by Marty Coleman | Jul 18, 2010 | Sketchbook History Tour |
Remember last week I mentioned I had counted up my sketchbooks and I found I had 29 of them? I decided to to through them and pick out one per year to post on Sundays for a while. This is from the first sketchbook (1971-1973). I was 17 when I painted this, my junior year of high school.
This portrait is of a family friend, Bruce Hall. We moved to Darien, CT because of his mother, Helene. My mother met her in a grocery store in Maryland in the 50s. Over 15 years later, when we were going to move to the east coast from the west, we focused our home search in the same town where Helene lived.
I don’t remember any of the specifics of why I was doing this portrait of Bruce, but I suspect Helene was encouraging me to do it. She was a great artist, working in painting and sculpture. She was the second major influence on me as an artist, after my grandfather, who had passed away by this time. She encouraged me and pushed me to understand what being an artist was really all about.
Helene was a brassy, ballsy broad in the classic definition (think Rosalind Russell in Mame). She took no prisoners when she saw pretention or hypocrisy. She was funny as hell. All obvious reasons why my mother and she became friends from a simple grocery store encounter. How I would have liked to have been in that aisle when they met, I can just imagine how funny they were and how they caught each other’s attention as a result.
She once challenged me to try to create something as good as a Picasso sculpture I saw at the Museum of Modern Art on a visit there with her. I said the typical ‘Anyone could do that’ and she stopped me in my tracks and said, then do it. I actually did attempt to create a wire sculpture (this was when I was about 13) and failed miserably. The lesson was learned. It wasn’t a question of IF you could do it. It was a question of DO YOU DO IT. When it gets to that question the bigger question arises. WHY are you doing it. And that changes you from being a critic to being an artist.
Helene is now 91 or so. She is taken care of by Bruce and his son, Evan. Both great guys!
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Jul 16, 2010 | Betty Rollins, Having Sex - 2010 |
Day #5 of Having Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
Wait a second, isn’t this a sexist comment? Maybe, if you think being a ‘sex object’ is wrong under any circumstances. I define ‘sex object’ as being the object of sexual desire.
It is true in the great myth of Venus. She is stripped of a well rounded set of human traits, reduced to represent one thing, sex. The most famous of her images, the sculpture ‘Venus de Milo’ is without arms, unable to do anything but stand there, frozen as an object. Of course, that isn’t how the sculpture was created, but it’s current state makes it a great example of what I am talking about.
In the media, that idea of sex object is stripped down to its most basic elements. There is an objectification on top of objectification until you get to where there is nothing but an unknown object and a single minded desire for that object. That type of ‘sex object’ is pretty empty and eventually unfulfilling for both the object and the objectifier.
But in the complete human experience, a real life lived by a real human (male or female), being the object of sexual desire isn’t off the table. It is available to the well rounded person who wants that. The problem comes when that becomes the primary means of feeling value or getting attention and affection.
So, by all means, be a sex object if you want. It can be fun and playful. But watch out for that taking over and being ALL you are focused on being.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Betty Rollins, 1936-not dead yet, American author and reporter.
……………………………………………………………………..
Don’t forget – Cards of all sorts; birthday, condolences, bon voyage and more, are available at my site on Zazzle.com Coffee cups too!
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Jul 15, 2010 | Having Sex - 2010, Mae West |
Napkin Dad cards available at Zazzle. Birthday, condolence, going away and more.
…………………………………………………………………………………………..
Day #4 of Having Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
Here is the issue about emotion in sex and love. Men often have too little of it (emotion that is) and women often have too much of it.
For you women, actually it isn’t just that men have less of it than you do. It’s also that they don’t know they have it in the first place. They feel just a hint of something, but they don’t investigate it. It is left unformed and uninvestigated. Men are often not even aware it WAS a feeling they had, and if they did realize it, they aren’t sure what that feeling represented. They don’t name it and categorize it.
For you men, actually it isn’t that women just have more of it than you do. It’s also that they investigate deeper into the emotions they do have. To them they are a mobius strip of never ending investigations. And not just their emotions, but yours as well. They figure you are exploring yours as deeply as they are their own and so they want to know what it is you are feeling. They are working at defining what it is they felt and where it sits in relation to her other emotions and yours. When you aren’t able to say what it is your feel, it’s easy for them to think you either are hiding something or don’t feel anything.
