by Marty Coleman | Sep 12, 2013 | Chaz Bono, Mr. Xperience Says - 2013 |
Don’t blame me, Mr. Xperience says today is #5.
Who Are You?
It’s good to have a strong identity, isn’t it. If you don’t, it’s easy to be swayed and pushed and bullied into being someone else, someone the other person wants or needs you to be. That someone else could be a bad person, i.e. “He just fell in with the wrong crowd, that’s why he stole all that stuff.”
Being Secure
It could be you are being pushed by someone who isn’t very secure. To increase that security they want others to be like them, and that makes sense because they become more secure when they see others imitating them. That is how some parents are. But the best parents are secure. They are wanting their kid to be a unique being, not a mini-mom or mini-dad. They don’t need that reinforcement of their identity to compensate for their lack of confidence. They are happy to see their son or daughter find their own way in life, career, relationships.
Celebrating the Unique
They have ideas of what might work for their kid, and they put that forth. But they don’t reject or condemn the child when they become someone different than they are. They celebrate their kid’s uniqueness. That is how they make sure they have happy and secure kids.
_______________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Chaz Bono, 1969 – not dead yet, American writer and musician
_______________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 11, 2013 | Mr. Xperience Says - 2013 |
Xperience tells me today is day #4.
Creativity
When it comes to creativity, stopping is the worst thing you can do. Yes, we can get stuck. But, unlike real physical stuckness, in most of our stuck situations we can change our situation, environment, focus, etc. We can leave something behind and come back to it. Hopefully the going away leads to seeing the problem in a new light. If you are a visual artist it can be seeing the cool colors – the greens,yellows and purples – of outdoors instead of the warm colors of your indoor space.
If you are a musician, maybe it’s listening to something you would never listen to, or something you haven’t heard in 20 years, or listening to the sounds of the world of the city instead of the suburbs. Something to mix up your understanding of sound.
Writers can write a story they know will terrible because they don’t know the subject at all. That should unstick them in a hurry.
Relationships
The most important area to realize this lesson is in relationships. Being ‘stuck’ in some aspect of a marriage or partnership is so common as to almost be the norm. Taking steps to change a relationship is scary. It’s easy to be stuck due to fear that unsticking things will get out of control, will change in unforeseen ways, will be painful. But taking action is still the best course of action in spite of the fear.
The question is what creative steps can you take to unstick yourself. Not unsticking the other person, since you don’t really have control over them, but yourself. How can you unstick you? That will most likely lead to the log jam breaking apart. Maybe not right away bit it will happen.
How have you unstuck yourself in the past either creatively or in relationships?
_________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Jeanette Winterson, 1959 – not dead yet, English writer
_________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 10, 2013 | Mr. Xperience Says - 2013 |
Mr. Xperience sees this happen all the time, how about you?
The End – Husbands and Wives
You hear it often when a woman gets divorced. She lost herself in her husband’s identity, or maybe her kids’ identity. A few years later she doesn’t know who she is anymore. A divorce occurs and she goes on a quest to find herself. It can happen to men as well, though I don’t hear about it as often.
The Start – Friends and Family
But a person who allows themselves to get lost sometimes practiced getting lost a lot earlier in life. Maybe it was an outgoing, dynamic friend who took you under her wing. It seemed great at first but after a while you realize you had become just a shadow presence. Your real identity didn’t come out, just variations on the theme that was your friend’s identity.
Or maybe it was your very strong willed family. Maybe your mother pushed you to be just like her, and because you just never developed the idea from early on that your own interests and personality were worthy of existence, you became a mini-mom.
The Practice
So, how do you not end up lost in another person? You practice being your own person again and again and again. That means you might have to fight for your identity’s right to exist. A lot of people don’t want to fight, they don’t like confrontation. But the price of not standing up for who you are is losing yourself. Is that worth it?
Practicing being who you are with grace and confidence is not the same as doing so with an angry chip on your shoulder though. Communicating honestly, responding calmly, but continuing to do what it is you know you are meant to do, in spite of pressure, is the key.
__________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote is anonymous
__________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 9, 2013 | Don Marquis, Mr. Xperience Says - 2013 |
Last time Mr. Xperience gave you essential advice about sex. Today, he is guiding you in your child rearing. He just wants to help.
