I recently saw a live video stream of the musician Jewel performing. She was talking about when she was down and out, homeless and broke, not sure where she was going to go and what she was going to do. She said she realized at one point that she wasn’t just thinking something, she was observing herself thinking it. And that made a huge difference in her life Because she realized, if you are the observer of your thoughts then you can change those thoughts. You can evaluate if those thoughts are good for you and those around you. You can take steps to change those thoughts to be more positive, more helpful, more loving. You are not an unconscious being just existing, you are able to change who you are because you are able to see yourself and take action. So do it already.
The woman was so anxious to finally tell the other woman about what was going on in her life because the other woman was a good friend. They were able to go have coffee one fall morning and have time to talk. The woman spilled her guts to the other woman, telling her all about her husband’s terrible behavior, including verbal abuse and cheating on her with some other woman. The other woman listened intently to everything she said and nodded in what the woman thought was signs of sympathy. But the woman was wrong about the other woman being sympathetic because she was the other woman.
Jack was always tired. He never slept, burning the candle at both ends. That was a problem because it caused wax to drip everywhere and that made the partners in the law firm where he worked very angry. He got fired and spent his October either watching the baseball playoffs or sitting on the stoop outside his walkup wondering what to do. He was depressed and got lit often. It was a very scary time for him.
But eventually he died, became compost, was spread across a garden and helped grow a new batch of happy pumpkins the next year.
One of the most frustrating things for many artists is when someone is so sucked in by technical virtuosity that they pay no attention to anything else. They don’t care if it’s a lame, derivative and unimaginative image of a B list celebrity, all they see is that ‘it looks so real, isn’t that amazing!’. It becomes the end all and be all of artistic value.
But for me, it is first off, a technical feat that isn’t as hard as people think it is. It looks impressive but having done photo-realism myself back in graduate school days, I know it can be done with repeated practice and not much else. It doesn’t, in and of itself, take a lot of imagination or creativity, it just takes technical practice. Don’t get me wrong, it can include those things, it’s just that often times it does not.
Secondly, admiring that over all else shows a simplistic understanding of art and what it can be and do in society. If the only art that is great or worthy is art that is a direct copy of a photograph or of a real scene, then it cuts off the value of the creative impulse in art that goes beyond realism, like expressionism, abstraction, impressionism, conceptual art, etc.
Thirdly, we already have the photo. What is the value of making something look like a photo when you already have the photo? It becomes just a way to prove virtuosity, which means it becomes a gimmick. Gimmicks in art fall flat after a while.
Fourth, it creates a group of artists who feel like the only valid work is realistic work, that they have to stay in that realm or they are discarded as being not very good. This is especially damaging to beginning artists in their teenage years where they are often pushed to make things look ‘realistic’. But art doesn’t need to be realistic to be valuable and good. But these teens, frustrated with their inability to make something look real, which might be being taught by their teacher and expected from their parents, give up on art never knowing they were perfectly ok just working in whatever vein they were working in.
My teaching philosophy is to teach creativity development and imagination building alongside technical expertise. If one does that then the artist will be able to create technical masterpieces but will have something unique and original within them that make them more than just dead copies of something else.
Medusa Studies for an Exam – The Adventures of Medusa
Medusa needed to read her Greek Mythology book for her Ancient Religion class so she went to a local coffee house to study. She was minding her own business, drinking her cappuccino and eating her gluten-free caramel brownie when a man came up and started to talk to her. She was polite and said hello but then said she needed to study and wasn’t able to talk right then. He didn’t get the hint and kept talking to her as he leaned up against the fireplace. He started to compliment how beautiful she was and what a great body she had. He started asking her questions about her relationship status and if she came there often. She didn’t respond to him, keeping her nose squarely in her book. He got annoyed and called her a cold, snobby bitch. She turned around to look at him. He was stone cold silent from then on.
She finished reading, took the test and passed with flying colors.
I draw the majority of my images from my imagination. But many of the drawings may start with something or someone I see as an inspiration point. It might be a long straight nose, or the uniformity of choir robes, that I remember and start with. But after that initial inspiration I am not trying to recreate the look of a person or place. I am then much more interested in the marks on the piece of paper and what they represent. This usually doesn’t happen with designed intent beforehand.
Where the Light Was On
For example, I didn’t start out wanting to show a woman looking off to a high rise in the distance. I started out wanting to echo the long vertical line of her nose with another long vertical line in the distance. It was after I made that second line in the distance that I started wondering what that could be. Then I started designing the scene with intent. Her look was so intensely focused off to my right that I didn’t think the high rise by itself would be a sufficient reason for her to be looking in that direction. A light on would make the difference and create the loop between the woman and the building. That in turn makes one wonder, what is happening in that building?
She Had A Little Work Done
I often start a drawing of a person with their nose. But I tend to do long noses or really big curved noses. I do this because I like making a big first mark on the page. But I got tired of doing that and was thinking about what sort of nose I could draw that I don’t often. So in the middle of the page I put the smallest nose I could. The moment I did that I thought about someone getting a nose job to reduce the size of it. The phrase ‘she had a ‘little’ work done’ came to mind. I built around that idea with other elements that were outsized instead of small, to allow for a big contrast. In the end though the drawing really wasn’t about the nose and the ‘little work’ it had done, it was about the eyes and lips and the BIG work that was done. As a matter of fact to me it looks like the only part of her that wasn’t worked on is her nose since the line is simple and uncolored. Sometimes what you think you are going to drawing isn’t what you end up really drawing.
