by Marty Coleman | Jan 16, 2014 | Travel Napkins |
Emergency Trip
I’ve been out of touch the past week due to a family emergency in California. I took photos, mostly family oriented pics, but only was able to find time to do one drawing while I was there and that was in the airline terminal as I was leaving. I drew it on a Starbucks napkin.
Mrs. Bowen
She sat across from me in the waiting area. We were both almost 2 hours early. We had seen each other in the check in line and said hello again as I sat down. She was headed back to Salt Lake City after visiting her husband who was in the Bay Area on work. She was an oil painter and showed me her paintings on her iPhone. I showed her my sketchbook and photos/drawings in my iPhone as well. I asked if I could draw her and she was kind enough to allow it. She had expressive eyes and lines.
I finished the line drawing portion and as I was starting to use my colored markers a large contingent of Mormon missionaries going home to Utah after 2 years of mission work sat down near us. She went over to talk to some of them. I showed the drawing to her when she got back, took her picture with it and she took pictures as well and we all got on the plane.
Mrs. Bowen
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Small Hands
I ended up sitting next to one of the missionaries. He had the smallest hands of any adult man I have ever met. We talked Jesus and religion. It was interesting. He gave me a Book of Mormon. I didn’t draw him but I wanted to, just didn’t find the right opportunity.
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Drawing and photo by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 10, 2014 | Illustrated Short Stories |
Chapter One
Art lived in a museum. Many people touched her. Even the guards would touch her when no one was looking. She liked being touched. A few people thought she was stupid or that she was ugly. Some thought she was old looking. Some thought her lips were too big while others thought they were too small. Some felt sorry for her, others ignored her. Some wanted to know what she was made of. A few wondered how she got there. But most thought she was very beautiful and almost everyone took a photo of her.
Chapter Two
One lady used to come and stare at her every Friday afternoon. Sometimes the lady would cry. Art didn’t understand that but she liked the lady a lot. The lady looked like her, which Art thought was odd. Her hair was longer, and had some gray in it, and she had more wrinkles than Art did, but she had the same pinkish skin color and the same red lips, blue eyes and strong eyebrows. Art thought she was very beautiful.
Chapter Three
At one point the lady disappeared for many weeks. Art wondered where she had gone, wishing she had legs so she could go find her. Finally, one day the lady came back, this time in a wheel chair. She had a scarf around her head and her skin had changed color. She cried a lot that day. Art didn’t know what it was all about but she was very sad as well. She didn’t see her again after that.
Chapter Four
About a year after the lady’s last visit a new person started to come to see her regularly. This was a young girl, probably no more than 15 years old. Art didn’t know who she was but she also looked a lot like Art, and she liked that. The girl started coming by on Saturday mornings with a bright pink sketchbook. She would sit cross-legged on the floor in front of Art and draw her again and again. When she first started coming to visit she cried just like the lady did. But after a while she no longer cried. She would smile a lot though. Her drawings got better and better. Sometimes Art thought the drawings looked like her and other times she thought they looked more like the lady who used to visit. The young girl did this for many years.
Time passed and Art continued to enjoy the company of many people. She liked where she was and never complained but her young friend had stopped visiting many years before and sometimes she missed her. She often wondered what happened to the lady and the young girl.
Chapter Five
One day, many years later, workers in the museum came into the room where Art lived and took down all the paintings in the room. It was very lonely for a few days but then they started bringing in new paintings. All the paintings were wrapped so she didn’t know anything about them but she was hopeful they would be as friendly as the old paintings had been. Finally a few days later the workers took off the wrappings. Art couldn’t believe her eyes. All the paintings were of her.
Chapter 6
That very same night a lot of people came into the museum and walked around looking at all the new paintings. They also looked at Art a lot. They talked about how much the paintings looked like Art. They talked about how beautiful and meaningful Art was. Art was happy for all the attention.
It was very loud with everyone talking at the same time until all of a sudden a beautiful woman walked in the room. Everyone stopped talking and looked her way. The woman smiled a big smile and waved at everyone. She stopped right in front of Art and stared at her. Art stared back. It was the young girl in front of her, all grown up. But it also seemed to be the lady who used to come visit. They had the same blue eyes, red lips, pinkish skin and strong brows. The beautiful woman leaned forward and kissed Art on the cheek. She held the kiss for a moment, leaned close to Art’s ear and whispered, “Thank you Art, you saved my life. I love you”. Then the beautiful woman straightened up, turned around to face the crowd and said, “Thank you for coming to see my Art. I hope you love it as much as I do.”
Art smiled and cried inside.
The End
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Drawing and story © 2014 by Marty Coleman, who also loves Art
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 6, 2014 | Falling Into Place -2014 |
I fell for this quote the moment I read it.
