I tried my real name for a username but it was already being used. So I simply used the first letter of both my first and last names TWICE. So, if you subtract one letter from the 2 sets of the same letters the name that results is Ashley Wilkes. That name, as you may or may not know, is the name of a main character from the classic iconic novel, Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I have often been told that I look somewhat similar to the actor, Leslie Howard, who played Ashley Wilkes in the award winning movie of 1939 that also starred Clark Gable, Vivien Leigh, and Olivia DeHaviland.

I'm a nationally known mixed media artist and focus my efforts primarily in digital abstractions, narrative works, decorative styles and quantum theory based visuals, both still and animation. I am obsessed with breaking new aesthetic ground and can do so to with the most success by keeping up with the exponential growth of imaging applications and processes. I've exhibited my work from Hawaii to New York. I have also published works and provided support imagery for many best selling books. I also have work posted on internet venues: www.mnartists.org/Ashley_Wilkes, MySpace, Facebook, Metropolis, and art2bank out of London. 

I have four children, all born at home with the assistance of traditional midwives and acted in the capacity of a doula in all of the births. We had no need for intrusion or intervention into any aspect of the 4 home births and no need for medical backup (although we had that option ready for use in , if needed). After the third successful homebirth the medical establishment could no longer call the outcomes LUCK. The 4th successful homebirth left many medical professional we knew or who had heard the news pretty much stunned. Our homebirthing successes were the result of close and trusting relationships with traditional midwives, extensive education, get great prenatal care, continuity of care by our midwives, developing good relationship with OBGYN's who agreed to be our backup doctors and to take Bradley Birthing classes. The Bradley Method is a great deal more of a reality-based method of learning how to manage pregnancy, labor and aiding the mother in trusting birth as a natural process and not a medical procedure. During our homebirths my wife was free to drink liquids, walk around, squat, free from IV's, tubes and monitors - "listening" to what her body was telling her to do along with guidance from the midwives. 

As you may have surmised, I am not at all fond of doctors or hospitals. Doctors and hospitals are where you can go if you want to have something go wrong during labor and birth because the hospital setting (even "homey" birth centers to some degree) create complications by over intervention, over manipulation, unnecessary medications and "procedures" like C-Sections, episiotomies, circumcision, silver nitrate in the babies eyes, isolation, bright lights, noisy environment. This whole "birth is a medical procedure" approach actually causes many of the complications during labor and birth that the hospitals are supposedly equipped to handle but in too many cases have an iatrogenic effect on the mother or the baby or both.

Circumcision is a traumatic and totally unnecessary procedure and takes away the foreskin which is there to protect the highly sensitive glans of the penis which is actually a mucous membrane. Hygiene for an uncircumcised penis can be taught at an early age and my two sons have had no problem with penile hygiene and no complaints from their mates about "foreskin" problems during sex. There is a double standard when it comes to circumcision that is global. Circumcising a totally helpless baby boy is okay - "they feel little or no pain" many pediatricians believe (quite wrongly), or else they don't care while at the same time female circumcision is highly and widely condemned by the vast majority of the world population including the very same doctors that perform circumcision on baby boys. Let the boy decide when he's old enough to make his own decisions. 

My art can be found at http://www.mnartists.org/Ashley_Wilkes