Living in Oklahoma a photographer can either be cursed by the wind or blessed by it. I feel blessed by it. After many outdoor photo sessions I found I had a great collection of images with hair and expressions all over the place. I started to find an emotional aspect to the images that I liked and a series, Emotional Wind, came out of it.
© 2021 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Geographic Friday it is! The Napkin got visits this week from some very cool places.
Next up is François-Marie Arouet, better known by his pen name, Voltaire.
Another example of a man who had humor until the end, his famous last words were, “Now, now, my good man, this is not the time for making enemies.” in response to a priest asking him to renounce Satan.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad DailyQuote by Voltaire, 1694-1778, French writer
An irish wit if ever there was one, Oscar Wilde lived in the 1800s and ruled the literary world for some time with writings such as ‘The Picture of Dorian Grey’ and ‘The Importance of Being Earnest’.
Unfortunately, the Victorian laws ruled over the land and when it was discovered he had committed ‘the sin that isn’t mentioned’ he was thrown in jail. When he got out he departed for France, never to return.
Nonetheless, he did not lose his wit. The story goes that on his death bed he still had enough left in him to give what has to be the wittiest final words in history, “Either those curtains go, or I do.” The curtains stayed and he went. A variation on the final words is sometimes quoted as, “My wallpaper and I are fighting a duel to the death. One or the other of us has got to go.”
Oscar Wilde holds a dear place in my heart solely because my eldest daughter, Rebekah, loved reading him when she was a teenager. She would always be telling us various quotes and when I was drawing the napkins and putting them in their lunches my most frequent quotist was Mr. Wilde.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Oscar Wilde, 1854-1900, Irish writer and wit
The essence of a story is conflict. Maybe it’s not through a ‘good vs. evil’, black and white dilemma, but in a story you are introducing characters who have to go through something. They can be very nice people, but if you don’t show some aspect of their character and their methods contributing to the problem as well as the solution, then they really aren’t all that engaging.
You can’t root for someone who has nothing to overcome. What they have to overcome isn’t always something on the outside. It’s often overcoming their own shortcomings. It makes you annoyed seeing those things inside them holding them back while at the same time you are rooting for them to overcome.
Sort of like real life, isn’t it.
Drawing, commentary and Chapter 12 by Marty Coleman Quote by Kingsley Amis, 1922-1995, English novelist
The collages I showed last week were images that were collaged into pre-existing images. This week I am showing collage images that exist by themselves.
This is a series called ‘Postcards’. They are images taken on vacation, collaged together and electronically sent out to give a feeling of where I am and what I am experiencing.
The Stranger Juxtaposition series is similar in nature to the postcards in that the images are mostly taken on vacation, but the focus is on the person, not the place. They are sort of an imagined short story of this stranger I have come across.
She had yet to understand how she could love too much. Not because it was bad but because people would be like lesser mortals and she would end up being like Jesus, without people who understood her and perhaps crucified.
Her dream was to be a dancer from the time she saw her father enthralled by the flamenco troupe that came through her small town in Mexico when she was 7 and a half years old and her son had not even been seen in her far eye. And now her love is so deep and true that she sells her cakes at the mall and dances for him, not her father anymore.
She had something she had seen while on the cruise affixed in her mind. It was in keeping with loneliness and she felt it was obvious to all around her as if it was an adornment atop her head. She wanted desperately to take off the accouterment but was unwilling in the end because she knew it would never be amongst her charms unless she let it shrink in place and migrate to her bracelet of its own accord. So, she let it exist, remaining slightly melancholy for the duration of the voyage.
© 2021 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Did I fail to mention how much I love being The Napkin Dad? That’s probably because it’s day #5 of Failure Week.
All this week I have been reading ‘failure’ quotes. I read one Monday and all week it’s been bugging me. It is the opposite of the what I wrote above – here it is: “Success builds character, failure reveals it.”
It bugs me because I think it’s completely backwards. In my experience it is failure that builds character, not success. Here is why I think this: What do you learn from success? That you are great, smart, funny, lucky, hard working, pretty, talented, savvy, better than others? Does knowing any of those things build your character? Hard working is probably the only one of the bunch, right?
What do you learn from failure (or catastrophe)? That you can be wrong, dumb, unlucky, flawed? Yes, you can learn those things. But what else can you learn? That you are resilient, strong, persevering, diligent, humble, better than your circumstances, helpful, thoughtful, caring, selfless, patient, empathetic, intelligent? Yes, those as well.
And what is character made up of? Is it made up of ego, looks, talent and smarts? or is it made up of resilience, empathy, strength, humility, perseverance, love and patience?
I have had a LOT of failures and catastrophes in my life; schools I got kicked out of, a failed marriage, rejection in the art and academic world and physical disasters just to name a few. If I had not had those ‘failures’ and not gained the resulting character I now have, I would not be able to take the successes I have had in a good, positive and mature way (which I attempt to do).
Our successes reveal the character we’ve built during our failures.
Quote, drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Not all parents give up some grand dream as they settle down and become parents. But many do. If you are one of those, but you moved forward and created new dreams and your children see that, then they will be emboldened to both pursue their grand dream and have the flexibility to change that dream if they have to. Your example makes all the difference as to whether they can do that successfully.
But, if you are one who just put away the dream inside the guitar case in the attic, or in the paint brushes in the drawer, or in the hiking boots in the basement then do your children a favor and get them out, dust them off and use them. Your children will be excited to see you once again pursuing a dream. It doesn’t have to be the same dream of a recording contract or a big gallery show or a job as a naturalist in a National Park. It just needs to be you pursuing what gives you joy.
Nothing will be better for your kids than to see you live the life you want to live.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Carl Jung, 1875-1961, Swiss psychiatrist
Here is a question: In the Aesop’s fable, The Tortoise and the Hare, do you think the hare was upset at having lost the race to the tortoise? I have a feeling the hare wasn’t upset at all. I think he was ok with it. I can see him laughing off the loss while hanging out at his favorite watering hole with the boys.
Why? Because he had excuses ready. He felt ill. He had a hard night. His shorts were too tight. He woke up on the wrong side of the burrow. His stop watch was broken. The temperature was too hot. The path was confusing. The turtle stepped on his foot at the start line.
It’s a fine line between allowing that you will fail on occasion and not completely beating yourself up over it and being content and lazy about your failures, using excuses and rationalizations to talk away your inability or unwillingness to meet your goal.
It’s important to be dissatisfied with a failure because the feeling of dissatisfaction is what will cause you to evaluate what really happened. And evaluating what happened is how you can avoid the same mistake and improve the next time out. There might be reasons for the failure and you need to know them, but there should be no excuses. Excuses never help you grow.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Abraham Lincoln, 1809-1865, 16th President of the United States
