, send out announcements to listservs, tell everyone you know, print up postcards, put notices in local newspapers/event calendars/bookstores/cafes.

7. Give yourselves at least a couple days for hanging the show and remember things always take longer than you expect. Don't get too stressed out if you're getting down to the wire. Art shows thrive on that last minute magic.