Total dead: too many
Total injured: too many
Total relatives and friends of the dead and injured: too many
Total military dead in subsequent wars: too many
Total military injured in subsequent wars: too many
Total relatives and friends of the war dead and injured: too many
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Do you investigate what you are afraid of? Do you purposely move towards it to find out what it is really all about? Read the story below for a great example.
Back in the 80s and 90s I taught beginning drawing and figure drawing at various community colleges around San Jose, California. I also was a waiter and manager at a local restaurant there named Eulipia. I asked a fellow waiter if she would want to model for pay for my figure drawing class and she said yes. The class went off without a hitch. A year later I asked her again and she said she wanted to but now had a boyfriend. The boyfriend happened to be a cop. He didn’t know about the modeling from the year before so she wanted to talk to him about it first. She came back a few days later and said she had talked to him and he was fine with it. A week later though she said he had kept asking questions, had said some not so subtle jabs about what he thought she really was doing. She was worried about it which made me worried about it because I needed to make sure I had a model for the class that day. She assured me she would do it regardless of what he said. Great.
The day arrived and we were going to meet where we worked and drive together to the school. When I got there though, she was with her boyfriend and it looked a bit tense. She told me he wanted to talk to me. Great.
He came over and said, ‘I wondered if it is ok if I come along to the drawing class.’
This is not what I was expecting. A jealous, judgmental cop boyfriend watching his new girlfriend disrobe in front of a bunch of people and just stand there naked. I had visions of headlines the next day saying ‘art instructor killed by off duty cop in fit of jealous rage’. Great.
But he then said, ‘I long ago decided that anything I didn’t understand or feared I would face head on and seek to understand it. I want to come to see what really happens in a figure drawing class. She has told me what happens but I still have visions of something bad and dirty. I want to face that and see what it really is.’
How could I argue with that, right? I told him he could come along but he had to stay in the back of the class and not interfere. I told her she had to focus and not be distracted or intimidated by him being there. She understood and he was cool with that so off we went to the class.
The class was held at Mission College in Santa Clara. It was a HUGE spaceship style building that screamed intimidation and bulk as you drove up to it. I was sort of feeling that way about this new twist to my simple desire to get a model for my drawing class. Now I had a very bulky and intimidating cop/boyfriend about to sit in on my figure drawing class with his girlfriend as the singular object of close to 30 sets of eyes. Great.
The way it works in a figure drawing class is that the stage is a simple raised platform in the middle of the room. The students sit on benches around the platform and draw from all angles. The model has a place to change and comes out in a robe. He or she get on the platform, takes the robe off and starts to hit various poses. The students have already been instructed as to what they will be doing and they start in on it. We start with very quick poses and move on to longer ones. I call out the time and tell the model to change poses. The first pose might be as short as 20 seconds but most will be 1-5 minutes long for the first session. There will be a break then longer poses, up to 20 minutes towards the end. He or she might be sitting, laying down, standing, stretching, balled up, tense and muscular, draped and sleep-like. I had Katherine go through the poses, never looking over at her boyfriend. She also never got distracted, doing what I asked and being a great model for my students.
When we took our first break Katherine got on her robe and the two of us went over to talk to her boyfriend. Much to my relief he said, ‘I completely get what is going on. It is exactly as she said it would be. I was imagining sexual poses, lascivious ogling but what I saw was a very focused and intense art moment. I am so glad you allowed me to come, I am not at all worried about it now.’ What he saw were the students intense in their work, me busy instructing, reminding & encouraging, and Katherine being deliberate in finding the perfect pose, adjusting if needed and staying as still as possible. What he saw was all of us working very hard.
He was not able to see that in advance. But because he had the guts to face his fear he was able to put the fear aside and see things for what they really were.
What worlds do you fear and don’t understand? What steps are you taking to find out what it’s really all about?
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Drawing and story by Marty Coleman
Inspired by a suggestion of Andrea Myers to address the topic of facing your fears. Thanks Andrea!
Andrea Myers
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I do this too much. One of my biggest struggles is distracting myself from the task at hand with busy work, or pseudo work. In March I had a breakthrough in what I focused on and pay attention to and where my mind and heart are at as I go about my daily workday. And I have kept with that breakthrough so far. But I have found I still get busy wasting time and I believe it hinders a number of efforts I am making in my life and career. So, I am making progress, but wish I was making it faster.