My mother told I did this many times on the changing table. She also said more than once she did not block it effectively. I probably should have apologized to her for that.
Moms, has this happened to you? Men, don’t wait to be told this story by your mother. Go apologize to her for peeing so rudely. And now that you have control of your limbs and bladder, lift the seat up before and put it down after.
_________________
This public service announcement provided by Mr. Xperience
Quote by Don Marquis, 1878-1937, American writer
_________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 6, 2013 | Mr. Xperience Says - 2013, Yvonne Fulbright |
I am starting a new series today called ‘Mr. Xperience Says’. Some lessons and warnings we can hear again and again but it doesn’t take hold until Mr. Xperience tells it to us. They aren’t lesson I in particular learned via Mr. Xperience. Some I did learn that way, others I haven’t had to deal with but I know many close friends who have. Mr. Xperience is a busy man. Ms. Experience is too.
The Mistake
I have a number of friends who have done this, in spite of them being warned by friends and family that it was a bad idea. It wasn’t until Mr. Xperience told them that they really understood how bad an idea it was. It’s amazing how many people only pay attention to Mr. Xperience. It’s even MORE amazing to realize there are some people who never listen to Mr. Xperience and as a result make this and other mistakes again and again. Those people are hard to watch live life. It’s one thing to give advice, see it ignored but then see Mr. Xperience give the advice and it being learned. That is frustrating but at least you know the finally listened to the advice. But when they don’t even listen to Mr. Xperience, that is torture to watch.
My Xperience
I never had sex with my ex. Well, I did before she was my ex, but actually we slept in separate rooms for almost a year before she moved out so we weren’t having sex well before she was my ex, and that just logically continued afterwards. It’s not that we didn’t have the opportunity after she moved out since she had her own house, I had mine. But she wasn’t about to let that happen and I moved on relatively quickly as well.
Tucson
Many years later we spent 5 days alone together in Tucson, Arizona. We had gone there to talk to one of our daughters and try to persuade her into coming home with one of us. We did see her the first day but she got scared off by what turned out to be wrong tactics on our part and didn’t show up the next day for our expected conversation about things. We hung around for a number of days hoping she would show up, talking to her friends and landlord, but she never did. In the meanwhile we spent every day together, driving here and there, eating meals, waiting in this one cafe. We got along pretty well, with only one small tiff, and it was pretty much a version of some of the tiffs we had had during our marriage about child rearing. Not a huge fight or anything, just a difference of opinion.
Reassurance
We also stayed in the same hotel, about 3 doors down from each other. This scenario of course led to a bit of anxiety on my wife Linda’s part. She wasn’t really worried about anything happening between us, but at the same time, if something were ripe to happen, this situation was definitely letting it happen way to easily. So, she had some worries. Each night I called her and reassured her of the truth. The truth was, 1 – I loved her, not my ex. 2 – I didn’t want to have sex with my ex. 3 – she didn’t want to have sex with me, either. This made her feel better. I was very happy to have married a woman who trusted me in that situation.
My ex was (and still is) in a relationship herself. I wasn’t privy to her conversations with her boyfriend, obviously, but it would not surprise me if he had some of the same worries. I might be wrong, she could have spent years railing against me, talking about how much she loathed me, but I never got the impression she did. At the same time, she did divorce me and she never showed any interest in the possibility of getting back together in any way, sexual or otherwise. I don’t know her boyfriend’s personality though, besides him being a nice guy, so I don’t know what their mutual worries or thoughts were about it. Whatever the case, we both spent the days as caring co-parents to our daughter, not as ex-lovers yearning but denying ourselves sex with each other. I am glad of that.
____________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Yvonne K Fulbright (and many others)
____________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 5, 2013 | Darien - 2013, Travel Napkins |
The Flight Home
I spent 9 days on the east coast, going to my HS reunion, visiting my sister, an artist friend and my daughter Rebekah and my first Grandbaby, Vivian. But alas, I eventually had to head back to Tulsa. I was excited to see Linda again, it had been a long trip, but I was very sad to say goodbye to Rebekah and Vin. I spent the hours on my flight home drawing.