Asparagus
I have a real penchant for art movements of Surrealism and and Dada from the early to mid twentieth century. I don’t know why but I like things that make me go ‘huh?’ and art from both those movements make me do that. In this drawing it really isn’t the image that does that, but the words. There’s no reason for them to be connected and that is the whole point. Thoughts and life don’t always make sense, but that doesn’t mean they don’t occur.
The Woman Who Drank Too Much Coffee
I showed this drawing to a friend in another country via live streaming video and she didn’t understand what all the marks were about. I explained it by telling her the title, then she understood completely!
The Choir Sings About Tools
The whole idea behind a choir (or any group in a uniform) is to present the group as being more important than the individual. It’s a powerful way to put something out into the world that wouldn’t be possible as individuals. But yet, without the individuals the group could never exist. Yes, each person here is drawn as an individual in the facial features and hair, but when it came to coloring them I decided it would be more interesting to show what was coming out of their mouths as being what made them individual, instead of their skin color.
Why the tools? Well, I couldn’t really think of a great quote or song lyric at the time and I thought icons of tools would be an interesting challenge to draw.
I Feel So City
The idea for this drawing was observing a woman reading at a coffee shop. I was barely able to get the lines of her face and body in before she left. What I was left with was someone who, without the book in the picture, looked rather depressed. I colored her in bright colors to compensate for that depressed look but still saw it. I then drew the background to match her look, not her color. Adding the word play came to mind at that point.
It’s been a while since I have done a marathon update. Some pretty momentous things have happened so it’s time to fill you in!
The last marathon I reported on was the Oakland Marathon in March of 2018. I finished that marathon in 4:03:41. My goal was to finish in 4:05 because I wanted to test to see if I could finish below the Boston Marathon qualifying time of 4:10 for the 2020 race (when I would be 65 years old). I also mentioned that the Oakland race course was mismeasured by 1/2 a mile. The actual distance was 26.7 miles, no 26.2. As a result my 4:03 would have been closer to 3:58 if it had been accurately measured. That more accurate (but unofficial) time of 3:58 made me start thinking about trying to qualify not for the 2020 Boston Marathon, but for the 2019 one. The reason there is a difference is because I would still be in the 60-64 year old category if I ran in 2019. That means my time would have to be well below the 3:55 qualifying time for 60-64. It would have to close to 3:51, not 4:05. That’s a big difference to make up!
Oakland was an early spring marathon and that meant I still had time to race again before the heat of summer came around and the races stopped until the fall. I started looking into races that I could run in April in the hopes of breaking that 3:51 time. I settled on the Illinois Marathon in Champagne-Urbana on April 28th. It was a drivable distance from Tulsa, had a reputation for being flat and fast and the temperatures would be better than those in the Oklahoma races in the same time frame. So I signed up and ran the race. However, I was not able to make the time I wanted. I finished in 3:58:12, about the same time I would have finished Oakland if it had actually been 26.2 miles. I was happy to officially break 4 hours but was disappointed in myself because my race strategy was terrible.
Mistake #1– Choosing the Pace Group
My plan was to run with the 3:55 pacer but when I talked to the 3:50 pacer at the expo she convinced me I needed to run with her if I was going to make my time. So I started out with that pace group. What that meant was I used up too much energy going too fast too early.
Mistake #2 – Water Intake
I made another mistake before I even left the starting gate. I didn’t go to the bathroom one last time. What that really meant was I drank too much water too soon before the start of the race. As a result I had to stop to pee at about mile 6. It took way too long and I lost the pace group as a result. I continued on at the proper pace but didn’t have any support from then on.
Mistake #3– Fueling
My strategy was to take my gels (Huma brand) every 5 miles, which I did. It seemed to be plenty sufficient. I drank at most water stops as well. However, when mile 22 came around I just had to slow down. I eventually took a walk break in each of miles 23-25. I was worn out and the head wind of 20+ mph didn’t help.
Mistake #4– Timing
The Illinois Marathon was just 5 weeks after Oakland. What that meant was it was too close to retrain. In other words I pretty much had to just maintain as best I could between the two races. I had to take it easy the first week or two after Oakland and that meant I only had a week to get back my race mojo back before having to taper again for the next race. Which meant I didn’t really improve anything in that amount of time. As a result I was able to perform about the same, not better.
Next Chance/Last Chance
The season was done at that point and I knew any more attempts to qualify for Boston would have to take place in the fall. However, registration for Boston opens and closes in a very short window of time in early September. If I was going to qualify it would have to be no later than the weekend of Sept. 8th/9th. I started scoping out races that weekend and found there were many in the northern tier states that were specifically advertised at Boston qualifiers. I settled on one in Erie, Pennsylvania. It had everything I wanted in a race. It was geared towards qualifying in that it was flat, fast and small. 44% of participants had qualified in 2017, making it one of the top 4-5 races in the country for that purpose. It was a 13.1 mile tear drop shaped course that you did twice. Some of the other possible races were loops that you had to do 6-8 times. I had no interest in that.
Erie Marathon also was on a peninsula off-shore from the city of Erie, PA. It was a protected area with huge and plentiful trees, a nature preserve, beaches and no city streets or sharp turns. I made my choice and started to train.
I trained harder than ever. I ran more miles (averaging well over 40 miles per week, a lot for me) and I did more specific types of training runs (speed work, tempo runs, progression runs, recovery runs, etc.). I also lost a bit of weight (about 5 lbs), ate better, and continued my cross training regimen to focus even more on flexibility and strength.