Falling Apart
Have you ever had every expectation of what your life is going to be destroyed? I have, twice. It was my injury and burns from a boat explosion the first time and my divorce the second time. In the scheme of things they weren’t nearly as brutal as truly terrible events; a tsunami, a terrorist attack, genocide, maiming, killing, destruction of your physical world. Those are cataclysms that it’s hard to recover from.
I remember being in the hospital in September of 1973 and having someone say something about January, 74 coming up. I remember how impossible it was for me to imagine January. It wasn’t just far away in terms of time, it was psychologically far away. I didn’t believe it would ever come because every day was the same painful day, again and again. The pain was never going to leave and if the pain didn’t leave then time really wasn’t moving forward at all. January was just another word, like bandage or blood, it wasn’t a moment in the future.
In it’s own way, less physically painful than the burns, but emotionally much more devastating, my divorce destroyed a lot of what I was expecting from the future. I hadn’t verbally formulated much of what I expected to happen in the future while I was still married; my ideas were assumptions about how it would go. But once the divorce was in the works those ideas were obliterated. I wouldn’t have a 50 wedding anniversary for example. That was tough to take. I couldn’t allow myself to imagine a new relationship with a new family structure.
Falling Into Place
What happens next? Well, if you are the one whose life has been blown up, then what you can do is have an open and brave heart. That is not an easy thing to do, but it can be done. Not all at once, but over time, you can take a brave step into the future and see where it leads.
My experience of the explosion, recovery and my still existing scars ended up being one of the single most important events of my life, changing me into an artist, friend, husband and father I never would have been otherwise. Everything fell into place in large part because of that event.
My divorce, while unfortunate, led to me dating Linda, marrying her and inheriting a fourth daughter, Caitlin. Both have been blessings beyond what I could have imagined. Everything fell into place in large part because of that divorce.
Time
Of course, you can’t necessarily explain that this obliteration of life is actually an essential part of future happiness to someone who’s just gone through such a trauma; they really don’t want to hear it since it sounds like just so much patronizing crap. And it probably is patronizing crap at the time. But it’s also true. The future can be better than what you allow yourself to imagine.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote is a variation on one by Lolly Daskel
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 3, 2014 | I Draw in Church |
Who’s at Church on the Last Day of the Year Today – A Poem
She was alone,
But she smiled at a friend.
Her makeup was dark,
But her smile was light.
He had a ponytail,
But he took it out.
He raised his hands
And said things out loud.
She had on a long skirt that swayed
And raised her hands as well.
But they were facing her,
And then she put glasses on.
He wore red pants,
He didn’t sing all the songs
And he kept his scarf on and
He gave no money.
Marty Coleman, 12/29/13 – 1/3/14
I was going to show her the drawing as I left the balcony at church but she saw some friends and I didn’t want to interrupt. I saw her on the way out of the church a while later and showed it to her then. She seemed happy about it, though one can never be completely sure of those things.
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by Marty Coleman | Jan 2, 2014 | Marty Coleman, The Napkin's Guide to Happy Living |
Here is your opportunity to see another in my Happy Living Guide, but don’t feel obligated.
Holiday Obligations
Because the holidays are just over, it’s a perfect time to talk about obligations vs opportunities. We do much in November and December out of obligation. And for some, obligation is a word empty of any happiness. We have to clean house, put up decorations, take down decorations, clean house again. We have to plan trips, plan time off from work, plan our return. We have to worry about weather, food, clothing. We have to think about presents for everyone, or no one. And then there is family, family we may not want to visit. But we are obligated so we do it.
Moments of Happy
Remember, I am not talking about ‘a happy life’. I am talking about ‘living happy’. There is a difference. Living happy means you have happy moments. That allows you to live in reality and reality includes moments that aren’t happy. But you can find happy moments in any life. Find enough of them and at the end you will likely be able to say ‘I lived a happy life’. But that will be after the fact. While you live your life you have to find happy moments within it.
Holiday Opportunities
In my experience you find happy moments within obligations when you are able to see past your expectations. When you allow the unexpected to come in. You do that by putting judgment on the shelf and forgetting it until later, and finding something to love in the moment. For example, you go to visit your sister’s family. You know she is going to be judgmental and controlling and nosey about your life. That’s a drag. But her daughters or sons on the other hand, they can be an opportunity for you, finding out about who they are now, not lumping them in with your judgment of your sister. Find that happy moment with them. You may not have a fantastic time at your sister’s house, but you can find happy moments there and you can focus on those when you tell the story of your visit to others. You don’t have to tell the story of your judgmental sister. You can tell the story of your amazing nieces and nephews instead.
And then maybe your next visit you will look like this as you arrive.
