“The most dangerous creation of any society is a man who has nothing to lose.” – James Baldwin
What do you have to lose? Chances are they aren’t that different from most everyone else. Family, love, hope, future, kids, grandkids, pets, happiness, fun, joy, and way down the list, probably some material things as well.
So, how bereft of everything is the person who has nothing to lose? Did they start with nothing? Did they have it taken away? Did they throw it away? Did they have it stolen from them? Did they have it and take it for granted? Did they hate it?
How does a family, neighborhood, community, society or civilization avoid creating this person? How do you, as an individual avoid contributing to creating this person?
Hello all, if you enjoy the napkin today, you will probably enjoy it tomorrow too! You can subscribe to the blog to come to you via email or via one of many different readers (yahoo, google, etc). Just click on the box on the left to subscribe any way you want! Thanks, Marty
“The artist is nothing without the gift but the gift is nothing without the work.” – Emile Zola
The most important element of this quote is the last word because work is, in the end, the only evidence you have of the artist and the gift.
Creating the work is the tire on the road, it’s the foot on the ball. But the artist doesn’t have one sport or one vehicle they have to use. If you don’t have your oil paints anymore, use watercolor. If you can’t afford stone for your sculpture, use wood. If you don’t have your trumpet, learn the kazoo.
The artist is free because he or she knows their talent, their ‘gift’ isn’t about the instrument, it’s about their brain. It is their mind that makes them an artist, and an artist’s mind can see a ‘work’ in the junk in a vacant lot, the movement of trains over tressles or the sound of clinking glass at a bar.
I use common napkins and kid’s markers for mine, how are you turning your gift into your work?
“I don’t let my mouth say nothin’ my head can’t stand.” – Louis Armstrong
I have nothing to say that this doesn’t already say better! If we obeyed that rule, what a wonderful world…..
By the way, one of your napkinkin (I just made that up), Coco, suggested a good idea about the blog that I am implementing. You might not notice it, nonetheless I appreciate her taking the time to explain her idea to me and I think it is a good one.
Another napkinkin, Kathleen, also gave me some good ideas and I am mulling those over as well!
Thanks to both of them and to anyone else who takes the time to connect with me, whether to talk about an idea on the blog or to give me an idea for improvement. I appreciate them all!
“Some people will never learn anything because they understand everything too soon.” – Alexander Pope
As some of you know, I host my drawings and photography on flickr.com. The most popular napkin on all of flickr is one that is almost indecipherable. It was soaked in water and looks more like a rorschach test than a drawing. I put it up anyway, many years ago, and eventually someone enhanced it a bit and figured out what it said.
I was giving a presentation yesterday (2/24/09) and showed that most popular napkin as I read the quote to the crowd. It suddenly struck me how much I love the quote so I decided I would draw a new napkin to let the quote be easily read this time around!
I love this quote because it is something I see every day. I am guilty of it as well, most people are I think. They are able to comprehend something right away, and they cement that understanding as THE understanding of that thing, event, person, etc.
But each thing, event, person is deeper than a first judgment and if you want the clearest path to really learning about whatever has your attention, the initial ‘understanding’ has to be moved aside. It is like a roadblock keeping you from going beyond it.
Where are your roadblocks and how are they keeping you from deeper learning and understanding?
Are you curious about HOW popular that original napkin is? It is my second most popular image out of more than 2,600 with over 12,200 hits on it! Don’t ask me why.
“Some folks never handle the truth without scratching it.” – Austin O’Malley
What this tells me is that the truth is precious, it is not something to toss around like a frisbee. It is something to be taken care of and treated with respect. Of course, I am not talking about mathematical, scientific or abstract truths, I am talking about personal truth. The person who takes the risk of exposing his or her soul to you, THAT truth.
How you handle those truths is evidence of your character.
“We need old friends to help us grow old and new friends to help us stay young.” – Letty Cottin Pogrebin
When I would send my kids out the door to school, I would often say ‘Make good friends and keep good friends’. It became my sign off for the morning. I love the simplicity of it and it encapsulates exactly what a successful day is like. You go about your business with the idea in mind that you are looking to care for someone. You don’t know when that will be, or what form it will take. It might not be something you even realize is ‘care’. You might just laugh heartily with someone over something silly. But to that person, the laughing was such good medicine, so unexpected, that you became a friend without even knowing it. You might listen to a fear that is just one sentence in a long monolog, but you pick up on it and reassure the person later in the day.