The Strategy
The race might be set to be perfect in every way but if I don’t have a solid race strategy it wasn’t going to matter. The strategy was based on overcoming the four major mistakes I had made in Illinois.
Fix #1 – Choosing the Pace Group
This time my strategy was to go with the 3:55 pacer for 10 miles then slowly move forward from there, increasing my pace gradually having saved energy in the first 10 miles. There is a bad strategy people sometimes fall into called ‘putting minutes in the bank’. You go out fast and each mile that passes you start to add up the seconds and minutes you have available at the other end. The truth though is, if you go out too fast and save minutes, you will end up spending 1.5x those minutes in your slow down at the tail end of the race. In other words you can’t sustain that pace and it will come back to bite you. This time I didn’t do that, I went out slower than I knew I need to go and it paid off.
Fix #2 – Water Intake
I ate my breakfast earlier than in Illinois and I stopped drinking water 1 3/4 hours before the race. That way my bladder was completely empty and the majority of the digestion I needed to do was done when the time came to get in the corral with the pacer. However, I was plenty hydrated and fueled because I had been very deliberate about doing so not just for the day before but for the entire week before. I was ready to go.
Fix #3 – Fueling
I decided to take my gel every 4 hours instead of every 5. I did this primarily to make sure my fuel store was always full but there was fantastic unintended consequence to this strategy. As I started to fuel every 4 miles I noticed the time and distance was passing quicker than when I did it every 5 miles. This was apparent to me when twice during the race I had to count the gels in my pockets to make sure I wasn’t taking a gel twice at the mile marker instead of once. In other words, 4 miles went by so fast it seemed like I had just taken the gel. It helped considerably at the half way point because by that time I had started to break the race into 4 mile segments. I took my gel at mile 12 and before I knew it I was taking it again at mile 16. I had pretty much skipped worrying about hitting 13.1 and was just focused on coming up to 16. And 16? Well that is a LOT farther in a marathon than 13.1! Next thing I know I am at mile 20 and so on. I also took hydration and energy drinks at almost every water stop (there were a lot of stops!).
Fix #4 – Timing
The Erie Marathon was not an add-on afterthought to another race. It was my sole focus for 20 weeks of training. I could feel myself getting stronger and peaking at the right time in this training cycle instead of just holding on for 5 weeks until the next race. The determination was complete and my confidence was high.
Out Of My Control
As with any outdoor activity you can prepare all you want but if the weather gods don’t go along with your plans it can still be a rough outing. Because it was an early fall marathon (technically still in summer) I was worried about the temperatures. For many weeks before hand it was looking to be about 65º to start and about 75º at the end with pretty high humidity. Not optimal at all. If the sun was shining as well it could be trouble. However, with just about 4 days to go the forecast took a turn for the better, sort of. The temperatures were going down but the rain chances were increasing. It looked like we just start in the high 50s but with high winds and rain starting about halfway through. Not optimal but I had run in rain in a marathon before and had actually liked it. The question was how much rain, how much humidity, how much wind, how much cloud cover. On the day before the race it had become obvious the weather would be perfect IF the rain held off (or was light). The starting temp was forecast to be 57º and the finishing temp 4 hours later was expected to be 60º. 4 degrees increase over 4 hours? That is unheard of but very welcomed. The rain was still expected but not until a bit later in the day and we might miss it completely. And in the end, the rain held off and the wind was dramatically dampened by how forested the route was.
Ready, Set, Go
And just like that we were off. I implemented my strategy exactly as I had planned. 10 miles in I started to inch forward beyond the 3:55 pacer. I could see another pace group way up ahead and set my sights on it. In the meanwhile I kept watching runners ahead of me and made a game of picking them off one by one. I was patient and deliberate, sometimes taking as many as 10-15 miles to pass someone I could see ahead of me. By the time I finished I had passed what I estimate to be at least 100 people and had only had one person pass me. I eventually caught up with the next pace group (3:50) at about mile 24 and decided to keep my pace instead of fall back in line with them. I passed them and never looked back. It was a good thing I did since my final time was 3:50:25 and I was well ahead of that group by then.
Elation
People have said to me since then, ‘Man, you must have felt so great crossing that finish line’ and of course I did. But it wasn’t just the finish line. It was pretty much right after the 1/2 way point that I felt like I had this race. It sounds cocky and too early to say that to yourself but it really was how I felt. However, I know a lot can happen in 13 miles so I wasn’t doing any celebrating. I just felt confident in my plan is all. But when my 16 came around I felt even more confident. When 20 came around I had no doubt. So it wasn’t just the finish line where I felt elated. It was at least the last 10 miles of the race.
And, most selfishly, I accomplished my goal. I qualified for the Boston Marathon with a time of 3:50:25. That is 4:35 below the qualifying time of 3:55 for my age group. But, here is the kicker. They don’t accept everyone who qualifies. They start accepting the fastest people in the age group first and keep accepting until they have reached their limit for that group. Most years it’s about 2-3 minutes below the qualifying time. My time is a minute below the highest time they’ve ever had as a cut-off so it should be enough for me to be accepted. We shall see!
