Now that you’ve all gotten the April Fooling out of your system, we at *DeviantsForTheCure would like to start a community project, and we need your help.

Starting this April, *DeviantsForTheCure will feature a disease every month, giving out information and resources about the disease in an effort to educate the general public about it. Most people only know general things about illnesses and ailments, but what about the stories of the victims and survivors? What about cures, research, and miracles? This is where you, the reader, the deviant with friends and watchers, the chatroom idler, the forum junkie, the artist, come in.

This is what we call a Monthly Art Drive, where we call for every artist, writer, and art appreciator to create something about the disease to help raise awareness of both the club and its projects and of the diseases themselves. They can be paintings, sculptures, poems, stories, graphics, wallpapers, photos – anything and any way you think can help educate the public with your art.

For the first Monthly Art Drive, we want to do something special. In April, we are calling for everyone to create art to raise awareness of Leukemia, a cancer of the bone marrow and blood. In the United States alone, it is estimated that more than 44,000 cases of Leukemia were diagnosed in the year 2007, and hundreds of thousands more worldwide. But, I would like to tell you about one specific case, one that occurred nearly six decades ago.

Sadako Sasaki was two years old when the atomic bomb hit Hiroshima.

She was eleven when she was diagnosed with leukemia, known as “the atom bomb disease”.

She had grown up as a strong, athletic girl without problems, but as she practiced one day for a race, she became dizzy and fainted. Through the next year, she became increasingly limp and sickly. She was hospitalized in January of 1955 after purple spots began to form on her legs and was diagnosed in February, the doctors only giving her, at most, one year to live.

On August 3 of that year, her best friend, Chizuko Hamamoto, reminded Sadako of an ancient legend. It was said that the gods would grant a single wish to anyone who folded a thousand paper cranes. Chizuko then produced a square of golden paper and gracefully folded a beautiful paper crane. She gave it to Sadako and said, "Here is your first one."

Sadako began folding paper cranes that same day, far surpassing her goal of one thousand cranes before she passed away on October 25th, 1955. She was only twelve years old.

Her friends and classmates raised enough money in the following years to erect a monument at the Hiroshima memorial for Sadako and other victims of leukemia caused by the blast. Since then, the paper crane has been an international symbol of both peace and a cure for leukemia, and hundreds of thousands of cranes are sent to her memorial every year.

Maybe you’ve picked up on the theme for this first Monthly Art Drive. We want you to create artwork that helps spread leukemia awareness, maybe even by incorporating paper cranes into your art, or by folding your own origami cranes and taking photographs. When you submit your art, note *DeviantsForTheCure with a link to your deviation (make the subject of the note “Leukemia Submission” please) and post a link back to this article in the Artist Description. In the note, please also say if you would allow us to post a preview image of your piece in the club’s gallery, as we’d love to showcase some of the submitted work.

Here’s a great, easy-to-follow origami paper crane tutorial by the lovely *carriephlyons for those of you who have never done it before. Just, be patient with it!



Have some awesome paper-crane-inspired thumbs, too!





Community is our strongest weapon against diseases such as this, so to every one of you reading this right now: thank you. Just your presence makes us feel like we're accomplishing something, no matter how small or large it is.

*A special thank you goes to `Nestalgica for writing this month's article Thanks a bunch hon! *