Friendship is about awareness and attention for another. The new friends bring that excitement that makes us young, nerves, telling stories, allowing yourself to be seen anew, perhaps reinventing yourself just a little bit for the new audience.
The old friends give us the comfort and assurance that come from us knowing that they know all about us, they know our flaws, our shortcomings, our eccentricities, and they are still with us, they still find value in us, they still love us.
In both ways, the essential nutrient of friendship is resupplied to our souls.
“If there is no God, who pops up the next kleenex?” – Art Hoppe
And not only that, but who takes the socks and hides them, who makes the cat throw up, who eats the last cookie in the cookie jar, who allowed the Brooklyn Dodgers to win a World Series and, most importantly, who, who wrote the book of love?
Check it out, a local station’s interpretation of the napkin dad story. scroll down the choices on the right until you see the napkin image. It should be at the top for the weekend at least. Thanks to Janna Clark and John Gibson for coming out to the house to do the story. They were very cool and creative I thought.
“It Isn’t Where You Came From, It’s Where You’re Going That Counts.” – Ella Fitzgerald
This can be one of the biggest problems for people. They want to figure out WHY they are the way they are, what in their past made them have this habit, or this response, or this attitude. And at some level it is very satisfying to know, like a puzzle piece that has been found.
But the thing to watch out for here is that memories are not static things placed in a file folder. Every time you remember, you change the remembrance, it becomes more your creation, your story, than it is an exact recording of some past truth. Your memory is not that.
So, let’s say at age 28 you figure out that the reason you never finish anything is because your mother always made you put everything away before you were done. Nice to know. But when you think about that same issue at age 48 you might remember that it was your father who dissed your little creations and made you feel they weren’t worth completing, something you didn’t remember at age 28 because at that point you still thought your father was the perfect man.
Either way, YOU still have the need to learn how to finish things. Remembering either situation did not change your behavior. Only you can do that, regardless of where it came from, regardless of what root path there was to your present moment in time.
While learning all about the ‘back story’ that created you, never lose sight of the real key to your progress in life. It is looking forward, looking at where you WANT to go, and figuring out how to get there, whether it is finally going to China or finally bringing the china out of the packing boxes after 5 years.
“Schooling is what happens in school. Education is what happens everywhere.” – Sara Lightfoot
When our daughters were young we made the choice to homeschool them. We did it for 3 years. The youngest was pre-kindergarten when we started and the oldest had finished 5th grade when we ended.
A number of great things came from those 3 years, but the one that is appropo to this idea is that from those years forward the home was never NOT a place of education. They didn’t have that split between a physical building called school where you learned, and home where you just did everything else. Home was just as much a place to learn as school, even after they all went back to school.
The other element in this that is important is how you, as an adult who has finished school, continues to be an example of getting an education for those around you, whether your children or someone else at work, church, a club, etc.
You do that by knowing what you love and finding out more about it. You don’t have to study things you don’t like, you don’t have to take a course in some dry topic. But if you like woodworking, then study it. If you liked science in college, then continue to explore it. There are great books, lecture series, TV shows, and more that will keep you informed and help you continue to grow and learn in the world.
Here is a list of some great books that will stimulate your mind and have you looking for more!
Proust was a Neuroscientist – Jonah Lehrer – How artists predicted discoveries in Neuroscience decades and centuries before the experiments and ideas came out in science.
Do You Matter – How great design will make people love your company – Brunner and Emery How design is not just about a product, it is about creating an entire emotional customer experience top to bottom.
Islam – Karen Armstrong – If you want to know the basics of this religion, and its history, this is a great one volume book.
Guns, Germs and Steel – Jared Diamond – A fantastic explanation of how societies rise and fall over the centuries, going all the way back to the hunter gatherers of 10,000 plus years ago. A VERY important book.
A Brief History of Time – The Illustrated Version – Stephen Hawking – The illustrated version is great because, you know…books are cool because sometimes they have neat pictures in them! Seriously, it’s a fantastic explanation of the universe as it has been understood in recent decades.
“Difficulty is the Excuse History Never Accepts.” – Sue Grafton
I may also add it is the excuse no art instructor worth his or her salt would ever accept either.
When I use to hear the rationale ‘but I worked really hard on it’ I would always have to throw some water on the fire with this: ‘Your work being good is not a function of it being hard to do, it is a function of it being a good idea well executed, whether it took a year, or a minute.’