Gratitude and Pride
Because I am a running coach and training program coordinator, I have a lot of people watching me do my races. They are rooting me on, hoping the best for me, encouraging me and helping me in so many ways. As I was going through those final miles I kept thinking about how I wanted to make them proud. I wanted to make them happy. Not just for me, but to be part of a community that allows this to happen for me and for so many others. Even more important I wanted to make my wife Linda feel like I had done my best for her as well. She works hard and is the primary bread-winner in the house. I get to do this amazing sport in large part because of her and I want her to feel it’s been worth it. I want her to be proud of me. I want me daughters to be proud of me as well of course. But more than that I want them to see what they could be capable of when they are my age.
Next Steps
And now that is done. I’ve shown off my medal and my t-shirt. I’ve geeked out about all the statistics and told plenty of stories about some of the finer details of the race experience. I talked to my runners about the experience, emphasizing that having big goals is ok. But once you have them you put them on the back shelf and focus on smaller goals that are along the way, that are reachable but still a challenge. You build towards the big goal by reaching all the in between goals. And most importantly, each goal is actually a milestone, not a finish line. That way you are ever progressing, ever-moving forward.
My next race is the New York Marathon on November 4th. I am just starting to formulate my plan for that. It will be a different plan, made just for that day, that race and the conditions I come across. I will let you know how that goes. After that it’s a few weeks getting my runners to their goal races and then taking it easy over the holidays. Training for Boston will start about the last week of December. Wish my luck!
See you running,
Marty
Post-Script
I did not get into the Boston Marathon. What I thought was a safe time 4:36 below the qualifying standard turned out not to be the case. The cut off was 4:52. I missed out by 16 seconds. The worst aspect of this is that I know I could have easily run 16 seconds faster in that race. I could have done that in the last mile, that is how good I felt. But I didn’t. 20/20 hindsight is always so clear, right? Don’t worry, I’ve already had my pity party (bought and ate a Nestle’s Crunch bar) and am already working on the plan to qualify for the 2020 race.
Not only did I miss it by 16 seconds but they also have lowered the qualifying standard in each age group by 5 minutes. The good news is I ‘age up’ for 2020. That means I will be in a new age group, 65-69, since I will be 65 on the date of the 2020 Boston Marathon (that is how they judge your age group, not when you run your qualifying race but when you run their race. This year I needed to run under 3:55 by a substantial amount. But next year I will have to run under 4:00 hours. There is no guarantee of course but I have beat that time twice now, and by almost 10 minutes at Erie, so we shall see.
Ask a gay person who is not out of the closet what it is like and they will likely tell you it’s like being in a prison. I believe the same is likely true for a victim of domestic abuse who hasn’t been able to tell anyone the truth. And someone with a suspect past no one can know about? I bet they feel imprisoned as well. Basically anyone with a secret that they believe will harm them if found out is in that boat. What do they all have in common? Silence. As a matter of fact many people who do break through and tell their story find out it wasn’t the story that imprisoned them, it was the silence.
It seems so counter-intuitive. The fear is that exposure will lead to shame or guilt or condemnation or judgment. But keeping it all secret leads to all those things as well. It’s just that they are all internalized, thrown at you by yourself instead of others. It’s a heavy burden to bear. So, what is the solution?
There are times when it’s wise to stay silent about something. Perhaps it would hurt someone else unnecessarily or maybe it would put you in danger. But in many cases the secret is coming so close to destroying you from inside that you must let it out to someone in some way. Maybe a counselor, family member, or even a stranger would be best. But if the choice is between self-destruction and telling a secret, by all means find a way to let the secret out.
It really will turn out to be better on the other side of the wall of silence.
I spend time each evening drawing on my iPad Mini. I do this usually when I am in bed, right before I go to sleep. I don’t pre-plan what I am going to draw, I just let it happen. Here is part 4 in the series. You can see the others by selecting ‘digital work’ from the ‘series’ drop down menu.
Medusa’s big night finally arrived. She was going to prom! She picked up her date, a boy named Rock, at his house. Boy, were his parents surprised! Medusa introduced herself and tried to make them feel comfortable, but they were rather stiff. She made small talk with them, very small talk, while Rock finished getting ready (he had to tie his bow tie 14 times before he got it right).
Rock was scared to go to prom with Medusa but was even more scared of saying no to her. He had heard rumors about what happened to people who crossed Medusa. He held up ok until her hair (which consisted of snakes) loosened up a bit and started slithering over towards him during the prom pictures. He didn’t have a good night after that.
This month (Aug, 2018) we had the 45th year reunion of our Darien (Connecticut) High School class of 1973. One of the things we have all been amazed at over the years is how many of us ended up being artists of one sort or another. Some ended up being full-time professional artists, some part-time, but there were many more than you would figure from a class our size (about 300).
Jim Hett talking to a crowd in front of his artwork.
One of our alumnus (and artist), Jim Hett, also has had years of experience in museum work, installing, curating, organizing exhibitions. He took the initiative to organize an exhibition of many of the artists’ work and installed it at the Darien Public Library earlier this month. Even though I wasn’t able to attend I wanted to send some work. I had a small space to work with and I wanted something that would be thought-provoking in a library setting so I chose from my ‘I draw in church’ series. I sent a suite of 9 small framed pieces.
Here are pictures from the exhibition. Following those are the individual images.
Exhibition at the Darien Public Library
‘I Draw in Church’
‘I Draw in Church – Jan the Baptist’ | Ink on Paper | 2017
‘I Draw in Church – The Divine Calculator’ | Ink on Paper | 2018
‘I Draw in Church – Mary Magdalena’ | Ink on Paper | 2017
The following three drawings were done in an actual bible. It was given to me in 1997 and I stopped using it to draw in around 2001. I don’t know the specific dates I drew each of these images but I added color to all of them in 2018.