It isn’t just over the holidays or with family this idea is important. It’s in your health and fitness, in your job, in your home design, your clothing, your hobbies, everything.
What is an example from your own life?
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Love – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #1
Courage – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #2
Home – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #3
Education – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #4
Transformation – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #5
Judging – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #6
Expression – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #7
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 30, 2013 | Illustrated Short Stories |
The Woman With the Cell Phone in Church
She sat in the front row of the balcony with wild burgundy hair and blue eyeshadow, which matched the color of her pants. Many people down below looked up at her. She was in a salmon orange hoodie and had her cell phone in her lap. She was texting. She was proud of her nail polish, which was hot pink and very shiny. It clashed with her hoodie.
The choir sang while she looked at a video of a woman working out. She was jealous of the woman and wanted to have her body. Her father looked over and didn’t say anything. She resented her father for bringing her to stupid church. She never looked up during the sermon until the pastor said the word ‘sex’.
She said she wanted to go to IHOP as they left.
The End
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Drawing and story by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 26, 2013 | Illustrated Short Stories |
The Missionary – A Short Short True Story
Prologue
Our connecting flight was late.
Chapter One
She had been a missionary and now lived in California. She had interesting skin that I liked looking at. She did most of the talking.
Chapter Two
Her husband helped make medical machines. He had been a missionary too, in New York. He was slight of build and smiled nice.
Chapter Three
Her sister was going to be a missionary soon but didn’t know where she was going to go. She was still in college. She looked young.
Epilogue
I drew her after our conversation was over but before we got on the plane.
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Drawing and story by Marty Coleman, who has never been a missionary.
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The End
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 16, 2013 | Marty Coleman, The Napkin's Guide to Happy Living |
Take an educated guess as to what day it is? It’s Happy Living Day #4!
On Topic Education
I can explain things pretty well. Much of the time this ability is due to my education. I am relatively educated about art for example and I can explain certain things about it. Most of us can do that in some area. My father could talk forever on all facets of aviation. My sister can talk about genealogy in detail. My wife on the business of electrical and gas utilities, my oldest daughter on neuroscience, my youngest on fashion design.
Off Topic Education
But what about areas that have no connection to anything in your life, what is the value of being educated in those areas? In 2005 Steve Jobs gave a commencement speech at Stanford University. He said something very important about how education really happens.
“Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn’t have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can’t capture, and I found it fascinating.
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, it’s likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
Again, you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
Replacing Explain
So, the idea stated by Mr. Jobs above is that ALL of your education matters. It doesn’t matter just for your job, it matters for your happy living. Yes, the more you educate yourself the more you can explain things, explain connections, explain ideas, to others. But it is more than that. Here is what I mean. In the quote above, replace ‘explain’ with ‘understand’. Now replace it with ‘please’. Now replace it with ‘forgive’.
A lifestyle of self-education is a major key to growth, to understanding, to wisdom about yourself. And those things can lead to some level of living happy.
Replacing Yourself
Now go even one step further. Replace ‘yourself’ with ‘others’ – explain others, understand others, please others, forgive others. Commit to self-education throughout your life and it leads not just deeper into yourself, but past yourself to others. And then you will really be living happy.
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Love – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #1
Courage – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #2
Smiling – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #3
Education – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #4
Transformation – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #5
Judging – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #6
Expression – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #7
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Drawing and guide by Marty Coleman, who once took a course on building a stone wall without mortar.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 14, 2013 | Marty Coleman, The Napkin's Guide to Happy Living |
Smile, it’s Happy Living day #3!
A Short Short Story
She was raised swimming and it made her smile when she was able to afford a pool when she grew up. She loved cats and it made her smile when her cat would come and play with her. It made her smile to drink her favorite coffee when she sat out in the late morning. She was happy living. The End
Holiday Time
The Holiday season is a great time to do create a world that makes you smile. My friend Danielle, the force behind Extraordinarymommy.com, posted this photo the other day. The caption that went with it read, “I have moved my office into the family room… I want to embrace every minute of this view…”
Danielle Smith’s Family Room at Christmas Time
Why was that? Because the view made her smile. Obviously she and her family live a comfortable and well-off life. But that is not the key to the happiness this room gives her. The key is the love that went into it, not the money.
Humble is no Excuse
Very early on in my first marriage, we lived in a 90 year old rental house in downtown San Jose, California. Most of our furniture was old, hand me down furniture. But we still were able to make the space warm, welcoming and pleasing. We had a really old trunk I bought for $3.00 at a garage sale in San Francisco as our coffee table. It had brass hardware on it. I took the hardware off and polished it to a high sheen. It made a big difference in the look of the trunk. It made me happy to put my feet up on it.
We weren’t able to do everything we wanted to the house or have all the furniture we wanted, but what we had we made as beautiful as we could.