Stephen Covey, in his book ‘Seven Habits of Highly Effective People’ has what he calls the ‘Time Management Matrix’. Here it is. It’s helped me in the past. I still have a card with it on it, that sits on my workdesk.
If you haven’t ever read Covey’s book, I highly recommend it. You can find it at any bookstore, library and probably most of your friends’ houses. Ask, I bet they will let you borrow it. Quadrant II is where I need to spend more time. I am relatively good at the relationship building and learning/developing but I tend to get excited about new things and forget about the things already in the pipeline. I also tend to procrastinate when it comes to planning.
What I am committing myself to is be more diligent and focused on that quadrant. What quadrant causes you issues and what are you doing about it?
In the meanwhile, you should go to Sid Savara’s blog posting that discusses this same thing. It’s funny with cartoon illustrations but still gets the seriousness of the ideas across.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Cole…oh look, a sloth!
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Today we have a model image.
Did you know that most models don’t look like models? Yes, they have certain base features that most models have; a certain figure proportion, a certain bone structure. But models don’t look like models. They look like young women, and in most cases, average looking young women. Models start looking like models when they prepare for a shoot. The makeup artist, the hair stylist, the art director, the photographer, the photographer’s assistant, the editorial assistant, the advertising agency rep, the advertiser’s rep all play a part in creating the image you see in a magazine. The model is in the mix, contributing, but it is not her you end up seeing. It’s a photograph, an image, that you see.
I should know this since I am a photographer but I always forget and have to be reminded. That is because I have also been a fan and follower of a number of models and photographers for decades. I get seduced into the beautiful image just like anyone else.
In college I had my first major model crush. It was the model, Lisa Taylor. She was a well known model in the 70s and 80s. She was a favorite model for the fashion photographer Helmut Newton, whose work I loved. She also happened to be in one of the all time iconic images from the 70s.
Lisa Taylor wearing Calvin Klein by Helmut Newton
I had a copy of this Harper’s Bazaar magazine with Ms. Taylor on the cover hidden under my mattress in college.
June, 1977
I had it hidden not because it was pornographic obviously but because it would have been even MORE embarrassing for my roommates to find it than if I had had a Playboy or other men’s magazine. This was because I had a major crush on a girl at school who I thought looked just like Taylor. I thought they would know right away if they saw the magazine cover. One day us guys, hard to believe I know, were actually cleaning our rooms and we all decided to flip our mattresses over as we had been taught growing up. Well, you can guess what happened. They saw the magazine and had a really really big laugh at my expense. I turned bright red from embarrassment as you can imagine. Just as I thought, they immediately saw the resemblance between the model on the cover and the girl I had a crush on. They didn’t threaten to expose me because they said everyone already knew I had a crush on her. Oops. So much for that secret.
The truth is the real woman I had a crush on wasn’t perfect like the photograph of Lisa. She didn’t think she was beautiful (and still doesn’t). She had issues with her father, she easily felt guilty about many things. But she was also energetic, enthusiastic, funny and principled. And it turns out she had a bit of a crush on me. We always stayed platonic (well ok, we had one brief kiss) but we had a very emotional time of it during that year. She ended up marrying a great guy (who she was dating during our crush). We are still connected and good friends. She is still herself, positive and negative. But she is wiser, happier and more real inside and out than she ever was way back when.
In 2009 Timothy Greenfield-Sanders did a project for Vogue Magazine. He took photographs of former models from the 70s and 80s. This photograph of Taylor was included in the project and the resulting exhibition in 2011.
Lisa Taylor – © Timothy Greenfield-Sanders
I love taking photographs and I love visual images, but seeing this photo and thinking about my ‘crush’ reminds me once again that whether it is age, style, Photoshop or something else, the image is not the model. The model is a living, breathing person, better and more real than any image.
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Drawing and story by Marty Coleman, who is beet red right now.
Quote by Cheri Erdman
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The models we see in magazines wish they looked like their own images
I went to a lecture at the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa last night. I thought it started at 6 but that was the cocktail hour. The lecture actually started at 7. So, I stood at a tall table and drank myself silly with a Sprite and watched the world go by (after I checked out the special exhibition for the second time). A woman came to the lecture hall door, peaked in and turned around toward me asking, ‘Does the lecture start at 6:30?’. I told her when it started and we subsequently engaged in a cool conversation about her name (same as my eldest daughter, Rebekah), architecture (the topic of the lecture), Russia (where she lived for many years), legal careers (hers), art careers (mine), Photography (both of ours) and mermaids.
