This and all napkin drawings are for sale, original or print. Please email me at marty@napkindad.com to inquire.
Curiosity
One of my favorite characteristics in my daughters is their curiosity. I love how they like to talk about anything and everything. I like how they are up for most any activity, even if it’s something they haven’t tried before. I like how their attitude towards new people and places is enthusiastic and welcoming. I like being that way as well. It’s a true positive in my mind.
Curiosity can lead to being easily distracted, it’s true. It also can lead to not having strong opinions about certain things because you are open to any number of directions. For example:
Random person: “Marty, Do you want to go to the beach or the mountains?”
Me: “Well, both are cool, both have interesting things to do and experience, I would be happy either place.”
Or
Random person: “Marty, Do you want to eat sushi or Greek?”
Me: “Well, both are cool, both have interesting tastes, both would be an adventure so I would be happy eating either cuisine.”
See what I mean? It can be negative in some situations.
Choosing
But since I eventually have to choose I try to remember choosing one of those doesn’t mean I am not interested in the other one. I am just choosing one direction in the here and now. The future? who knows. Hopefully I will be able to go in the other direction in the future!
Are you curious? How does it affect you positively and negatively?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Thomas Jefferson, 1743-1826, American politician, farmer, inventor
She was sitting across from the man, staring out at the planes landing and taking off. He observed her in between checking his email, an intriguing diversion from the drudgery of catching up with a week’s worth of business.
She was sunburnt head to toe, glowing a deep orange/red. Her hair swept back from her forehead in cornrows to an arc as if she had a headband on, but she didn’t. From there her hair fell in tight, sharp waves to her shoulders. Her top plunged low, revealing a long expanse of skin, mottled and pealing. It had that rich deep tone that said she’d spent many a day in the sun. There was the faintest view of a tanline at the edge of the blouse, but even that area was dark, as if she had taken her straps down every time she had laid out to sun.
She had on a colorful print top, bright blue jeans rolled up halfway up her calves. Her calves were well defined and she had on a new pair of running shoes. She sat upright but not stiff, holding her purse as it nestled on top of a woven basket bag that she had obviously bought while in Mexico.
I had to take my wife to work this morning and took the early morning opportunity to go to Starbucks on the way home and just hang out a while. I drew one of the Barista’s doing her job. She was pretty busy and seemed surprised and somewhat uncomprehending when I first showed it to her. I gave her my card and told her I would be posting it later in the day, after I colored it.
Most people I draw actually never come to the blog to see the drawing and they never contact me to get a copy. I always think that is odd, knowing that if someone drew me I would be all about seeing the final result later. Some do contact me though and it’s always a pleasure to make a new friend in that way.
Here it is in the Starbucks, uncolored. Becky had already moved on to another spot behind the counter but I wanted to get the pic anyway just to remember some colors.
This drawing, and all my drawings, are for sale, original or print. Please email me at marty@napkindad.com to inquire.
As many of the Napkin Kin know, I live in Oklahoma. The state of Oklahoma has been in the US national news, and even the international news, in recent weeks due to the legislature passing or attempting to pass some pretty bizarre laws. To use just two examples; they have wanted to do away with AP history classes because they show too much of what has been ‘bad’ in America. Just yesterday the State House of Representatives voted to do away with granting marriage licenses because it might make some court clerks go against their religious beliefs to give a license to a gay or lesbian couple.
And of course unless you have been living under a rock you have also heard about the SAE Fraternity at OU being video taped singing a racist chant on a party bus that included the N word and a reference to lynching.
Pointing the Finger
What do these all have in common? They all show someone (a state or a fraternity, it doesn’t matter) pointing the finger at another group and defining them negatively. The people making and defending the AP curriculum are defined as ‘Unamerican’. The lesbian and gay couples wanting to marry are defined as perverted and sinful. In the chant the African-Americans at University Oklahoma are defined as ‘undesirable’ (a euphemism for sure) as pledges to the SAE fraternity, which is bad enough. But even more despicable, they are also defined as less than human, worthy of lynching simply for being black. If one was attempting to be funny you could also see them pointing the finger one row back and saying, ‘It’s all Obama’s fault!’