That is why sex is often such a emotionally bonding experience for both men and women. It isn’t primarily about words. It’s about motion and sensory experience and the emotions are created through those things. Sex is good that way.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Mae West, 1893-1980, American playwright and actress. Read her bio, she was an amazing woman well ahead of her time. Incredibly creative and ambitious. I didn’t realize she wrote many of the plays and movies she starred in.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Jul 14, 2010 | Having Sex - 2010, Mignon McLaughlin |
Day #3 of Having Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
I don’t actually think this is true, but it brings up a good point, namely that we often teach our sons and daughters differently about sex. Even if we are ‘liberated’ in talking about it we still unconsciously address the two sexes differently.
For example, talking to a teenage boy going out to a party you might tell him ‘make sure you keep it zipped, don’t do something stupid, don’t be so horny that you can’t control yourself’. Talking to a teenage girl you might say ‘watch out tonight, don’t leave your drink out of your site, don’t let the guy be with you alone, don’t drive off in the middle of nowhere with him.’
The assumption underlying those warnings is that the man will be the horny one wanting the sex and the girl will be the one deciding to give it or not, like a clerk at a store, disengaged. But the truth is you have to talk to your daughter with the understanding that she is a sexual creature as well. She could be the aggressor, she could be the one ‘wanting it’ and forcing the issue with the guy.
I agree it’s not quite as likely, but that doesn’t mean you don’t recognize that, no matter what her libido level, she still needs to know that she will feel things too. It isn’t just about her responding to a guy, it’s about her figuring out her own feelings and desires as well. It does no good service to a daughter or son to assume they fit into a cookie cutter sexual mold. Explain to them the range of feelings they may come across, not just some pandering platitude that isn’t based in their reality.
If you want to be effective in helping your son or daughter understand what is happening to them in the sexual world, you have to address them as real people, not cliches of sexuality.
………………………………………………………………
Don’t forget, we now have Napkin Dad birthday cards, cups and t-shirts available, check it out!
………………………………………………………………
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman of The Napkin Dad Daily
Quote by Mignon McLaughlin, 1913-1983, American journalist and author. Writer and editor for various magazines including Vogue, Redbook, Cosmopolitan and Glamour.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Jul 13, 2010 | Having Sex - 2010, Mary McCarthy |
Day #2 of Having Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
People will often state there is a difference between sex and love. But they don’t often recognize when they ask one be the other. When you are ‘in love’ it’s easy to have the sex so intertwined with the love that you don’t know the difference. But when the ‘in love’ phase settles down and you have to decide to love someone on a daily basis it might be tempting to use the easiest thing available, sex, to be the ‘proof’ of love. You basically ask sex to be love and expect your partner to accept it as such.
But the truth is sex can’t be love. It can, at best, be an expression of love the same way clothing can be an expression of you, but it can’t be you. This is important to help your children understand if you are a parent. It is so easy for teenagers to think the expression of something is the same as the real thing. That is why you hear the cliche line of the teenage boy ‘If you ‘LOVED’ me, you would do this with me.’ They are trying to persuade the girl that they are one and the same.
Sex is a physical act, love is an emotional act. They overlap and they are intertwined, but they are not the same and understanding it ourselves and helping our children understand it helps avoid much heartache.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“You mustn’t force sex to do the work of love or love to do the work of sex.” – Mary McCarthy, 1912-1989, American author. Wrote ‘The Group’ which was on the NYT best seller list for 2 years (1963-65)
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Jul 12, 2010 | Aldous Huxley, Having Sex - 2010 |
It’s the start of Sex Week at The Napkin Dad Daily!
Not equally interesting but actually more interesting, now that is a dedicated intellectual!
Sex always intrigues me because people are so driven by it, and have some variation of it on their mind so often yet are usually reluctant to discuss it openly.
That is especially a problem when dealing with teenage sons and daughters. Not talking about sex is really not a very good option. I always feel parents are abrogating their duty if they do that. But talking about sex intelligently and appropriately isn’t all that easy.
The best advice I can give in that circumstance (and many others) is to make sure you are on their side. Don’t be their enemy. To do that you have to talk about what is in their best interest. Not your interest, not your knowledge, not your reputation, not your circumstances. But what is in their best interest. To do that you need to ask questions, you need to walk through ideas with them about the issue.
You can’t do that if they think you will be judging them or lecturing them or against them and their ideas. They have to know you will stay calm and be willing to listen to what they are really thinking and feeling. THEN you move into offering your reflections on what they said, your ideas of where it might lead, and your cautions on things to think about they may not have considered.
More tomorrow!
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“An intellectual is a person who’s found one thing more interesting than sex.” – Aldous Huxley, 1894-1963, English writer. Author of ‘Brave New World’.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Jul 11, 2010 | I Draw in Church |
I finished my sketchbook recently. It took 2 years, 3 months and 25 days to draw in 117 pages. I received the sketchbook as a gift from my nephews at Christmas, 2004. But I had a backlog of sketchbooks and didn’t start it until March, 2nd, 2008. It’s done now and this is the final drawing in it, June 27th, 2010.