‘I Draw in Church – I Am Not Who I Appear To Be’ | Ink on Bible | 1997 – 2018
This drawing includes a poem I wrote.
I am not who
I appear to be.
You see beauty,
I see me.
I see me as
Far and away.
Helpless, hopeless,
Nowhere to stay.
I see me with
Aching bones,
Sagging skin and
Spiritual groans.
I see me as
Selfish and mean,
Trite and hateful,
Enviously green.
If you see me,
Truly you will know
My beauty proves
I don’t reap what I sow.
‘I Draw in Church – Thought in the Back of Her Mind’ | Ink on Bible | 1997 – 2018
‘ I Draw in Church – Prayers of a Pursed-Lipped Person’ | Ink on Bible | 1997 – 2018
These three drawings (one, ‘The Violinist’, is not pictured individually but you can see the image in the group picture above) do not include any words though one does still have thought bubbles. It’s just that there are images in the bubbles instead of words.
I Draw in Church – The Bible Reader | Ink on Paper | 2014
‘I Draw in Church – What They Thought’ | ink on paper | 2016-2018
(One piece is missing, ‘The Violinist’. I thought I had scanned it and had it in digital form but I haven’t been able to find it so I suspect I didn’t actually scan it.)
I’ve drawn in church since about 1980, probably because I started using sketchbooks small enough to carry into the building. When I tell people I do this often times I get the question, do people in church think that is rude? And here is the funny thing, while I have no doubt some do indeed think it is rude, not one time in close to 40 years has anyone ever said that to me directly. As a matter of fact most people who do talk to me about it are enthusiastic to see what I have drawn and want to know more about why I drew what I drew. This includes pastors, past and present, who sometimes are aware that I draw. The pastor at the church I currently attend will, on occasion, want to see my sketchbook, curious about what’s drawn my attention and how I may have interpreted a sermon or message. At least he knows when my head is facing down I am not asleep, just looking at my sketchbook!
Yesterday I was leading our running group in warm ups. I mentioned we were going to run a certain stretch of the route at the end and that I wanted them to do a certain thing during that. One of my coaches spoke up and said, “We aren’t doing that stretch of road on the route.” I looked at her map and sure enough, not only were we not doing that part, the part close to it that we were doing was at the beginning of the run, not the end. I had read the map backwards out of habit, thinking we would run clock-wise around the neighborhood as usual instead of counter-clockwise as the map showed. So, that was figured out.
Force of Habit
We finish the warm up and off I go with my lead group. What do I do? I go the wrong way. Even though I read the map, heard the coach say we were supposed to go in a certain direction, it had all flew right out of my mind like so many balloons drifting off into the atmosphere. I just defaulted to what I was used to and went in the clock-wise direction. It was not until I was about a mile into the run that I realized it.
Poof
Of course, it really wasn’t a big deal. We were going to get to the water stop and back to the store perfectly fine. We even passed the groups that had gone the right way as we hit the water stop. But it shows how easy it is for thoughts and ideas to just disappear out of you one’s head and into the ether.
And that is why I try to make a habit of writing things down as often as I can!
Who decides if God exists or doesn’t, is connected or disconnected from humanity, is male, female, non-binary or something else, is three in one, 747 in one, or one in one?
Who decides if everything happens for a reason, just some things, or no things?
Who decides if God in on the side of a certain race, creed, state, nationality, governmental process, or language?
Who decides what religious laws or rules you have to obey, what restrictions you have on yourself with food, drink, exercise, clothing, makeup, hair style, tattoos and piercings?
Who decides what writings are from God or not, which religion is right or not?
Who decides if God made males superior to females or females superior to males, approves of gay marriage or does not, approves of sex before marriage or not?
The answer to every question is ‘you decide’. Even if you believe in the inerrant word of God, taking the bible literally, it’s YOU who decide to believe that. Not your mother, not your father, not your priest or pastor. You decide.
In the New Testament of the Christian scriptures there is an Apostle named Thomas. He is known as ‘Doubting Thomas’ because of the story of his not believing the other Apostles when they say that Jesus has come back to life after having been crucified, declared dead and put in a tomb. His response to their amazing story is to say, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” At that point they drop the subject and go about their business.
An entire week passes before they are all together in the same room, including Thomas. Jesus appears again and tells Thomas to come look at his hands and put his hand in his side. Thomas does so and declares to Jesus, “My Lord and my God.” Jesus uses the event as a teaching moment for them all by saying, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
This story has been used for centuries as a way to tell disciples belief should come before evidence. It is a singularly important passage for those extolling faith in the church. There are other moments in Jesus’ story that put forth the message of faith, but none do it with the graphic nature of this story. So, faith is what it’s all about, right? Not necessarily.
Blind Faith vs Absolute Evidence
If absolute and blind faith was of utmost importance then why would Jesus take the time and energy to appear to Thomas? Why wouldn’t he just say, ‘too bad for you, you didn’t believe so out you go!’? He didn’t because he understood that while some might have blind faith not all will. He didn’t come, teach and be an example for just the heaven-minded types. He came for the down-to-earth, grounded-in-reality types too. He understood that some need absolute proof, some need none, and some (probably most) are in between. His response did include that those who didn’t need proof are ‘blessed’, it’s true. But he did not condemn or judge Thomas for not being in that crowd. He came back specifically to give him the proof he desired.