All three of these ‘definitions’ can potentially hurt the person being defined. This is especially true when the finger is pointed at young people who may have not yet found their own identity. Without their identity being strong, they can be led to believe the definition is true. You see it happen all the time, a woman believing she is worthless because her abusive husband says so. A young African American believing they can’t achieve something because they have been told they aren’t smart enough or strong willed enough, to make it happen. A young progressive citizen being told that they are Unamerican because they dare to question the perfect US of A.
But the definitions do something more. They hurt the definer as well. Those SAE Frat boys are missing out by never truly knowing any African Americans. The conservative county clerk is hurt by not seeing the love, care and competence with which the lesbian or gay couple are raising their kids. The conservative misses an opportunity to see how others have been affected by the history of the US in ways he and his forebearers may not have been.
Giving the Finger
If and when this sort of thing happens to you or someone you care about, tell them to do this. Give the offending party the finger. I don’t actually mean flip them the bird. I mean, take whatever finger is pointing at you and bend it back to point at the pointer. That is where the definition belongs, with the one doing the defining, not with you.
This drawing, as well as others, are available for purchase, original or print. Please email marty@napkindad.com to inquire.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Toni Morrison, 1931- not dead yet, American author and poet
The world is full of judgment. Some of it is necessary. It’s important for us to judge risk, for example. When I went bodysurfing on vacation a few weeks back I loved it. I was raised on the beach bodysurfing and I was in my element. But I hadn’t done it in a long time and I took a few waves I shouldn’t have. My judgment wasn’t on target. As a result the waves slammed me into the sand hard enough to scrap my elbow to the bleeding point, much like a really bad rug rash. Later in the week I was much better at my judgment and had nothing but good and safe rides.
The Bad Label
Labeling is a form of judgment. It’s not the judgment of risk. It’s not the judgment even of preference or desire. It’s the judgment of simplistic stereotyping. It’s the judgment of ego and insecurity. The women pictured above have very different bodies. Someone will label the one on our left as ‘obese’. Not in the medical sense, but in the judgmental sense. Someone will label the woman on our right as anorexic. Once again, not for medical reasons, but for judgmental ones. The label is applied not to help the person being labeled, but to satisfy the labeler. The label gives the labeler comfort, it puts them higher up, it gives them moral worth because they aren’t obese or anorexic. They are better than those two women.
Negation
And when we label like that, we not only judge but we negate. We are blind to who they really are and thus we negate all other elements of their character and humanity.
We negate whether they are kind or loving or sacrificial or patient or brilliant or funny or great parents or fantastic business people or talented artists. We deny ourselves the chance to know who they are because we are so intent on our own moral and social comfort that we would rather just label, judge and be done with it.
How do you avoid doing that in your life?
This, and all my drawings, are for sale, original or print. Please email me at marty@napkindad.com to inquire.
I have been remiss in posting these days, first due to our vacation to Mexico. It was nice but unproductive work-wise.
No, this is not my leg and foot. It belongs to my sister-in-law, Earlyne, who was sitting next to me.
The death of my Father-in-Law, Tom Reynolds, which I wrote about in my last post, was right on the vacation’s heels. I have been getting the house ready for a slew of overnight guests (yes I vacuum, dust, mop and make beds) and then there are all the social and ritual events that go along with someone passing away.
These were the machines he was hooked up to in the hospital.
Coming Up
I have a number of sketchbook drawings I did over the vacation that will be coming and will be continuing the winter series I started with last week’s piece.
In addition I am working on another ‘Artist I Love’ piece. This painter is contemporary and uses words, any idea who it might be?
Where Am I?
If you know me from Facebook you know I do a lot of ‘Where Am I’ posts, where I take a picture while I am out and about, near or far, and then post it with the question, Where am I? I don’t always make it easy, sometimes so much so that I can’t even remember where I was.