People don’t like to hear that. It is natural to want some credit for doing something difficult. And you should get credit, but it is direct credit. If you do something difficult the reward is ‘I am proud of you, you did something difficult’. The reward isn’t indirect. It doesn’t guarantee that what you created with difficulty is good.
It is especially hard to have this attitude with your kids, and it is heartbreaking to see your child do something with hard work and lots of sweat, only to find they got a C or a no comment, or even a harsh critique. But if you are helping them in the best way possible you will praise their hard work, reassure them of the good that is actually in the work and start to teach them the lesson that hard work doesn’t guarantee success, but it does guarantee progress and insight.
If you do that, then their self-esteem will not be attached only to their successes but to their failures and setbacks as well. And THAT is when their self-esteem will stay with them forever.
“Beauty without graces pleases, but does not captivate, being like a hook without bait.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
I am not one who believes outer beauty doesn’t matter. I think if have an outside, then it matters. BUT it will NOT matter if the inside doesn’t match up or surpass the outside. For male or female, all the natural good looks, all the makeup and bronzer and days at the gym will not compensate for a lack of grace.
Grace to me is the one word explanation of inner character when relating to other people. It means you assume the best of people, you give them the benefit of the doubt, you have sincere interest in them and look for ways to help and care for them. You don’t take things too personally, even if it is meant that way. You can laugh at yourself and do that more than you laugh at others.
For beauty to be complete it needs to reside in both the inside and outside. I am not talking about a stereotyped outside beauty, I am talking about a unique and individual beauty, whether it is in the shape of a newborn or an wise elder. Neither am I talking about a cliche inner beauty. Inside there is even more room for uniqueness and individuality to bring forth beauty that no one else possesses.
That combination brings about the beauty that captivates.
“You Have To Expect That If You Cuss Out The World, The World Is Going To Cuss Back.” Andrew Young
There are a lot of books and articles lately about the laws of attraction and secrets that basically say that if you think positively then you will cosmically attract good things.
The messages tend to have a sort of new-age element about some mysterious spirit power doing this for you if you are going along with the program.
But the truth is there is no need for an unsubstantiated spirit to be in control of this phenomenon. What there is need of is to recognize a simple truth. That you get what you give.
You may say that sounds pretty ‘American’ since someone off in the slums of Rio or Mumbai can be very positive and still live in a desperately poor slum. And that is true. BUT, wherever you live, you live with yourself and you influence those around you for better or worse.
Cussing out the world is a forgivable rant sometimes, it’s hard to live a whole life without having ever done that. But what is your general attitude towards the world is the question? Is it to blame, or are you? Better yet, ask this question. Even if the world (read government, family, parents, biology, circumstance, etc) IS to blame, who is going to fix it for you?
“There is something about a closet that makes a skeleton terribly restless.” – Wilson Mizner
So, the question is, when is it safe or sane to let your skeleton out for a while, or forever?
The skeleton doesn’t have to be brought out as a rotting carcass either. It can be dressed up or even disguised, it doesn’t really matter. All it wants is to get a little fresh air.
Perhaps you can bring it out in the form of a poem, or a painting. Perhaps a short story. Perhaps a script or a memoir or a cartoon.
Why not just bring the skeleton out in all its grotesqueness? It is good to bring it out just as it is sometimes. But there are other times when that same skeleton resides in two or three closets and for you to bring it out of yours will force it out of theirs too. Could end up a good thing, but it could be terribly disrespectful and hurtful as well. It isn’t all about you, it is about others as well.
Take a look in your closet, be creative and respectful about how to bring your skeleton out. The more creative you are about it, the more positive the experience will be.
“It is bad luck to fall out of a 13th story window on a Friday.” – American Proverb
Happy Friday the 13th! Go break a mirror, walk under a ladder, pet a black cat walking in front of you and whatever else you want to do, then go make some good luck for yourself!
What are your superstitions for this or any other day? Share it with me, ok?
“There are 3 reasons for breastfeeding: The milk is the right temperature; it comes in attractive containers; and the cat can’t get it.” – Irena Chalmers
I saw a report recently about the actor Salma Hayak breastfeeding a child in Africa to illustrate the problem that arises from the strong pressure to not breastfeed very long in that community. The lack of nutrients, antibiotics and bonding that occur when a baby is taken off breastfeeding prematurely is bad enough in a healthy community, but when the community is in poverty and malnutrition and the lack of safe food & water is strong, then to give up the one thing that can immunize and strengthen your child is much more dire for the future health of the child.