And the church, as a supposed extension of Jesus, should do the same. If someone doesn’t need proof, doesn’t care about evidence, fine. But for those who do want those things in order to believe they should be given every opportunity, with grace and understanding, to pursue them.
Thomas’ History
You can read more about what Thomas did after this story took place here. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Thomas . However, it should be noted that ironically the evidence is scarce about whether any of these events actually took place.
This gets right to the heart of the fantasy that drives so much historic gender inequality. Some men want women to embody a certain societal fantasy ideal. In the worst case they seduce the woman into living up to that ideal (on the surface at least) by offering them a bargain. If you meet their ideal standards they will not only idolize you but you will also get preferential treatment, physical protection, financial safety, social status and loyalty. Sounds like a bargain, right? Many women have made that bargain and have lived with it for their entire lives. Some may even have been satisfied with that life. But many more have lived under the bargain for a while, believing the fantasy ideal just as much as the man, only to discover the downside.
The Downside
The downside is that the man will not let you be his equal in the corridors of business, governance and public life in general. They will be critical as you age, as you lose shape, as you pay attention to our offspring more than you do to them, and as you try to gain some level of independent significance. Then the man will be dissatisfied and feel justified in removing elements of the bargain as you falter in your ideal status. And they will feel justified in searching out a new ideal to pursue.
Powerless to Powerful
And then you realize your idealization has come at the price of powerlessness. At least that is what that man wants you to believe. That is the fear he hopes keeps you in ‘your place’. But the truth is you are not powerless. The only thing hiding your power away is your fear. It is a fear that giving up the bargain will reduce you to powerlessness when actually you already are powerless. The truth is breaking free will liberate you to be powerful. This does not necessarily mean breaking free from a marriage, though it often does mean that. What it really means is breaking free from the fantasy and illusion that you have to rely on a sexist bargain to exist.
Mutual Benefit
This is not just a benefit to the woman to break free, but to the man as well. Of course, it doesn’t seem like that at first, but if the man let’s go of this sexist bargain he will gain something he hasn’t had, a true, equal partner in the world. A person bonded to him in love, not in fear. He will gain a partner who is free to pursue her full potential in whatever direction she wants. And when that happens, both parties to the old bargain win.
I was raised in a family with art on the walls and art history all around me. I studied art and art history all through undergraduate and graduate school. As a result there are many artists whom I have known about and seen their work over many decades. This is especially true of the work of the early and mid-twentieth century American artists, some that my Grandfather and Grandmother collected. One artist among this group was Stuart Davis. I saw many of his pieces during my studies and some in person. I always liked his work but had never really seen the entire breadth of his accomplishments until I went to the ‘Stuart Davis – In Full Swing’ exhibition at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas.
What did I find? I found an innovative abstractionist before there was such a thing, an insightful pop artist before pop art existed and, most surprisingly, a musician who whose instrument was paint. Here are a few pieces that illustrate how the thread of these three ideas weave seamlessly together throughout his career.
POP BEFORE POP
Starting in the late 50s and blossoming in the 1960s, pop art became all the rage. It was a communal reaction from many younger artists to the abstract expressionism then prevalent in the art world. The pop artist was intent on engaging with popular culture instead of withdrawing from it. The 60s were a time of great social upheaval and for many artists trying to be a part of that while painting something that had no visual relationship to it was impossible. So, they took ideas and images from their environment, especially in the area of advertising and mass media (what social media was called before it was social). They then transformed these images in size, material, intent and location to have the image be more than just a soup can or comic strip or American flag. They became commentary and critique at one level and formal visual statements at another.
They were thought of as wholly original and American in their creative use of the world around them and had much acclaim and fame as a result. Only, it really wasn’t as original as we supposed. Stuart Davis had thought of the idea and painted many canvases exploiting the idea in the late 20s, 30 years before.
Here is a popular mouthwash of the day and a typical print advertisement promoting it.
Davis took the product image and created still lives based on them, using it as a starting point for a formal exploration of shape, color, form etc. and at the same time introducing social commentary about popular culture of the time.
Odol, 1924, Oil in canvasOdol, 1924, Oil in canvasLucky Strike, 1924 – oil on paperboard
As you can see, Davis was exploiting the commercial world around him for artistic and social expression well before the pop artists came around. This is evidence that no matter how original a movement seems to be you can usually find roots and reasons behind its development that show an incremental development from work that has come before.
ABSTRACTION
Once Davis started down the road of using objects from day-to-day life for his subjects he quickly moved beyond mere representation. He did this by adding another element that would gain great traction later in American life and that is abstraction. This was not a concept he came up with, it had been germinating in Europe for at least a decade or two. Malevich, LIssitzky, Kandinsky and Mondrian were all moving decisively in that direction in the first two decades of the twentieth century.
As a matter of fact, Davis was very attuned to this European movement from the time he attended the famous Armory Show of 1913 in New York City. While pure abstraction wasn’t highly visible at that show, it was hinted at in many of the works. In subsequent years the European abstract artists work continued to be known about and seen in America on occasion. But, here is what is interesting. The majority of collectors and artists purposely rejected the European idea of abstraction in favor or what became known as American Regionalism. In an effort to delineate boundaries between the two continents and forge their own identity, American artists went in the opposite direction, towards a social realism and narrative story telling.
All except Stuart Davis. Instead of reacting against abstraction he decided to investigate it and find it’s expressive value. And so he embarked on a great journey of combining abstraction with visualization of external subject matter in a completely unique way.