Here’s a random one from the past that shouldn’t be too hard.
Where was I?
Photos and commentary by Marty Coleman. Photo of the painting by Jerry L. Thompson
As the song and bible passage goes, To everything there is a season. This has been a recent season of death for me. This isn’t a bad thing, it’s a natural thing. And no, I am not the one doing the dying, at least not in the short term. But in general I am at the age when one comes in contact with death a bit more frequently than when younger. In the past week specifically my father-in-law, Tom Reynolds, and a friend, Oren Miller, have died. A little over a month ago my Aunt Jean died. My father, Skeets Coleman, passed away less than a year ago. In addition I have a friend, Charlyn Shelton, almost die in a car wreck. On social media many of my friends have shared about their loved ones passing away as well. And so I have been thinking about death recently.
Sunny Mexico / Cold USA
Two weeks ago my wife and I took off on a vacation to Punta Mita, Mexico. It’s on the Pacific Coast, just north of Puerto Vallarta. We went with her brother and sister and their spouses. It’s the first vacation of it’s kind we have ever taken together. On the surface it seemed like we planned it pretty well. Mexico was at 78-80º every day while almost all of the US was below freezing with ice, snow, wind, sleet and general weather misery.
Winter Brings the Sweetness
But there was more to this trip than the good timing of being in warm weather while our homes were in freezing temps. There was also this: We all bought trip insurance because my wife’s father, Tom Reynolds, wasn’t doing very well. He had been battling cancer for over 12 years and it finally seemed to have got the better of him. While there was some hope, it was slim. But we made our best guess and thought it would be best to go on this trip sooner than later and so we did.
But with a day and a half to go in the vacation we got the call. He had taken a turn for the worse and was in the hospital. We did our best to figure out early flights home but it was not in the cards. That meant in spite of the situation we were going to be in Mexico one more full day, leaving the morning after that.
We had a choice to make. We could lounge around the pool and ocean, static and disconnected, giving us time to dwell on our not being able to get home, or we could go out and do something. We chose to go out and do something. We spent the day at a small beach village a few kilometers away from the resort. We ate, we bought some gifts, we walked around the town. We found a real estate office and fantasized about buying the various houses that were pictured for sale in the window of the office. We people watched. I took a lot of photos of scenes on the street.
We hadn’t forgotten about Tom, but we still had to live in our circumstances. And while we had some guilt for not being there or being able to get home right away, we also had enhanced gratitude for our lives knowing that someone we loved wasn’t far from being at the end of his. In other words, it was the winter of his life that gave a portion of sweetness to the summer of ours.
Warm Life in Winter
We did make it back on schedule and went straight to the hospital. Tom was holding his own but the overall situation wasn’t looking good. The cancer had spread to his brain, he had had seizures, his blood pressure had fallen then risen and he had contracted pneumonia. He was sedated, in no pain that we knew of, and had a ventilator doing his breathing for him.
Yesterday morning, 5 days after we returned, we got another call. His blood pressure was falling and his meds were maxed out, they couldn’t adjust for that anymore. We were told to gather. With his entire family was around him those closest to him told kind and funny stories about him. They told of his passions and eccentricities.
One of the great things about his family is they were raised by him and their mother to be musical. Linda’s sister taught music and choir in high school for decades. Linda had been an opera singer in her past and their brother had been in choirs as well. And so, as we gathered around him, they started singing his favorite hymns and some of our favorites, among others. I sang in the background or hummed along as I was able. But a lifetime of them knowing how to sing with each other came out and soft transcendent harmonies of love and beauty sent him on his mysterious way.
And then he was gone.
Warmth of Life in Summer
But we aren’t gone. We remain alive. We still eat and breathe and sleep. We still laugh. We still tell stories and wonder about things. We still worry about others. We still create and talk and love.
