About this collaboration

Shortly after Geoff, Ryan, and I started playing music together I left on a road trip which took me to Oakland, CA to attend the Berkeley Skillshare. One of the groups doing a presentation there was the Icarus Project, presenting an early zine draft of "Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness," which is now a full color book. The compassion and intelligence displayed through their perspectives and discussions on mental health left quite an impression on me, and I'm proud to be able to work with them.

All of us are affected by mental health, either personally or in relation to our loved ones. The power structures that dominate our lives can be so insidious that they dominate the ways we seek to be sound of mind and body. The work the Icarus Project does is important because a fresh, non-judgemental perspective on what makes us brilliant or what makes us mad is sorely needed in a world as confusing and distracting as the one we inhabit. I hope that you are able to donate to their project, but more so I hope that you can get interested in their content and their organization as a whole. It was a revelation to me, I hope it can be for you as well.

-Will Staler, Defiance, Ohio

About the Icarus Project

The Icarus Project envisions a new culture and language that resonates with our actual experiences of 'mental illness' rather than trying to fit our lives into a conventional framework. We are a network of people living with experiences that are commonly labeled as bipolar or other psychiatric conditions. We believe we have mad gifts to be cultivated and taken care of, rather than diseases or disorders to be suppressed or eliminated. By joining together as individuals and as a community, the intertwined threads of madness and creativity can inspire hope and transformation in an oppressive and damaged world. Our participation in The Icarus Project helps us overcome alienation and tap into the true potential that lies between brilliance and madness.

Read more about the Icarus Project's mission and vision.
Visit the Icarus Project's web site.