I asked if I could draw her on the cocktail napkin I had at the ready and she willingly obliged. Not only that but she looked off in the distance and never moved or blinked for the entire time. She knew how to strike a pose. I decided she was probably a mermaid in another life and so drew her as one.
After the lecture I dropped by a friend’s new home to pick up some coffee table art books (Monet, Europe and Post-Impressionism) she was giving away and to see her new digs.
It’s a totally awesome sleek modern home that fits her perfectly. I follow her blog, her Facebook page and read her writings in the local media on occasion. She is not only stylish and hip, but is a very serious seeker of knowledge and truth. She works hard to communicate that intellectual and spiritual journey she is on and I appreciate that. We talked about a number of things but eventually got to the most important topic of the day, Mermaids. She just happened to have written a poem about her life as a mermaid and graciously sent it to me later that night. Here it is.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman, who is not a Merman.
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Here are the other mermaids
It’s a well known fact that mermaids are NOT modest. However, there is one area of the seven seas where they are modest and I just happen to find a mermaid in that area this morning. Do you know where the modest mermaids live?
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Drawing by Marty Coleman, who has never been modest except for the time in high school when I got out of the shower at my house to find my friends had come over and Rusty tried to tear my towel off right in front of Mary, my new girlfriend.
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Here are the other mermaids
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Today is day 3 of Mermaid week, in which I illustrate Mermaids from all over the watery world, including rivers, lakes and today…The Arctic!
The arctic mermaid is very wary of strangers poking their head in her space. They want to know her secrets and she doesn’t want to let them be known (especially the fact that the ‘rocks’ on her part of the ocean floor are actually chocolate).
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Drawing by Marty Coleman, who wonder if mermaids go on land to clean themselves.
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Here are the other mermaids
I liked drawing the River Mermaid so much yesterday I thought I would make a series about mermaids all over the world.
One of my all time favorite movies is ‘Splash’ with Tom Hanks and Daryl Hannah. I swam a lot in the ocean as a kid, body surfing mostly, and would have liked nothing more than to have come upon Madison, (the character Hannah plays) while frolicking in the sea. I loved her naivete and innocence, her unadulterated joy and love. I think more people should be like mermaids (and mermen)
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Drawing by Marty Coleman, who thinks mermaids’ hands are webbed.
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Here are the other mermaids
I drew a mermaid today. Wondering why? Read below. This drawing doesn’t exactly follow the conversation, but it started me thinking in the mermaid direction. Now I might do a whole series!
In the meanwhile, my wife says Mermaids don’t have vaginas. But I think mermaids have the right to reproduce just like any other fish/person so I gave her one. What do you think, Do mermaids have vaginas?
“I had a great idea for a quote for today’s napkin. I went to take a shower, now can’t remember what it was. grrr…”
The comments went as follows:
Jessica: i write blog posts like that entirely in my head and then they disappear.
Hanna: Glad I’m not the only one with short term memory probs! 🙂
Margaret: Maybe ‘dirty hair equals great ideas’ or ‘write it down before you wash it away’, 😉 you could have one of your illustrations with great thoughts coming out out of its grimy head. By the way, I haven’t showered yet.
Me: Margaret, at least you wrote it down before you showered! LOL
Thomas: Go back to your shower, make it cold, and your thought will come back to you from Neverland;)Ryan: You are supposed to have good ideas in the shower, not lose them.
Me: yea, I reversed that truism, didn’t I!
Here are the other mermaids
Olympics Series – #3
I watched a lot of the American Olympic trials that were broadcast about a month before the games. They are really more heartbreaking to me than the Olympics. If you are at the Olympics, the heartbreak is falling short there. But if you fall short at the trials, you watch the Olympics at home on TV like the rest of us. For some, it’s disappointing, but they have been to the Olympics in years past and won something. But for those who don’t get there the first time, and perhaps will now never get there, it is not just disappointing, it’s depressing.
What they need, even more than some of the Olympians, is Olympic size courage. Courage to lay down one dream gently and pick up a new one, one for which they might not even know where to start looking.
I admire greatly those who don’t make it after trying with all their might. I always feel for them but I also always root them on to find a new dream.
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Drawing by Marty Coleman, who has never been to the Olympics.
Quote by Mike Singletary
