“Christianity might be a good thing if anyone ever tried it.”
Do you believe this quote? I am not sure if I do or not. Sometimes I look at the church and it’s a dismal failure in every way imaginable. Then I look at that same church and I see action that proves it is living out the creed.
I guess that is the sad reality of Christianity (and most religions if one is honest). We have ideals and we want to live up to them but we like talking about them more than we like taking the action necessary to make them real in our lives.
When you refuse to learn or understand, when you revel in your prejudice, and when you don’t have critical thinking skills to discern the difference between facts and propaganda then you become victim to demagogues who are only interested in their own ego and don’t care about you, America or any ideals America stands for.
Four years ago a Korean woman, Jessica, contacted me and asked if she could use a napkin drawing of mine in a book her team was writing in Korea. I said yes and quickly forgot all about it. I don’t remember now if she paid me or not.
Fast forward 4 years and I get a call from some foreign country on my cell phone. I am not going to answer it, thinking it is likely a scam call. A few weeks later I get an email, that I almost throw away since it too seems to be just another foreign spam email.
Something about it seems legit though so I read it. It’s from Jessica and she says the book is now ready and she wants to send me a copy. She wants me to call her. At this point I figure it’s legit even though I don’t recall it at all. I call her and she reminds me a bit about our interaction and tells me that the book took a lot longer than expected to finish but now it is done and she wants to send me a copy. I was really looking forward to getting it since I had no idea what drawing I had even sent her!
And now, a few week later here is the book! It’s a book about the economies of 7 different countries around the world. It is dense with charts and figures. Every once in a while there is a photo that shows the location or the people in that country. And every once in a while there is a cartoon or drawing that is illustrating some idea they want to get across.
What my drawing is illustrating I would never have had a clue if it weren’t for the letter Jessica included in with the book.
Front CoverMy drawing – illustrating something about the Brazilian economy after it’s collapse earlier this decade.
So now I guess I can tell people I have been published in 3 different countries, right? (I already have napkin drawings in an entire book about napkins published in Norway.)
“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”, said Freud, or Marx (Groucho that is). If you say this quote you are also saying sometimes it’s not a cigar, it’s a symbol representing a penis. That is what complex looking is all about, seeing what is there and seeing what might be behind what is there; maybe an intent, a joke, or a hidden agenda.
For example, there is a hand gesture that I recently learned has not one, but two meanings. It’s your index finger touching your thumb to make a circle. It means everything is A-OK and until this year that is all I ever knew it to mean. But I’ve been told it also means white supremacy. I am not sure of the history behind it becoming a symbol of that but it is now something that can be interpreted to mean that, especially if it’s displayed upside down.
Sometimes it isn’t visual, it’s verbal. A politician says ‘Nationalism’ and it doesn’t JUST mean having pride in one’s country. It also means they want to preserve the existing power structure that they feel is threatened by outsiders. Which outsiders? Well, according to our current President, those outsiders are not Norwegians. They are Mexicans, South Americans, people from ‘shithole’ countries in Africa and Muslims from countries in the Middle East. They are the outsiders that are threatening our nation, not the good white people of Europe.
It behooves us to always LOOK clearly at what is going on underneath the obvious.
I drew it on the day we had to put one of our pets down. Since then I’ve seen innumerable posts on social media from friends and family who have had to do the same. They are among the saddest but most uplifting stories I read regularly on social media.
There is sometimes a eulogy, but it isn’t ever a recitation of the animals upbringing, education, career, status or volunteer efforts in retirement. Instead it’s about how the animal made the person feel. How much love they felt from the animal, how much sustenance they were given by its mere presence in their lives. In other words it was about their character and their love, not their achievements.
If only we humans could be more animal what a better jungle we would inhabit.
The quote is from a four year old trying to comfort a family after they had to put their pet down.
On the run I don’t think about how long I will live or how running is affecting the length of my life. I think about the incredibly rich challenges and joys of being on the run.
On the run is where I discover the unexpected me. It’s where I unexpectedly rise to a challenge and where I unexpectedly have an epic failure. It’s where the time-worn story of limitations I tell myself again and again on the couch is proven to be a lie.
On the run is where I learn that nature’s elements are not enemies, they argumentative but supportive companions. They don’t argue to keep me from succeeding, they argue to provide the challenges that create the success.
On the run is where I search for who I really want to be and find out who I really am. Sometimes there is a wide crevasse between the two and it is disappointing and deflating. But on the run is also where I have those magical moments where there is no distance between who I want to be and who I am.
On the run I experience all those things; challenges, joys, arguments, the expected and unexpected, the frustrating gaps and the sublime moments.
On the run I add life to my days, not just days to my life.