With a loved one’s passing or winter encasing us in cold we tend to see the negative, and it’s hard to argue with that. But ask yourself this: when do you most frequently hear admonitions to enjoy life, to embrace the joy and to live in the moment, to not let any opportunity pass by where you can let a loved one know (or a stranger for that matter) that you love them and are there beside them. Who do we hear that from the most? From one who has lost a loved one or almost lost their own life. It’s that brush with death that brings out in them the passion for life, right?
Running Life
After Tom died yesterday we lingered around the hospital until the funeral home came to get the body. We then went to lunch. After that it was time for me to go home and shortly thereafter I went to my job coaching runners. It was my first run in almost 2 weeks (I slacked off in Mexico, don’t judge). It was cold, foggy, misty and a bit windy. And I loved it. I loved it because I was alive to love it.
What and who are you alive to love?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by John Steinbeck, ‘Travels with Charley – In Search of America’
This and any other napkin not already sold is available for purchase. Email me at marty@napkindad.com to inquire.
“What good is the warmth of summer without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.”
I turned 60 last month and posted ’60 at 60′, a sort of list of things I want to do this year. One on the list was ‘visit 6 new places’ and I am at #1 on that list this week.
I am in Punta Mita, Mexico. It’s north of Puerto Vallarta by about 45 minutes. I was raised in San Diego, California as a young boy but surprisingly never went farther into Mexico than Tijuana. So this is my first time beyond the border.
I am here with my wife, her brother and sister, and their spouses. The 6 of us have wanted to do something like this for a while and two of us turning 60 was enough of an excuse to make it happen.
l
It’s an all-inclusive resort, Iberostar. I was a bit worried about that since my preference would be to experience Mexico more directly than through this filter. But it’s turned out to be better than expected and very easy, something a few our party really wanted.
The key for me so far has been to choose as authentic a direction among my choices as I can. This means that while the restaurants and buffets do have ‘American’ food they also have pretty amazing Mexican food choices as well. I continue to choose those.
We’ve been on one excursion so far, to Islas Mariettas, two islands off the coast of Punta Mita. One has a hidden beach you have to swim through a cave to get to. It really isn’t hidden, a lot of tourists go to it, but that’s ok, it was a cool experience and not that crowded in the morning.
So, Here’s an example of ‘authentic’. When we got off the boat I had to go to the bathroom and didn’t want to wait until after the bouncy drive back to the hotel. The little spot filled with fisherman and others, music, smells, carts, dogs, fishing nets and beer bottles. The bathroom was not going to be the sterilized American style, I knew that much. But it was the best smelling urinal I had been in in a long time due to their life hack of throwing their used limes into it to compensate for the smell. It’s been my favorite part of the trip so far.
This quote brings to mind one of my favorite lines in a song lyric: “Sometimes you are blinded by the very thing you need to see.” It’s from a song by Mary Chapin Carpenter, one of my favorite singer songwriters ever. What I like about it is how it continually teaches me to see things as clearly as possible, even those things so bright and shiny, so ‘perfect’ that they blind me. They might be the very thing I need to see.
And this quote is about the same thing. Am I aware of my blind spots in life? My attitudes, that are so ingrained as to be unseen? My behaviors that I have rationalized for so long that they are now completely legitimatized and seldom questioned?
Obscured
In a car, the blind spots are those areas that are blocked by the car itself. The frame of the car holding up the roof, the hood bulging out in front, covering the engine. Visors, mirrors, seats, decals, and more also add to the visibility problem.
And how are we trained to compensate for those things? We are taught to be slow and deliberate, to be methodical. We are told to move our head and body to see around the obstructions.
This can be applied to our attitudes and behaviors as well. Stop and think. In my words am I perpetuating something I have not evaluated and considered in a long time?
Looking Deeper
The other way we do this is by seeing only the surface of something. We deem something as being without value in its current state and so we overlook it. How we see the elderly is a perfect example of that.
