I work from home. I usually stay home unless I have a specific thing to do. When I travel afar I find myself gravitating towards coffee houses, and I have been thinking I really should do that more often when I am home, not just when I travel. Why not draw my napkin there instead of at home, right?
The ‘Boston Strong Chick’
That is what I did today. I had to go to downtown Tulsa to pick up some artwork I had in a recent group exhibition. Afterwards I decided to stop by the Phoenix Coffee House. I gathered up a humongous Mocha and a scone and settled into a chair where I thought I would have a good view of this woman with a ‘Boston Strong Chick‘ hat and shirt on. I figured she was likely a runner and that she might be there a while, long enough to start a drawing at least. I started to draw her and got through her head, shoulders and most of her arms when she got up to meet someone coming in the door.
OKC Marathon Connection
It turns out the friend she met was Michelle, a running friend of mine. We had just talked on Facebook earlier in the morning about running in the OKC Marathon in two days. We recognized each other and I got up to say hello. Turns out the person I had been drawing was the person she had told me about in our conversation, her more experienced running friend who is going to run the marathon with her. She introduced Brooke to me, explaining how we knew each other . I showed them the drawing in progress and after some talk about the marathon and our various strategies for the race they went off to get some coffee and I went back to drawing. When I was done with the line drawing I showed it to them again and Brooke was kind enough to let me take a photo of her with the napkin.
Brooke Martin (gotta love the cute bunny photo bombing on the TV in the background!)
It also turns out that she had come to the coffee house from being interviewed about her participation in the Marathon by the same reporter, Max Resnik, who interviewed me yesterday. Small world.
Here is the segment that includes me in it (Brooke was in a different segment).
Watching Me Drawing
In the meanwhile, while I was drawing Brooke, someone was watching me drawing. When I was done she came over and asked to see the drawing. She told me she had texted her husband while watching me draw that she was watching someone who could be him in another 20 years. You can see her on the far left (and Brooke on the couch) in this photo I took using my brand new wide angle lens (I am obsessed with it) when I first sat down.
The scene before me
Turns out good things, good connections and good people come from getting out and about. I shall have to do it more often.
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Drawing and story by Marty Coleman, who is running the last leg, (6.2 miles) in the marathon relay, not the entire race. But I do get to cross the finish line, which will be very cool.
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By the way, the Tee and Cap came from www.happyfirst.com and the profits are going to the One Fund Boston.
I got into a long and deep discussion today on FB over a story on ABC News/GMA about girls not being allowed to wear strapless dresses to a middle school prom because they were deemed ‘too distracting’ by the principal of the school. Click on the pic or link to read the story.
There were a lot of points of view, mine primarily being that what is needed is proper training for boys on how to respond to girls, no matter what they are wearing. Limiting girls because boys might be distracted is placing the blame on the girl, just as when someone blames a rape victim because she wore too short a skirt or too dark of eyeshadow. Not only is that not the reason behind rape, even if it were, the solution is to get the boys/men educated and trained about appropriate and moral behavior, not telling women they have to wear clothes that conceal.
In 1971 we bought a 47 ft houseboat. We lived in Darien, Connecticut and had it at a marina on the Long Island Sound in a town nearby. We spent the next few summers out at the far eastern tip of Long Island, in the town of Montauk, New York, at Captain’s Marina.
Floating
In the summer of ’72 Hurricane Agnes bore down on Long Island. It was close to a direct hit as those things go. The tidal storm surge made Montauk Lake rollick violently. Many of the boat owners on the floating docks decided they would ride out the storm in the middle of the lake instead of risking having their boat get out of synch with the dock and smash down on top of it, ruining the hull, propellers, etc.
Tightening
Our boat was tied up to a rigid dock, not floating with the tide. At first we thought that meant we would be safe as long as we kept the bumpers between us and the dock. it was unlikely we would go up and down so much as to put the boat in danger. What we didn’t realize was that once the boat started going up and down, even mildly, the ropes tying us to the dock were getting tighter and tighter around the cleats.
Untying
As the storm got more violent one of the cleats tore out of the boat. At that point we made the decision that it would be best if we waited it out in the middle of the lake instead of at the marina. We tried to untie the remaining ropes but it was hopeless. They were way too tight, and even if it were still possible to untie the ropes, the violent moving of the boat made it very dangerous for fingers to work with rope that may snap tight at any moment. Our only choice at that point was to take an ax to the remaining rope and cut ourselves clear. It was quite a dangerous scene making that happen.
Cutting
We were able to cut 2 other ropes and had one remaining rope at the bow. But because that was the only remaining rope tethering us to the dock and the wind was blowing us away from the dock we were not in immediate danger of hitting anything. Getting up on the bow in the storm to chop away at the rope was considered too dangerous and we chose to ride it out with that one tether, as long as the wind didn’t start to bring us back to the dock, which it didn’t.