The Executive
I got into a conversation with the woman across the aisle as we both sat down but I was on the window seat and when my row partner sat on the aisle, the conversation pretty much stopped. Later the woman on the aisle was trying to sleep and wasn’t having a very easy time of it so I traded places with her so she could lean her head against the interior of the plane. By that time the woman across the aisle, Catherine, was reading so I picked up my sketchbook and started to draw her. I captured her face first, then her hands as quickly as I could since I know they were the most likely part of her to change at any moment, which they did. She brought out her laptop and at that point I started drawing the background.
The entire cabin was dark and the light from her screen lit her face in a beautiful way. I wish I had taken a photo so I could remember the lighting pattern now. We started talking again after a while and I found out she was coming to Tulsa for just one day for work. She was an executive with a large software developer and had a series of meetings starting early the next morning. She was tired after a while and laid her head back to sleep.
This is the drawing before I painted and colored it.
____________________
The Flight Attendant
After my aisle mate started napping I noticed the flight attendant sitting in the jump seat straight ahead. She was in the dark, with one single overhead light above her, and some light from the galley on her left. She was looking right at me so I mouthed the words, ‘I am drawing you.’ and she responded with a smile and a thumbs up.
She sat still for almost the entire time I was drawing. There wasn’t anything going on in the cabin, almost everyone was asleep or at least had their eyes closed. She could have easily changed her arm position, crossed her legs differently or adjusted her clothing or hair, but she did none of that. She just sat still and looked straight ahead. Once in a while she would look at me and I would mouth the words for wherever I was at, ‘I am drawing your legs now.’ or “I finished your dress.” I knew she couldn’t hear me since I was actually making no audible sound, but it was obvious she knew what it was I was saying. She sat that way for probably 20-25 minutes, long enough for me to get a thorough line drawing done.
She had to explain her stillness to her fellow flight attendant at one point, and the other flight attendant came over to see how the drawing was progressing. She thought it looked pretty good and gave Jessica the thumbs up. That made her smile. It was very cool and otherworldly to do the drawing almost in complete darkness, almost like a special bond formed between us as a result. I showed her the line drawing after and she was very happy with it. She introduced herself as Jess and we exchanged contact info so I could get the finished drawing to her. Here is the line drawing before I painted and colored it.
And with that we landed, the lights came up and I was able to be greeted by my lovely wife at the airport. It was a wonderful journey meeting old friends, new family, and strangers who became friends.
I love traveling into the past and finding the present.
_____________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
_____________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Sep 3, 2013 | Alphabet of Word Origins - 2013 |
B is for Beauty
From awe-inspiring cathedrals of redwoods to baggage-laden scars of human life, no single thing has driven me in more ways than the idea of beauty.
Greek
In Classical Greece (500-323 BC) the word for beauty was Kallos. Later, when Koine Greek (during the Hellenistic period) was spoken, the word was Hōraios, deriving from hōra, meaning hour. The idea of beauty was intertwined with the idea of being at the right moment, the right hour for your particular beauty. Being what you were not, a young man trying to look older, or a older woman trying to look younger, was not beautiful because they were denying their ‘hour’.
That is a lesson about beauty that we still hold on to today. Someone who tries to hard to be young again, with bad plastic surgery or skirts too short, is not usually seen as beautiful. Instead they are seen as perhaps a bit desperate to regain their ‘hour’.
Latin
Bellus was the word in Ancient Rome. Obviously, it’s where the romance languages got ‘Bella’ and other similar words meaning beautiful. In ancient Rome it referred to human beauty, mostly with children and women. As a matter of fact it could be seen as derogatory to men, labeling them effeminate by use of that term.
Words like ‘Bellisima’ (very beautiful) , names like ‘Belle’, and descriptions such as ‘Bella Donna’ (Beautiful lady) all attest to the roots of ‘beauty’ and ‘belle’ being the same.
By the way, Bella Donna also is the name of a poisonous plant, the Deadly Nightshade. So, why is it also ‘beautiful lady’? Because women would put drops distilled from the juice of the plant in their eyes to help dilate them, making them more beautiful according to the style of the era. Also poisoning them to some degree. But then as now, people will suffer to be beautiful, won’t they.