I remember way back when I lived in San Jose, California. The pastor of our church had been fired and we had an interim pastor. He was very old, retired as a full time pastor and now just filling in as an interim when needed. On one occasion he complimented me on my suit, which included a short waisted Eisenhower style jacket. He pointed it out and said he thought I looked sharp. After that I started to look at him more closely. He wore well tailored and stylish clothes that were appropriate for his age and position. He dressed better than 90% of the men in the congregation, that was for sure. That led me to imagine him as a younger man. I saw him romancing his wife on the dance floor, looking sharp in a military uniform, and any number of other activities he might have done back in the day, all done with panache and style and a twinkle in his eye, which he still had.
We became ‘shake hands at the steps’ friends, talking about the sermon, complimenting hats, jackets, vestments, etc. He turned out to be one cool dude.
What are you missing in your blind spots?
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by George Herbert, 1593-1633, English poet
This and many other of the napkins are for sale. Please inquire at marty@napkindad.com to find out more.
Heather played her horn for 3 hours, the entire length of the gallery opening. Her legs were cold the entire time.
Chapter Two
When she got home and undressed she realized she had forgotten to put on her pants that morning. Heather was relieved because she had been worried she might be getting bad circulation issues in her legs like her father had.
When I graduated from UC Santa Barbara in 1978 I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area. Within 3 months of my arrival the Mayor of San Francisco, George Moscone, and City Supervisor Harvey Milk were assassinated by former Supervisor Dan White.
Three years later a bust honoring Mayor Moscone, created by the artist I am highlighting today, was unveiled. Here it is.
The artist is Robert Arneson. Take a close look at the detail picture. Can you see the ‘Twinkie’ and the ‘bang, bang, bang, bang,; on the pedestal? Those referred directly to the assassination, along with the imprint of a gun on the backside. As a result, the bust was rejected by the City Council and not put in City Hall as expected. The other result was Robert Arneson and his art became known throughout California and the nation.
I was at the start of graduate school at San Jose State University and learning about the fantastic artists that practiced in Northern California. There are already two of them in this series, Wayne Thiebaud and Richard Diebenkorn. And another was Robert Arneson.
Robert Arneson, 1930 – 1992
Arneson was a co-founder of the california ‘Funk Art’ movement of the 60s and 70s. He was not a painter but a sculptor using ceramics combined with non-traditional objects. He was breaking the mold of what ceramics should be by moving away from functionality and creating political, social, artistic and personal statements driven by his personality, aesthetics and beliefs.
Self
I thought about not putting a photograph of him in the article because, well, here… take a look at who his subject matter most often is.
Kiln Man‘Pic’, 1980, Lithograph. Photo courtesy of Rob Corder‘Brick Bang, 1976‘Head Lamp’, bronze with wood and bulb, 1992
Humor as Social Commentary
Obviously you can see he is very funny and works that humor into his art. But it’s more than just silly humor. It’s using humor as satire, and farce to make a statement about the social and moral issues of his time. He is in that long tradition in art that reaches all the way back to Honore Daumier in France, through to William Hogarth in Britain and on to Thomas Nast in America to name a few. Satirical art that pushed the powers that be by lampooning them has continued into the present day of course, with it’s most tragic manifestation being in the murders of the staff of Charlie Hebdo by Islamic terrorists in France in January, 2015.
It takes courage to make fun of people for a reason, and Arneson didn’t shy away from it. But, as with the great satirical artists before him, he often wasn’t pointing so much at a particular person as he was using that person as an example of a larger corruption, a more widespread idiocy in society or morals.
Colonel Hyena, ceramic on metal base, 1985Hiroshima UrnNuclear Warhead, 1984‘Primary Discharge’, 1990, earthenware and glaze
Upending the Classical
He also liked upending the aesthetics of the classical. To do this he literally just did it. He took something classical, a column. And upended it by adding a head on top, on bottom, falling off, etc. Of course the head in all these cases was his own.