I love filling up one of them, counting the pages until the end, wondering what my final drawing will be. I have about 29 completed sketchbooks on my shelves, dating back to 1972, when I was in high school. I have some that are about 2 inches by 3 inches, filled with little color drawings. I have others that are in ornate leather bound covers. One yet to be used sketchbook was hand made by my daughter and is covered in fabric and resides inside a fabric bag. I have some filled with adolescent crazed meanderings, some have poems. Some have sincere notes about God or no God. Others have naked people.
I have some that include sketches for larger art pieces I created, some I never did finish. Some have diagrams of house layouts with notes as to what I am going to do in each room. Some have addresses and phone numbers and emails of people I drew. I would scan the drawing and send it to them. If I ever did a drawing of you and I didn’t send you a copy of it, tell me and I will try to find it.
I might try to post one drawing a week, one from each sketchbook, starting from the beginning. Would you like that?
I am also going to start working on some larger images in the near future, non-photographic. I will keep you informed.
Drawing © Marty Coleman
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Jul 9, 2010 | Self, Travel, Vacation - 2010, William Least Heat Moon |
Day #4 of Vacation Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
I took my daughters to Europe in 2003. We traveled through Germany, Italy, France and Spain for 2 weeks. We stayed at youth hostels and Bed & Breakfasts.
When we were in Munich, Germany we had beds for 5 in our room and only 4 of us so a single woman from the US joined us. We knew nothing about her, she knew nothing about us. We went out to dinner with her and got to discover her as she was, right then. She was a blank slate, with no yesterdays for us.
We didn’t know if she suffered from depression, with an Eeyore cloud over her head all the time, or if she had been stabbed in the back by her best friend the week before. All we knew was what she decided to present to us that day.
One of the great things about moving away from an old home town, or traveling to a new spot where you spend some time, is that you get to reinvent yourself. You can practice being who you want to be, not who you are expected to be.
But here is the great secret. Every new encounter you are a blank slate. It doesn’t matter if you are in France or your local dry cleaners. That person does not know you or your history. You want to be different than you are in daily life? Then practice on that new person. Be kinder, be more complimentary, be quieter, be less judgmental, be funnier, be happier. You don’t need to go on vacation to become someone new, you just need to see the opportunities right in front of you.
Before you know it, you will become what you practice, no matter where you are.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“There are no yesterdays on the road.” – William Least Heat Moon, 1939-not dead yet, American writer of native Osage heritage. Writes particularly about travel, including his best seller, Blue Highways, published in 1982, about his journey on the backroads of America.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Jul 8, 2010 | Nikos Kazantsakis, Travel, Vacation - 2010 |
Day #4 of Vacation Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
But isn’t this against the whole idea of traveling? That is that you open your mind and allow whatever is really there to come through, instead of creating a vacation of photo ops and prepackaged tours, right?
Yes, that is true, the traveler does need to be open. But the traveler also needs to understand that what is going on when they travel is in their head. They benefit from being able to provide themselves and others a story of their travels and to do that they must be able to create a narrative. Not just a story of ‘I did this then I did that’, but a story that creates itself as you experience it. The aromas you notice as you walk, the look of the sky as the sun goes down, the feeling of the humidity or dryness in the air. You experience your world with awareness is the idea. You notice and remember.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“Every perfect traveler always creates the country where he travels.” – Nikos Kazantzakis, 1883-1957, Greek writer and philosopher. Author of ‘Zorba the Greek’.
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Jul 7, 2010 | Frederick B. Wilcox, Vacation - 2010 |
Day #3 of Vacation Week at The Napkin Dad Daily
It used to make me crazy when my mother, then my first wife would demand that we clean the house before we left on vacation. Nothing seemed more absurd to me than that. Why the heck did we need to clean if we weren’t even going to be there, right? Of course, as most of you reading this know (and I finally comprehended before I remarried) cleaning before you leave means you will return to a clean home and that makes the anticipation of coming home sweet, not sour.
This quote is a variation on that. It’s not just a clean home, but your good home that is nice to return to. Whether it’s the colors, yard, smells, bed, animals – whatever it is, if you design your home to be good and uniquely yours, then what a great feeling to know you will be returning to it at the end of any time away, whether vacation, business trip, family emergency or something else.
Drawing and commentary © Marty Coleman
“For travel to be delightful, one must have a good place to leave and return to.” – Frederick B. Wilcox, of which I could find nothing.
Like this:
Like Loading...
