by Marty Coleman | Jul 7, 2009 | Benjamin Disraeli, Travel |
Day 2 of decompression from my vacation. I am still thinking
about travel and so am going to continue this week (maybe) in drawing
about it.
During our vacations it is a tradition that about half way in we will turn
to each other and ask ‘what is your favorite part, so far?’. We will tell what
event was the best in our minds, and also what part was the least fun or
interesting. This year the whale watching was pretty much the #1 favorite
of the first half.
What is funny is that the first 2 1/2 hours of the whale watching trip was easily
the worst time of the trip up to that point. It was cold, it was very foggy (no
horizon in sight) and it was boring. The people around me were purple lipped
from the cold, red faced from the wind, eyes watering from the wind, and bored.
It wasn’t until we had pretty much given up hope and realized we were have to
return to the Provincetown without seeing a whale that 2 whales appeared. Then
the mood changed. Then the sun broke through just a bit. Then the whales came close.
Then the whales breached (jumped) out of the water. Sometimes completely. Then
they did it again, very close to the boat. They put on a show like the captain and the
naturalist and the crew hadn’t even ever seen. The lady next to us had been on
20 whale watching tours and had never seen one jump, much less the dozen or so we
saw. She was wooping it up like she was at a tight baseball game in the 9th inning!
The whale watching fiasco of a mere 45 minutes earlier was just a great lead in to the
big climactic story of the breaching whales in the glorious setting sun.
What we remember is greater than what we saw. It is the story, the arch of the event,
the people, the feeling, the mood and the mood swings, that we add into the event to
make it what it is in our mind. I love that about travel.
“Like all great travelers, I have seen more than I remember and remember more than I have seen.” – Benjamin Disraeli – 1804 – 1881, British Prime Minister (twice) under Queen Victoria
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 6, 2009 | Moslih Eddin Saadi, Travel |
Hello all you Napkin Kin! I am back from vacation with a new drawing,
appropriately about traveling.
I love traveling for the education and the sights and the uniqueness of
the place. Going somewhere for just sun and sand and doing nothing is
the goal for some, but for me I want to see the world, meet the people,
see the art, the sports, and eat the food.
I find out who I am when I travel. Partly by seeing who I am not by experiencing
a culture I am not a part of, and partly by seeing who I am by how I react
to it all.
I know one thing it always makes me feel. And that is gratitude that I can see
the world and love that the world allows itself to be seen.
“A traveller without observation is a bird without wings.” – Moslih Eddin Saadi
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 5, 2009 | James Anthony Froude |
See you back tomorrow with a new drawing and quote! Thanks for
indulging me with the vintage napkins while I have been away on
vacation. I hope you have enjoyed seeing the originals as I created
them for my daughters.
I think this is why so many people never change. I know it is why I haven’t
changed nearly as much as I would have liked to over the years. It’s hard
work.
You have to leave your useless and destructive self by the side of
the road without a ride and without a shelter. You can’t go back for him
or her out of pity or loneliness. You have to trudge on without them and
without the comfort and ease they brought to you. You have to go to the
foundry of your soul and sweat and labor until a better fashioned you
emerges. Not an easy thing to do.
That is why most people change only when circumstances throw them into
the foundry through death or pain or a cataclysmic upheaval of some sort.
It’s the trial by fire we all strive to avoid that finally creates in us the character
we want.
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 3, 2009 | Ralph Waldo Emerson |
Hope you all are enjoying the summer. I am on vacation and am presenting
some of the original napkin drawings I created for my daughters from
1998-2004 until I get back.
Just get off it as soon as possible is the idea.
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 2, 2009 | Thomas a Kempis |
Day 6 of Vacation – I figure I am in a kayak or hammock now!
Oh, this one is so hard! I succeed at this at a ratio of 1 per 20. that is one
day out of 20 maybe i am at peace with myself. How often are you at peace
with yourself, and how do you go about achieving it?
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by Marty Coleman | Jul 1, 2009 | Jonathan Kozol |
Day 5 of the vacation, I should be sunburnt or something by now!
Wow, how long did it take for me to even partially learn this lesson!
And then I go and forget it and have to learn it all over again.
How about you, have you learned this? When did this lesson come front
and center for you?
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 30, 2009 | Charles de Montesquieu, Success - 2017 |
I hope you are enjoying this selection of original napkins from 1998-2004 while I am on vacation. Comment when you are so inclined. I would love to hear any of your thoughts in these ideas.
The snake and the turtle have been buddies in my work since at least
the mid-1980s. They are often telling two opposite sides of the story
sometimes the snake being the antagonist, but often being the sweet
singing snake with no evil attached. The Turtle is more often a positive
figure, sometimes telling a needed truth, other times just saying something
wise or witty.
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 28, 2009 | Mark Twain |
While away from my studio I am posting vintage napkins of 1998-2004.
That is one of the hardest things about growing older, your ignorance
diminishes. In most things that is good. It is good to be more knowledgeable,
more educated, less bound by superstition or childish fears. But in the area
of career and effort, especially of the creative variety, ignorance of what
can’t be done, what shouldn’t be tried, what hasn’t ever worked, can allow
you to attempt the impossible. And that is the only way the impossible is
ever achieved, by attempting it!
So, stay ignorant of your alleged limitations and go for it.
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 27, 2009 | Marie-Anne Chazel |
While I am on vacation I offer you some of the vintage napkins I originally
created for my daughters and put in their school lunches from 1998-2004.
What else is born knowing?
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by Marty Coleman | Jun 26, 2009 | Marty Coleman, Michael Jackson |
When my kids were growing up we did not have cable.
We didn’t have MTV and I never saw many of the Jackson
collection of videos. I did however see him on TV, in particular
the Motown 25th Anniversary show.
I remember being so completely amazed at his dancing, his
style, his incredible presence. That is what I am talking about
today. We all have our demons, our ‘bads’ and our evils. He
had his and no excuses need be given for them.
But he could dance and he could sing and he could entertain.
Nothing wrong with celebrating that.
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