Pedestals, 1992, Bronze, UC San FranciscoBig Laughs, CeramicTemple of Fatal Laffs – detail
Egg Heads
Towards the end of his life Arneson started doing a series that seemed more melancholy and universal, the ‘egg head’ series. They are more of a meditation on life and death than anything else, and it makes sense that they would be as Arneson was by this time diagnosed with cancer and was struggling with these monumental issues.
WorthSee No Evil, Hear No Evil (Egghead series), 1989, UC Davis
And More
As with any prolific artist there are a lot more pieces you won’t ever see than that you will see. Here are some others I thought worthy of your attention.
Wolf Head (Jackson Pollack), 1989, Bronze and RedwoodSinking Brick, 1966, terracottaBrick Bang, 1976Golden Rod, 1969, Luster Glazed CeramicBenicia Bench, 1991, Bronze
Courage of the Artist
What I appreciated about Arneson more than anything else was his determination from early on to be truly himself. What I mean is he withstood pressure to be a classic ceramic artist, to be serious, to be socially active the way others had been before him. But those things weren’t him and he knew it. He stated in his life and in his work, ‘This is who I am and what I do. These are my creations done as I see fit.’ Which is, after all, the essential job description of an artist.
Resources
To learn more about Arneson and his art world, you can use these resources:
Some artwork photographed by Rob Corder. You can see a much larger collection of Arneson’s work at Corder’s flickr page as well as extensive photographs from many art museums.
A few years back I happened upon a post on Facebook. It had a request to help out a young woman in Africa named Mandy Stein. She was working at an orphanage and was hoping for some donations to help the kids get a new orphanage building.
Mandy in the middle of the construction
I followed Mandy on FB and paid attention to her. She was from Texas, was about the same age as my daughter Caitlin, and had gone to Tanzania on a volunteer program a few years before. She decided that instead of doing the tourist activities the volunteers were free to do in the afternoons she would continue to find ways to serve. One of the people suggested she spend the afternoon helping at the Tuleeni Orphanage.
While she was in Tanzania a young boy gave her the Swahili name Neema (like Emma but with an N). It became her name and it became the name of the non-profit she set up to facilitate her efforts in helping the Tuleeni Orphanage and surrounding town.
She graduated from University of Texas and moved to Tanzania, where she is still. She lives and works full time at the Orphanage, helping the children in their schooling, leading efforts to build a community center and home, and teaching in a local school.
She is an incredible woman, profoundly dedicated to these children in every way you can imagine.
Happy
But all that is not what impresses me most about her. What impresses me most? Her happiness. She does all of this with an incredible joy, a joy that really does overflow through pictures, writing and video from over 10,000 miles away. I can only imagine how infectious and beautiful it is in person. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t have down times, I mean come on, she left everything she ever knew in her whole life and moved to Africa, of course she has times she misses things and people and can feel sad. It’s not about if she ever feels that. It’s about her being happy in spite of those things.
Mandy and Mama Faraji, founder of Tuleeni Orphanage
And why is she so happy? I have a funny feeling she probably has always been a happy person, but maybe not, I don’t know. But I do know that her happiness (as I have seen it) stems from a deep and abiding love for her new world. For the kids, the workers, the town, the country. She loves doing what she does. She loves helping. She is happy doing these things. And as a result? She does them VERY WELL. No reluctance, no hesitation, no second guessing. She is an ‘All-In’ spirit that infuses everything and everyone around her.
The Power of Happiness
When she was a young child, only 5 years old, Mandy determined she would change the world. And she is. But what she didn’t know then, but does probably know now, is that it was going to be by following her love, joy and happiness that she would do it.
What I always try to remember, and what Mandy shows me in action, is that the pursuit and fulfillment of happiness isn’t a bad thing, it can actually be the best thing, for yourself and for others.
“My Life is Pretty Great” – Mandy
If you would like to help Mandy, I encourage you to donate and follow Neema International. Pay attention to their work and continue to offer support and encouragement as often as you can. Here are the links where you can make it happen.
This is a repost of yesterday’s post. I had some problems yesterday at the site and had to revert back to an earlier database.
How Strong is Your Why?