Salt Shaker, 1931, oil on canvasEgg Beater #4, 1928, oil on canvasEgg Beater, 1928, oil on canvas
Above are just three examples of this idea in action.
VISUAL MUSIC
As much as I like narrative stories, representation and messages in art, the number one thing I must have for me to be satisfied with a piece is compositional harmony. It has to be composed well and be balanced. That isn’t as easy or pat as it sounds. It takes meticulous seeing and it takes a courageous willingness to destroy part or all of an image to make it work right.
One of the most amazing things I discovered as I walked through this exhibition at Crystal Bridges was how much I was taken in by the composition of almost every single piece. I saw a genius-level use of color, rhythm, pattern and tone to develop the compositional flow. It was incredibly impressive to me at a root level.
One thing I always tell people when disparage abstract art and wonder why it has any value is for them to think about music. Do they demand lyrics be added to a symphony for it to be worthy of attention? Do they demand a beautiful Spanish guitar solo be punctuated with a story-teller standing next to the player explaining what each passage is supposed to mean and how it all fits in to a specific story? No, they don’t. Why? Because they know sounds can be beautiful, profound and meaningful without a verbal element to them.
The same is true in Abstract art. It can be seen the same way a symphony or guitar solo is heard. It can have its own visual beauty without having to be a representation of something outside itself. And Davis was deeply enmeshed in that idea. He was immersed in the world of Jazz in New York and beyond and he worked profoundly hard to bring that jazz sensibility to his visual art.
But it goes beyond just one canvas having jazz rhythms. It’s the whole idea of improvisation that Davis embraces. Just as a Jazz artist plays the same tune each night at the club, but improvises it differently each time, Davis did the same from canvas to canvas. As a matter of fact, much of his later work was variations on a theme he had developed earlier in his career.
Here are a few examples of that improvisation on a theme over the years.
Town Square, 1929, watercolor, gouache, ink, and pencil on paper
Check out the transformation of the scene from the image above to the one below. ‘See’ it as you would listen to music and let your eye travel around the two images the way you would listen to two different parts of a symphony. There is echos and hints of each in each other but they are both completely unique.
Report from Rockport, 1940, oil on canvasFrom top left clockwise – Landscape, 1932-35; Shapes of Landscape Space, 1939; Memo, 1956; Tournos, 1954
Let your eyes bring about the different feelings you get by looking at each piece the same way you would let your ears take you to places in your mind while listening to music.
Little Giant Still Life, 1950, oil on canvasSwitchskis-Syntax, 1950, Casein on canvas
Let the colors guide you the way different instruments guide you through a musical composition. The horn brings up something different in you than the violin. Green and black bring up something different from blue and pink.
American Painting, 1932, 1942-1954 – oil on canvasTropes De Teens, 1956, oil on canvas
AND MORE
It’s not enough to limit Davis to just 2 or 3 Art Appreciations lessons. The joy isn’t in always categorizing an artist’s work into little bite size pieces. Sometimes you just sit back and not worry about the label, you just enjoy the visual music.
Here are some examples of his work I think is amazing. It gives me pleasure to investigate and discover. And that is always enough for me in art.
Summer Landscape, 1930, oil on canvasLandscape with Garage Lights, 1932 – oil on canvasArboretum By Flashbulb, 1942, oil on canvasCliche, 1955, oil on canvasThe Paris Bit, 1959, oil on canvas
CONCLUSION
This is just a small sampling of his work and a micro look at a few of his career phases. I recommend you spend some time reading up on him and looking at more of his work. You won’t be disappointed. The catalog from the show pictured at the top of this post is an excellent source for artistic and social information about his life and times. It includes a wide array of images, 2 long and interesting essays and an in depth chronology. I highly recommend getting it if you like his work.
I wake up every day around 5am and start my morning ritual. The very first thing I do is unplug our cats’ automatic watering bowl (it is a little waterfall gizmo that allows them to drink running water). Why do I unplug it? Because it’s got an electrical buzzing sound to it. It’s annoyingly loud in the morning when there are no other sounds in the house. Later in the day, especially if music or TV is on, I barely hear it. But in the morning? It’s like a roaring freight train sometimes.
Tinnitus
One thing I can’t turn off every morning is my Tinnitus. I have had ringing in my ears since 2000. It came on when I was repeatedly in a very loud contemporary worship service at Asbury Methodist Church here in Tulsa. I told the worship leader and music leader the volume was too loud numerous times and that it was going to hurt someone’s hearing eventually, but they ignored me. It did turn out to affect someone’s hearing, mine. What do I hate the most about it? I hate it when I am in an otherwise completely silent and peaceful environment. It’s like that cat watering gizmo annoyingly getting in the way of the silence.
Self-Noise
But this quote is more than just about physical silence. It’s also about mind silence or self-noise. For example, I am sure you know the old problem of thinking of a response while someone is speaking to you instead of just listening to them. What is that but self-noise in your head getting in the way of hearing what the other person is actually saying. Your self-noise is loud, wanting to get validation or respect or power from the person you are talking to or from those listening in. It’s your ego in the way and what is your ego but self-noise?
Care Enough to Not Care
So, how do you combat this? It’s to not care. What do I mean? I mean you give up caring about your status or your reputation or your ego or your defense. You let that self-noise fade away and just listen to what is around you. It might be a child or parent, it might be a co-worker. Get rid of your own automatic response (self-noise) and you might be able to hear not just what they are saying but who they are deep inside. And then you have solid information received clearly that you can respond to.