Suburbs Are No Excuse
Years later, after we moved to Oklahoma and could afford a nice, big house, my first wife and I divorced. I retained ownership of the house and our daughter’s lived with me during the school year, since their mother had moved out of the school district. During the summer they lived mostly at her house. I took advantage of having them gone most of the summer to paint the inside of the house. I painted it red, gold, and cream. Sound crazy? I loved it. It made me happy.
Our home 1994-2006, Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
I added black spots to my white picket fence so it matched my dalmatian, Oreo. That made me smile and it made the neighborhood kids smile.
Oreo and the Barking Fence
I remodeled my kitchen, taking out a dropped ceiling. After I was almost done I still had some holes in the ceiling where electrical and other things had come through. I decided that instead of fixing the holes in the traditional way I would cover them by hot gluing the ceramics my daughters had created in elementary school onto the ceiling. My kitchen ceiling became a permanent art gallery. That made me smile and it made my daughters smile. No, none fell down.
My Daughters’ Ceramic Gallery
Crazy Artist Type
I know what you are thinking, ‘Marty, that’s fine for you, you are the crazy artist type and can get away with that stuff. But not me.’ You would be surprised what you can do if you decide it’s is worth doing. The idea, no matter what level of creativity you have, is to create a physical world that makes you smile. Do it a bit at a time, as you can afford it and as circumstances allow, and it will add to your happy living. Don’t settle for a world that doesn’t make you smile.
What have you designed or experienced that makes you smile?
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Love – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #1
Courage – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #2
Smiling – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #3
Education – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #4
Transformation – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #5
Judging – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #6
Expression – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #7
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Drawing and Guide by Marty Coleman, who isn’t above framing postcards that make him smile.
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by Marty Coleman | Dec 12, 2013 | Marty Coleman, The Napkin's Guide to Happy Living |
Once again the key to happy living comes from speaking AND doing. It’s great to say you love something, but it’s in the doing that you understand what that really means.
Courage, Creative and Practical
There are at least two elements to this. The first is illustrated in the drawing, finding a creative outlet you love. The second is the day to day life you lead and the practical choices it entails.
Creativity
I’ve mentioned this before but it’s such a fundamental lesson it bears repeating; if you are going to be a consistent creative force in the world you have to love what you do and let the world know it. It might seem obvious but the roadblocks can be high. To give just one example, the woman in the drawing might have a spouse, family, employer or church who does not approve of her doing nude sculpture. But if the nude is what she loves, if it’s what she is creatively moved by, then she has to find a way to make it happen. She has to find the courage to stand up and say, this is what I love to do. She has to do this knowing she will face the anger, misunderstanding or rejection. That is the definition of courage. She does it because creating her art as she pleases makes her happy and that is worth it.
Practical
There are other examples that reside in our daily life. They involve individuality, style and interests. For example, the woman who likes blue eyeshadow but knows people laugh at it and thinks it’s tacky. The man who likes to bird watch even though all his buddies like to hunt and think he is a wuss. The couple who like to take separate vacations even though their families think it means they don’t really love each other. The female bodybuilder with 10 cats whose landlord makes fun of her.
What they all have in common is their pursuit of what makes them happy and their willingness to face disapproval because of it. What are some other examples?
Developing
I first wrote the guide above to say ‘Have the courage…’ but I changed it to ‘Develop the courage…’ because I realized as I wrote it that courage is a muscle. It’s no different than a physical muscle. It needs to be developed through practice and training. One needs to learn what it entails and how to implement it. How to withstand an onslaught. How to respond to an attack. How to make peace with disapproval. It isn’t easy. I like to think I’ve been a courageous artist for 40 years and it still is hard for me to face the disapproval of my wife or family or the art world or society. Trust me, I know. I live in Oklahoma, the land of judgment. I don’t have all the answers but I know one aspect that helps, and that’s to have a sense of humor about it.
Reward
In my years of going through it I discovered something. The happier and more confident I am about my choice and direction, from the beginning, the more those around me bow to it. I don’t mean bow in any sort of grandiose way, I mean that those who see a confident person stepping forward in a creative vision usually respond with respect after a while. Yes, they may push back at first, but if you are consistent and resolute, they see you are not going to be stopped and they let you go. That is where consistent application of your creative vision gains a reward for you. You become known as that person. Your identity is secure and others respect and admire that.
Be courageous, confident and consistent in the choices that make you happy and others will see it and respect it over time.
What examples do you have of courage and creativity?
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Love – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #1
Courage – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #2
Smiling – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #3
Education – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #4
Transformation – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #5
Judging – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #6
Expression – The Napkin’s Guide to Happy Living #7
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Drawing and guide by Marty Coleman, who has been known to draw naked people himself.
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