“The will must be stronger than the skill.” – Muhammad Ali
When I was growing up my dad liked to watch boxing on TV and follow it in the newspapers. I became a big fan of Muhammed Ali after I met him in the lobby of a hotel in Chicago when I was ten years old. My sister and I hid behind a potted tree in the lobby looking at this man sitting alone on a couch in the lobby. I knew it was him and was afraid to talk to him since he beat people up for a living. We finally got up the nerve and went to ask him for his autograph. When we did he said he would give it to us ‘under one condition, that you call me Muhammed Ali’. We had asked Cassius Clay for the autograph but we left having met Muhammed Ali.
From then on I was connected to him and followed him, rooted for him, no matter what. I loved him for many reasons; for his brashness, his fun-loving nature, his fast feet and hands and his poetry (if you ever read a poem of mine you will see that I graduated from the Muhammed Ali school of poetry).
But then something far deeper and more meaningful happened than just admiring a great entertainer and athlete. He was stripped of his title in 1967 for refusing to be drafted by the Army. I didn’t understand it all but I felt it was completely unfair at the time. Three years later he was allowed to box again, but three years is like an eternity for a boxer. They just don’t come back from three years off. But he did. Not only did he come back but he was set to win back the championship by fighting Joe Frazier. He lost. Then the rematch came, only Frazier got beat by someone in the meanwhile and their fight, though monumental, proved nothing.
It wasn’t until seven years after his belt was taken from him, four years after he returned to the ring, when he was over the hill, way past his prime and facing the meanest, most hard hitting boxer that had come down the pike in a LONG time, that he had the chance to win the crown back. But he wasn’t going to win this one, he wasn’t going to beat George Foreman. He was smaller, was older, wasn’t nearly as fast or as agile as he once had been. He didn’t train as hard supposedly, couldn’t hit as hard.
I remember sitting in the pub at Brandeis University where I was a sophomore. The fight was blacked out on TV and radio but they could do radio updates at the end of each round. I was really the only one who cared in the whole place. I waited for the report every three minutes or so for round after round. It didn’t look good because Ali was just laying back on the ropes, not fighting all that much. The announcers said it was likely that one of these rounds Foreman would land a punch that would put him down, it was just a matter of time.
But that didn’t happen. As a matter of fact Foreman got tired. Ali didn’t. Ali took every punch he had to give, just let him wail away at his body until he was worn out. Then the tide turned. When Foreman could no longer get up the strength to hit hard Ali did the hitting. By round eight I was screaming with excitement as I heard that Ali had turned the corner and beat Foreman.
In the end Ali used his ‘Rope a Dope’ strategy to beat someone bigger and stronger. He won because he was smarter and he had a good plan. But don’t be fooled, he won first and foremost because his will was stronger than his skill.
Is your will stronger than your skill? If not, why not?
“Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.” – Mitch Albom
Don’t forget that if you like one of these napkin drawings, you can have it put on a coffee mug by just going to my website and typing in the title of this (or any) blog entry as the mug you want.
That desire for immortality, to live forever, is understandable. But the truth is you will not. You will die, as will everyone else. And if there is an afterlife, it certainly will not have much in common with life on earth. In truth, these are things we can’t know for certain one way or another.
But we do have evidence for one thing about the afterlife. The love you gave away during your life lives on. Now, it is true that it might not have your signature on it when the time comes for someone to ask ‘where’d you learn to love like that’ to your descendants. You may not get the credit you deserve. But if you can get over that little ego bruise, you can move forward in life knowing that you will live on no matter what happens to you as long as you pursue loving and accept love.
“Our opinions of people depends less upon what we see in them, than upon what they make us see in ourselves.” – Sarah Grand
This is a tough one for people to grasp. It means you have to look inward and be honest about what is in YOU instead of what is in the person you are judging.
For example, let’s say you have a low opinion of a person at your work who has noticeable tattoos all over his body. What does seeing all those tattoos bring up in yourself? I don’t mean your surface reasons for not liking them. I mean your interior anxieties that the tattooed presence brings out. What is he making you see in yourself?
Let’s say you have a high opinion of a glamorous, high society client. What does she do for you, for your ego, your dreams, your aspirations, that make you think highly of her? What is she making you see in yourself?
“Those who want to imitate anything produce nothing.” – Salvador Dali
This is true.