English
Here is how Latin’s Bellus became English’s Beauty; Bellus became Bellitat (Vulgar Latin) became Beltet (Old French) became Bealte (Middle English) became Beaute (Old French replacing Middle English) became Beauty.
It now is used to describe for more than just the appearance of a woman. Most anything and everything can be described as beautiful now. But, at least for me, it still retains a certain element from it’s original definition. The word ‘fine’ kept popping up in the old definitions, and I think that is still true. A person, place or thing that I describe as beautiful will have an element of ‘fine’, ‘exquisite’, ‘elegant’, ‘exalted’, class’ within it’s look. If it doesn’t have some element of those things then I am much more likely to use the words pretty, cute, gorgeous, instead of beauty or beautiful. And of course a person, place or thing can be all those things, including beautiful, at differing times.
Who and what defines beauty for you?
_______________________
_______________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
_______________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Aug 29, 2013 | Marty Coleman, Plan On It! - 2013 |
This will be spot on for some people, and not for others. I planned it that way.
Sheesh, another drawing of naked people, what’s up with you Marty!? Well, I like naked people. Some of my best friends are naked at least once a day. But beyond that, nakedness is a visual metaphor of our stripped down, exposed self and the cathartic transformation that occurs when we allow it to happen.
Megan LaBonte
Megan
That may be something that happens physically, like it did to Megan, a Photographer friend of mine in Massachusetts, who recently decided to go without makeup now for a number of months. She was petrified by the idea but she did it. She stripped herself clean of the mask and went out into the world not knowing what to expect.
This is what she wrote upon posting this photograph:
Before and after. Realized yesterday I have now been through my first whole season with out make up. What a difference it has made not only in the health of my skin but in my happiness as well. I love waking up each morning and facing the world just as I am, never realized how much I was hiding until I took this mask off. I now will wear it every once in a while to go out but other than that I don’t miss it at all and in fact for such a seemingly little thing it really has made a big impact on my life. I feel free from it and look forward to the next three seasons with an all natural face.
There are a lot of things Megan can’t change about herself. Genetically she is pretty much set and short of plastic surgery she isn’t going to change her natural face much. In other words, she has her spots. But she still could do a lot. In the simple act of not wearing makeup she took away some color, and added texture. She took away strong line and exchanged it for more subtle transformations of tone. In other words, she changed the color of her spots.
Reading her statement, it’s about much more than a physical transformation. It’s about a psychological and emotional transformation. She says she is happier. Happiness is not physical, right? It’s about attitude and emotion. She also said she realized she was hiding much. Was she hiding some hideous deformation on her face with the makeup? No, she was hiding something psychologically deeper. While the transformation was physical on the surface, that mask of makeup represented something much deeper and it was facing those deeper issues that was transformative far more than just going without foundation for a day.
Deeper Planning
Just to clarify, the napkin scene above is not related to Megan. She is just an example from among my friends about a physical transformation and she had a recent illustration I thought captured it well.
The Napkin shows a pretty horrendous family scene. It’s fraught with sexual tension, distress and possible abuse. It’s not hard to make the assumption that the family has highly dysfunctional relationships throughout. Who knows what terrible things have happened to make everyone run away in pain. We know all the children are running out into the world with spots. Spots that came from that home, that set of parents. Spots that hurt, spots that scar, spots that fester.
So, how do we go about transforming in these situations? With courage and a deliberate decision to do it.
For example, I have a family spot called alcoholism. The only way I found to deal with it in my own life was to stop drinking. I turned the scotch colored spot to water colored spot (whatever color that is.) I had to choose to change the color of that spot long ago or lose what mattered to me. The spot is still there, but it is pale now compared to the color I initially inherited.
What about you? Perhaps your spot includes a gravy colored spot called eating. Well, you aren’t going to stop eating. But you can transform the color of that spot to green for more vegetables and less gravy. Perhaps your spot is the green spot of envy. What color could that spot be turned into?
What about other spots you would like to transform? Whatever spots you choose, they won’t fade or change colors on their own You have to decide you want to change them, and yourself. You can do it.
__________________
Drawing, quote, and commentary by Marty Coleman
__________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Aug 28, 2013 | Eleanor Roosevelt, Plan On It! - 2013 |
I planned today to be about wishing.