I Periscoped with a TV Newsperson the other day (see the end of the post for an explanation of Periscope).
She was in a cab after a long day of work and play. Her name is Sara Haines and she is a Lifestyle and Pop News Anchor for Good Morning America on ABC. It’s a good fit for her because she is chirpy, funny and a energized ball of laughs and smiles. She had been Periscoping during commercials and then later at a party. But now she was done for the day and on her way home.
Understanding Kim
I and others were watching her now in a more relaxed, contemplative mood, reflecting on things based on questions we were asking. Someone asked her if she liked the Kardashians. The person asking may have been expecting a typical, ‘I hate them, they are terrible’ type of response, I don’t know. But that is not what they got. Sara said she is intrigued and fascinated by them, especially Kim Kardashian. She said she tries to imagine what she would do if she was raised like her, looked like her, lived her life, had her money. What choices would she make and how different would they be from the choices Kim does makes? In other words, she doesn’t judge or shame Kim, she empathizes with her. And that means she can simply enjoy her for who she is and try to understand her.
Empathy Covers Shame
So far the 21st century is the century of public shaming and judgment. But what Sara shows in her attitude is that happiness and joy comes from empathy and understanding of others, not judgment and shaming. It’s a lesson we all need to learn again and again, that when we are tempted to judge, especially in the public arena when we truly don’t know the person, it’s best to step back and try to empathize, to understand what it is they are feeling and reacting to in life. That is when we will grow and learn.
Hope for Humanity
I like Sara from what I seen of her on TV, but she went to the top of my ‘I have hope for humanity’ list when I was able to hear her talk about her way of seeing the world and the people in it. She’s also now at the top of my ‘What TV person would you most want to have lunch with’ list. I think the conversation would be fantastic.
Spirals have taken over much of my drawing in recent months. Part 1 from a few weeks ago showed the abstract patterns I have created. Now here are the characters and portraits that have come from my spiral infatuation.
This was a quick sketch that didn’t have a defined background. I decided to work in some color well after the drawing was done and while doing so I thought it would be a challenge to see if I could make the clothing translucent. that led me into thinking of who this woman could be, what situation she could be in and I decided to put her in an intimate, personal setting thinking to herself.
‘The Weight’ pen and ink, acrylic paint on paper, 2019
Often times I don’t have the time or the position to draw the whole person. What happens is I see just one element of the person I like, in this case the high bangs, and I just work from there, making up the rest of the person and the scene out of my head.
‘In the Museum’ pen and ink on paper, 2019
When I was in college my first girlfriend had a bridge of her nose that pretty much went straight down from her forehead in a straight line with no dip below the brow. I found it very attractive, Romanesque is how I thought of it. I I can’t say she was my only inspiration but I often find myself drawing a straight line all the way down from hairline to tip of nose when making up a profile face. In this case I even went to opposite direction, making a bump where there is usually a dip.
‘Don’t Cut Me Down’ pen and ink on paper, 2019
I noticed a violin player at church wearing a Renaissance Peasant dress that stood out. I started from there and built the drawing around that image. The idea of the cut down tree has recurred in my drawings here and there over the years. The stump representing both a life cut short and a transformation of something into something else. I think of both when I see someone going through a trauma. It’s a death of sorts but it is also a rebirth into something new and unknown.
‘In The Waiting Room’ pen and ink on paper, 2019
I was waiting for an appointment to have my very sore right Achilles checked out (not the same one I had surgery on in 2016) and saw this women sitting very still opposite me. I wasn’t sure I would have enough time to get the entire scene but it was worth a shot. Turns out it took a while for either of us to be called so I was able to get the drawing done.
‘At the River’ pen and ink on paper, 2019
I was inspired by seeing a woman with hair that curved around her face but other than that this drawing is completely made up. In most of my drawings there is more room at the top and sides for a background but in this case her portrait fills the image so much that I only had a small area above and below. I thought I would try something different and not put in a horizon line and distant background like I usually do but instead draw what would be below her in the distance.
I listened to an audio book recently titled ‘All the Light We Cannot See’. It was a fantastic book about two young people during World War II. I highly recommend it.
In the book there is a good friend of one of the main characters. He is brutally beaten at one point which results in permanent brain damage. This main character visits his friend later and finds that he spends his days sitting and doing nothing but drawing spirals again and again. It was a very sad part of the book.
I thought about this idea of someone being reduced to doing the simplest of drawings and I decided I would do the same. I would start with a simple spiral and see where it led me.
While there are other shapes in some of these drawings I made a decision that spirals would be the main focus in each image or it wouldn’t be included in the series.
Most of these have been done digitally on my iPad mini but some are watercolor or marker on paper.