This is my drawing of our preacher this past Sunday. Her name is Paula. She spoke on marriage from a woman’s perspective. Her husband, named Deron, also spoke about marriage, but from a man’s perspective. There was a bit of stereotyping, which she told us would be coming. It is true that stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason (sometimes) and in this case there is enough truth that I understood why she used them. She basically said that while most women want love, most men want respect. I can see that in my life. But it’s important to note that women, while wanting love, do also want respect.
The battle for equality on behalf of women for the last 150 years in this country is proof of that. The fact that it was a risky move to even have a female preacher up at the altar is also proof of that. They have had to fight for that equality even though their behavior and actions have proven they are worthy of it many times over. From talking to my wife, daughters and others, it’s a very frustrating position to be in, whether in career, education, home or social life. Women want their intellect respected, as well as their decision-making, emotions, insights, capabilities in the workplace and their creativity. And they want their bodies respected at all times.
Many men already get plenty of respect from society, but not all. Often times a man will suffer disrespect until they reach a boiling point, then explode in anger and resentment at not getting it. If they were able to ask for it, and explain how the lack of it truly hurts them, then perhaps they would get it before their blow up. But that would demand a vulnerability that most men aren’t comfortable with. To ask for something like that, or to explain their hurt, could open them up to ridicule or even put them in a dangerous position with other males. The male preacher brought up a good point however, and that is they have to deserve it. Asking for respect when their actions aren’t respectable or respectful is going to fall on deaf ears.
So, it seems to me there is a bit of a lopsided element to respect. Women often do more than enough to deserve respect and don’t get it. Men often do very little to deserve respect but get it anyway. Men often times will demand the respect and might get it out of intimidation or fear. Women will often not demand respect out of the same reasons.
How do we balance out this inequality? That is where the love comes in. Yes, it’s great to be respected, but at the root of respect is love. My wife and my song is ‘What a Wonderful World’. One of my favorite lines is this: “I see friends shaking hands, saying ‘how do you do’, they’re really saying ‘I love you’. And what is shaking hands but a show of respect, right? Well if the line is true (and I think it is) what lies behind that respect is love. Love is what allows the empathy needed to see the frustration on the part of women when they are not respected. Love is what allows the sensitivity needed to see the hurt behind the disrespect men sometimes get. Without love in your heart, respect is just an academic exercise you can dismiss at will. With love, it’s the mechanism by which you can love the whole world.
This is a continuation of my digital drawings, the first batch of which I published earlier this year. I have gotten into the habit of drawing for 10-20 minutes after I get in bed each night and these drawing are the result. I use an iPad mini and the Sketchbook Pro app by Autodesk. I usually use my finger to draw or a digital pen. These are all about the artistic challenge of getting the most sophisticated emotion out of the least sophisticate technique. After I am done I usually post the image to my instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts. If you want to connect with me at any of those social media platforms just search for ‘The Napkin Dad’ and you will find me.
click on any image to see a slide show of them all.
Have you missed me? Probably not considering my blog doesn’t reach that many people. But if you did, fret no longer, I am back. Are you wondering, ‘uh, I didn’t know you were gone.’? Then, don’t worry, I wasn’t gone long enough to worry you. But if you were wondering where I went, here’s the answer (actually, this is the answer even if you didn’t wonder.)
Shorter Version – I messed up my security settings, my hosting, my databases and other stuff and basically locked myself out of napkindad.
Longer Version – Two things happened, One, I let my SSL certificate lapse. I got an email for a company telling me it was about to expire but I thought it was a company trying to get me to switch by telling me that when it was still far off. But I was wrong, it actually was the company I was using. Duh. Once it expired I was toast, no longer able to access my administration area to do any updates. Because I didn’t renew in time I had to have my host renew for me and install the new certificate. The problem was he was not able to do it. I don’t want to go into too much detail out of respect for him but he’s been having physical, mental and financial issues and they came to a head this spring. Bottom line he was not able to work on getting my site back up and running in a timely manner.
Because of that and because of my lack of confidence that issues wouldn’t occur in the future that would cause more problems I decided to change hosts. The problem with that of course is I need the help of my prior host to help me do the transfer. This took a while. Eventually he got back on the job and helped me from his end. That meant he was giving me the backup files for my sites (this one and martycoleman.com). But the bulk of the work had to be done with the new host, Bluehost.
That took a number of days. Why? Because I am an idiot who misread a file and told the support staff to put it in the wrong place, which messed most everything else up. In addition I got all pissy with the tech support guy I was chatting with because of course it was completely his fault…until it wasn’t. We finally got that issue resolved and came upon another issue, this one having to do with the database. This took another day or two to resolve. Then another issue popped up with a plugin that was so good at security that it continued to lock me out even after all the other issues had been resolved.
While You Were Gone
So that is why napkindad.com has been dormant for almost a month. But that doesn’t mean I have been dormant. During the last few months one of my daughters got engaged, I visited another daughter and my grandson and I ran two marathons in two different states. I came within 3 minutes of qualifying for the Boston Marathon so another race is in my near future (probably September) to see if I can’t cut my time down and qualify. I will post something about that in the next week.
Anniversary
And guess what? 2018 is both the 10 year anniversary of the Napkindad website and the 20 year anniversary of when I first started drawing the napkins for my daughters. I will be doing some fun things to celebrate both of these anniversaries over the next year so stay tuned!