Decisions
After the storm passed we saw almost all the boats that remained at the floating docks had been damaged to some degree. Those that had gotten free had some seasick captains but were not damaged at the end of it all. Our boat only suffered the one cleat having been pulled out and some chop marks on the teak walkway.
We learned an important lesson that day. You can’t wait until the storm is at its worst to make your decision. You need to figure it out in advance, just as in life.
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Drawing and life story by Marty Coleman, who a year later got blown up on that same boat.
Quote by Joseph Joubert, 1754-1824, French moralist and essayist
Do you excuse your snark and judgment as being hip? They aren’t hip, they’re thorns. Thorns meant to hurt and denigrate. You might get followers and fans and people laughing at your words, but you are hurting others and you will, without a doubt, be hurt yourself in time. The path you covered in thorns will one day be the path you yourself must follow, and the thorns will be even more plentiful. Even if you avoid the thorns on the path, more thorns than that will have grown inside your heart and will strangle your love, compassion and care.
In remembrance of violence, no. In remembrance of love, yes.
Impotent Hate
Can you barely see the quote? That’s because it’s hardly possible to see clearly in the ‘fog of war’. It seems scarcely possible to see anything else when blood is all around. It seems beyond possible to hear love when hate is so loud.
Potent Love
But barely does not mean can’t. We can see love. Always triumphant, always victorious in the end. That’s because violence is a symptom of impotence. Though it seems so powerful at that moment, so strong, so hard to overcome, it can’t sustain itself. It falls because it is a lack of power, a lack of ability that led to it, not the opposite.
Love on the other hand is the essence of power itself. It is power. It is potency. It is capability. It is triumph. Always.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, a runner.
I went down to Dallas this past weekend and bought 5 new quote books. I an going to take a quote from each one over the next 5 days. Today’s is from ‘Language Is a Place of Struggle – Great Quotes by People of Color, Edited by Tram Nguyen.
Facts
I often think about how much people depend on facts and statistics. It’s 3 hours driving to Wichita so we better leave by 1 if we are going to get there by 4. I ran my last 10k in 55:54, a personal record and the first time under 56 minutes. One of those facts is neutral, not a lot of interpretation to it. The other, the one about my run, is also a fact, but it has some emotional or psychological meaning to me, and perhaps to others who hear it.
Unfacts
But what about facts that aren’t facts at all? For example, Rebekah Evans (my daughter) wrote an article in her blog ‘The Cellular Scale’ titled, ‘Do small men think like big women?‘. It’s a great read about flawed science, gender bias and ‘facts’ that aren’t. It’s about the Corpus Callosum, a part of the brain that connects the right and left hemisphere. It’s been said for many decades that women’s are bigger than men’s and that as a result women have a more unified brain, can multitask better, etc.
But the truth is that is not true. Later studies showed that it isn’t based on male or female, but on the actual size of the brain. The larger the brain, the less proportion of the brain the corpus collosum is, leading to the wrong assumption it had something to do with women or men. Check it out and see how a ‘fact’ can be delivered and believed by many people due to many reasons not attached to the veracity of the truth. In this example it lead right into already existing gender bias.
What do you believe, not because it is true, based on facts, but because it feeds into a need to control yourself or others, or fits a bias you have?
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Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman, factual.
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Quote by Nikki Giovanni, 1943 – not dead yet, African-American writer and activist
I went to Starbucks early this morning to draw and get a cup of coffee before everyone else awoke. A woman was sitting in front of me and right as I finished drawing her head, she left and was replaced by a man. I continued drawing and she became a woman dressed in men’s clothing.
Can see the line about 2/3 of the way down her head where the napkin folds open? I opened it up and drew the woman again on the inside, this time imaging where she had just come from or perhaps was just going.
My neuroscientist daughter, Rebekah, is visiting this week. I am doing a series on science to honor her. She writes an awesome blog called ‘The Cellular Scale‘ that will open your eyes about the amazing world of brain research. I hope you check it out.
The Difference
That’s the difference to me. Both are creative, both are rooted in curiosity and love of exploration. They just go about it different ways.
Science, Creativity and Courage
Science finds hidden treasures that were there all along. It takes creativity and courage. It can be in plain sight but if you are not looking and thinking creatively, you won’t find it. And if you look for something others say isn’t even there, then you have to have courage to pursue the hunt. The scientist has to withstand peer pressure to pursue in a well worn direction, not in a new area that has no history to it.
Art, Creativity and Courage
Art creates treasures, finding them inside the artist’s own brain. The artist also needs creativity and courage. Without creativity the artist is always derivative, a copier machine. The artist needs courage because there will always be someone, often times plenty of someones, who say what you are pursuing, what you are creating, isn’t worth the time and effort. Whether it’s drawing a naked person or photographing the odd angles of a building, someone will say it’s a waste of time. The artist has to have courage to continue pursuing their passion and vision.
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Drawing, Quote and commentary by Marty Coleman
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Morning Haiku
While the cat is on my lap, I read baseball beaning news, After I stretched my unlimber parts.