When I taught drawing I had to break my students of the idea that their big triumph was going to be when they could ‘recreate’ something they saw. I would explain that they are putting marks on a piece of paper, that’s all. They are not making a new vase, or a new naked person. They are putting marks on a piece of paper. Their triumph would come when they could make those marks be visually, and perhaps emotionally, exciting to someone. They were not going to achieve that if, as they were working, they were under the illusion that they were trying to imitate something. The harder they tried to imitate, the uglier their drawing ended up being, and the more ‘nothing’ it was.
BUT, it isn’t just wholesale imitation one has to look out for as a creative person. It is easy to see when something has been stolen lock, stock and barrel. But it is the small, partial, creeping imitation in the parts of original creations one more often has to be vigilant about watching out for.
Falling back on the illusion that ‘something seems so comfortable about this, it just fits’ and not looking deeper and realizing that comfort is really just you having seen it on HGTV, or at Target. Watch out for fooling yourself that you are original when you are merely rearranging something that has been around for years.
Imitation out of laziness or ease. Imitation out of fear. Imitation out of unbelief in your ideas. Those are the death knells of the ecstasy of originality.
Imitation equals just what Dali say it does…nothing.
“If a window of opportunity appears, don’t pull down the blinds.” – Tom Peters
I am amazed when I look back at my professional life as an artist and realize how many times the opportunity window appeared and I pulled down the blinds. I didn’t think I was doing that. I actually thought I was opening the window and making my way through it. I know that many other people who were watching me from a distance thought I was doing the same thing as well. But in truth I fooled myself into thinking that opening the window a crack was opening it all the way.
Actually here is a better way to think of it. Opportunity is not one window appearing, it is a series of windows, one after another, that appear. Butou have to get through the first one to see the next one. And you may not see the next one if you are so impressed with yourself that you got through the first one. I think sometimes that is what I did. I thought, ‘Wow, I just got some publicity.’ Or ‘Hey, I got a piece in a show.’ and then left it at that. What I didn’t do was continue to look for the next window with the same purpose that directed me to the first one.
I have some regrets about that, wishing I had been more diligent, wondering what would have happened if I had been. But after that tinge of regret I move on, happy about learning what I have learned and grateful to know I always have more windows in front of me.
“The soul is dyed with the color of its leisure thoughts.” – Dean Inge
We aren’t talking about leisure as in recreation. We are talking about those thoughts that don’t have a specific purpose. They aren’t about getting dinner ready or talking to the boss or planning the wedding or funeral. They are about the thoughts that happen in between. The non-directed thoughts. What are your thoughts at those moments?
Some examples:
When you meander over the arch of your life, do you think about how you have been cheated or unfairly treated? Or do you look at the blessings, the unfairnesses that bent in your favor?
When you realize you have to go to the store at the last minute, do you think about how you have an opportunity to show encouragement or kindness to someone you haven’t even met (a bagger, a person who can’t reach a top shelf) or do you only think about the hassle of it all?
When you are fretting about your future, do you pity yourself and think how helpless you are? Are your thoughts based on fear? Or are they about what new, exciting things that may come to you, EVEN if it includes downsizing, moving, selling, changing, sacrificing. Are you thinking that even what you suffer might be of crucial importance for you?
Now, obviously, none of us spend our thought life thinking only the pollyanna-esque, ‘ain’t life grand even if I live in a dump’ type thoughts, and we shouldn’t. But we should evaluate what part of our thought life we feed and what part we starve. Are we LOOKING at EVERYTHING that happens, are we thinking about the ENTIRETY of it, or mostly the negative.
If you aren’t thinking about all of it, then you are using a limited palette in dying your soul. You are using the mud colors, the dirt colors, the garbage colors, instead of ALL the colors.
Whether your soul is dyed, influenced, infused, tainted, painted or gilded, what you think becomes who you are.
“Artists who seek perfection in everything are those who can’t attain it in anything.” – Eugene Delacroix
So, it’s another dichotomy. Seeking perfection all the time assures you that you won’t find it. So if you truly are a thinking perfectionist your strategy would have to be to not seek it all the time, but be aware of it when it happens.
I have found perfectionism in young people has to do with perceived external rules and pressures while that same phenom in older people has an internal rule or standard that guides them. While I think their is some sort of progress there, I also think that either way, the perfectionist is so constantly living with disappointment and frustration that no moment of perfection would be able to compensate anyway.
