Project Title: My Comix
Recipient Organization: The George Mark Children’s House
Lead Artist: Deborah Roundtree
Genre and Year Awarded: Media Arts, 2006
Grant Amount: $35,000
To Be Presented: Summer 2007 and ongoing
Web Links: www.deborahroundtree.com

Media artist Deborah Roundtree collaborated with the George Mark Children’s House to create and test an interactive game customized for children, ages three to 16, who have life-limiting or terminal illnesses. By manipulating the game’s word bubbles, page designs, and multicultural characters, and by adding their own stories and graphics, children living at the George Mark Children’s House are able to create super hero comic books and postcards that tell their stories and share their memories with friends and family.

While My Comix focuses on the children living at the house, the game also gives their siblings an opportunity to explain to friends and classmates what is going on in their lives. Roundtree developed the game in stages with feedback at each level from child experts, children living at the House, volunteers, parents, and siblings of patients. Roundtree wrote of her intention, “The Comic Book gives the child an opportunity to express deep concerns through characters that they may have difficulty expressing on their own.” The postcard project allows children to e-mail their artwork to their friends and families.

After completing the prototype version of My Comix in summer 2007, Deborah Roundtree realized ways the game could be enhanced to be more entertaining and accessible. She writes, “The complexity of the project is much more powerful and sophisticated than what I envisioned.” A number of industry professionals offered her assistance and advice in strengthening the project and work to continue testing and refining it continues. My Comix has been received with such enthusiasm that hospitals and other health care providers across the country want access to it. The artist writes, “I now see the project evolving into an online comic book game, with an online community as its foundation, using comic art as a support tool for children worldwide.”

Deborah Roundtree’s artwork combines fine art with technology. She has had a successful 20-year career in advertising and digital image making for Fortune 500 corporations. This project brought together her experience as a professional artist with 12 years of personal experience in hospice care, training hospice volunteers and working with families.

The George Mark Children’s House, based in San Leandro, California, opened in March 2004 as the first free standing respite, transitional and end of life care facility for terminally ill children in the United States. (Children who are not expected to survive into adulthood.) It enhances the quality of life for the entire family by offering medical, emotional, spiritual, and respite support in a home-like setting that is full of life and activity. Services include: respite care (around-the-clock), transitional care (bridging from hospital to home) and end of life care for children and their families. All services are guided by the principles of Pediatric Palliative Care, which aims to relieve suffering associated with chronic, life-limiting, or terminal illness by providing expert pain and symptom management, preserving the dignity and integrity of the child and family, and remaining consistent with each family’s culture and values.

This collaboration combined the expertise of the George Mark Children’s House with an artist comfortable and familiar with the issues surrounding end of life care.

LEAD ARTIST

Deborah Roundtree

Selected Clients

• American Express
• Lipton
• Toyota Motor Co.
• Kenwood
• Guidant
• Proctor and Gamble
• Motorola
• Nokia
• Pepsi
• Sony
• Mattel
• Kodak

Collections

• Walt Disney Corporation, Los Angeles, Californi
• Paul McCartney, London, England
• Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France
• Library of Congress Permanent Collection, Washington, D.C.
• Kaiser Permanente Hospitals, Los Angeles, California
• FilmBank, Los Angeles, California
• Guidant Corporation, Santa Clara, California
• Santa Monica College, Santa Monica, California
• Saint John’s Hospital, Santa Monica, California
• Hasselblad, New York

Selected Exhibitions

• Sydney Opera House, Australia (Group, 2003)
• Louis Stern Fine Arts, Los Angeles (Group, 2002)
• Auckland, Australia, UNESCO (Group, 2002)
• Museum of Science, London, England (Group, 2001)
• Metropolitan Transportation Authority Arts for Transit, Vanderbilt Hall, Grand Central Terminal, New York, New York (Group, 2001)
• Daniel Saxon Gallery, Los Angeles, California (one woman site installation, 1994)

Publications, Honors and Affiliations

• Photo District News Photography Annual Award (2002)
• Micropublishing News, feature (2000)
• Advertising Photographers of America, National President (1999)
• Advertising Photographers of America, Board of Directors (1997-98)
• Print Magazine, Design Annual Award (1993)
• Creativity Magazine, photography award (1993)
• Graphis, photography annual (1993)
• National Endowment for the Arts, Brody Photography Fellowship (1990)

Lectures

• Internal Feng Shui™: New Trends in Hospice, California Hospice Foundation Conference (2004-05)
• Photo+Expo, New Media Technology for Photographers, Los Angeles, California (2002)
• Photo+Expo Interactive Media Symposium, New York, New York (2001-02)
• Photo+Expo Moving Images for Stock Symposium, Los Angeles, California (2000)
• Photo+Expo Advertising Photography Symposium, New York, New York (1999)
• Picture Agency Council of America, Denver, Colorado (1999)
• Milwaukee Advertising Council, Trends in Interactive Technology (1999)