Wishing
I wish I had a dollar for every time I wished something would happen. Is that wish a plan? No, it’s a wish. A plan would be setting up automatic transfer from some ‘wish’ account to my own wish account. It would be directly linked to my brain thoughts, would know when I wish something and pay me my dollar. That is a plan.
Planning
What is the difference between wishing and planning? Not much. Planning is just sort of organized wishing. You wish to paint a painting for your mother’s birthday. If you organize that into what to buy or find to paint with, where you are going to paint. and when you will make time to paint, then you have organized the wish, simple as that. It’s still a wish, but you have put legs to it.
Dream, Image and Deed
Long ago I did a series of art pieces called ‘Dream, Image and Deed’. It sort of clarified for me what it took to make something happen. I had to dream (or wish), I had to imagine it clearly by making an image of it (or writing it down, same idea) and then I had to do the deed. The drawing above illustrates that idea.
The key to turning a wish into a plan is to not get caught up in the big picture. You may wish for an around the world trip, but you aren’t actually putting that in action. All you are really doing is the first step, which might be to figure out the stops you would like to make. That is a wish and it’s a plan. You keep doing the next little step, until you can’t do any more steps. If it ends before your trip, then you adjust the dream to be only half way around the world and back, or whatever it takes for you to continue to take steps.
I wish you good plans!
_________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Eleanor Roosevelt, 1884-1962
________________
Like this:
Like Loading...
by Marty Coleman | Aug 27, 2013 | American Proverbs, Plan On It! - 2013 |
I planned this last night all by myself.
Being Played
The saying when you are being taken advantage of without you really knowing it is, ‘You’re being played.’ It means someone is manipulating you to achieve an end of their own. They make it seem like it is in your best interest, maybe even that it was your idea. But unbeknownst to you, the real goal doesn’t take you into consideration. You will be left behind when you are no longer needed. You might even be damaged or hurt. That’s being played.
Being Planned
If you don’t know what you want in life, if you don’t make some effort to go in that direction, you are going to find yourself being a chess piece in someone else’s plan for their own life.
An example: The daughter who is ‘forced’ by her parents to get a law degree when what she sort of liked was art. But she didn’t know herself very well, didn’t think her ideas of what she wanted to do were valid or useful (because her parents said so) and so she bowed to the pressure and got her law degree. She grew old resenting her brother for having the courage to withstand the parental pressure and become a salesman instead of the doctor they wanted him to be. She blamed her parents, her school, America, capitalism, and her gender. But she never realized the real reason was she didn’t know herself, didn’t trust herself enough to say, ‘this is who I am and this is what I want to be.’ She was afraid, and maybe lazy. She was afraid of not living luxuriously. She was worried about putting out so much effort to achieve her dream. She was tired just thinking about it. And so she ended up living the life her parents wanted her to live, for their reasons, not hers. She was a bitter and angry woman later in life, never knowing it was her decisions that made her like that, no one else.
Naked to the World
Why are the people in this drawing naked? Because others can see through us. They can see when we are being who we want to be, who we plan to be. And they can see us when we are hollow shells, waiting to be filled by someone else’s idea of a life. I would rather be courageous and say ‘This is my plan.” and be seen in all my planned glory than to be a coward and live someone else’s ideas and life and STILL be seen naked to the world. Because, if I am seen naked as me, then the criticisms and compliments are things I can actually listen to. I can evaluate them knowing they are at least based on something real.
If I am a lie, then criticisms and compliments aren’t ever about me. I am not connected to them, I can’t be helped or encouraged by them. It’s as if they are talking to or about someone else. And they are.
What is your plan for your life?
___________________
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote is an American Proverb
___________________
SXSW
Don’t forget, I am in need of votes at the 2014 SXSW PanelPicker site. I have a workshop proposal called ‘The Compelling Image in the Age of Social Media’ that I would love to present in Austin next March. Part of the decision making process (30%) is having SXSW members vote for the proposals they would like to attend. You do have to register, but it’s painless and if you are involved in Social Media and interactive online world in any capacity the conference would be worth finding more about.
Please vote here —–> SXSW PanelPicker and then amplify the proposal across your social media world if you are able!
Thank you very much, M
Like this:
Like Loading...