We don’t like being uncomfortable. We don’t like denying ourselves. We don’t like struggling. And we usually avoid those things if at all possible. So, why do we allow those things in our life?
One reason is found in this question. Are you working towards a goal in life? If you are, you know the power it can have on your willingness to go through hell. The examples are plethoristic (I just made up that version of the word). In my case it is often my willingness to go through crazy cold or crazy heat while running. I do it because it is important to my goal of running my upcoming race the best I can.
With another person it might be raising your kids to have a better life than you had. Immigrants often say that is why they are willing to come to America. The Dr. from Bangladesh who is willing to take a menial job in the US just to guarantee his kids have a brighter future. Sometimes it may be a goal you find to be shallow. Maybe your friend has this driving desire to be famous. Or a family member is obsessed with being super wealthy. We certainly won’t agree with everyone’s reasons.
How Strong is Your How?
Whatever your goal, you still have to take action to make it happen. That is where you find out how bad you want something. Many people take the first step, even the second step. But somewhere along the arch of our lives we eventually reach a point where a particular goal doesn’t seem attainable, no matter how much one struggles for it. Often it’s because it’s not what you thought it was.
I just read the blog of an online friend the other day who said she was giving up on her goal of being a fitness competitor. It’s not that she didn’t want to look like a fitness competitor, it’s because she realized the trauma and deprivation she would have to go through to get in that ‘stage ready’ shape was just too much for her. It wasn’t worth it and it wasn’t what she expected. And that is ok. It’s good. We all have to be honest about what we want and what we are willing to do to get it. And that includes telling ourselves, “This is not for me.”
Honesty
But the real tragedy is when we really DO want something but we just aren’t willing to put in the work to make it happen. That, to me, is the true sadness behind laziness in life – all the unreached goals.
So, what is your goal? Are you honest about it? Is it realistic? Is it something you are willing to work for? If it is then don’t make the mistake of choosing comfort and ease over effort. Don’t think of all the ways to get out of doing the work, focus on the ways to make the work count. You can do it.
Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman Gender variation on a quote by Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844 – 1900, German philosopher Original quote – “He who has a why in life can bear almost any how.”
This, and all the napkin drawings, are for sale. Email marty@napkindad.com to inquire.
Have you ever felt lost? I have. Many times. By lost I don’t mean I didn’t know where I was. I mean I didn’t know where I was going or, in most cases, I knew where I wanted to go I just didn’t know how to get there. That’s probably been my main feeling of ‘lost’ over the years.
The Napkin Dad Daily
My Napkin Dad endeavor is a good example. I knew why I did it at the beginning, in 1998, obviously. I was drawing for my daughters. If you don’t know that story you can check it out at the ‘Napkin Beginnings‘ page. After they finished school I posted those drawings online for my friends and audience at Flickr.com starting in 2005 and on The Napkin Dad Daily starting in 2008.
And for 10 years now I have continued to do that. It became a way for me to express myself artistically and intellectually. I felt I had simply expanded my idea from giving these expressions to my daughters to giving them to the entire world. And the napkins have gone all around the world. I have friends in every corner of the globe as a result of the napkins. I even got a tw0-page spread in a big coffee table book about the history of napkins published in Norway!
Time for a Change
It also became a way for me to make money. I became friends and then professional partners with great people in Australia as a result of the napkins. I sold merchandise based on the napkins; t-shirts, cups, cards, a book and even the napkins themselves. I have also done many paid and unpaid speaking gigs based on me being ‘The Napkin Dad’.
But I don’t make very much money doing this. It’s been a labor of love that has been made possible by my wife, Linda, supporting us on her salary, for which I am very grateful. I contribute some, but not nearly as much as she does. Last year I decided that if I was going to continue doing the napkins I would need to focus on making it a viable business that made substantially more money than it had been.
Launch
So I enrolled in an entrepreneurial class at Tulsa Community College called ‘Launch’ in 2014. It was a 16 week program dedicated to teaching some of the essentials of owning a business and actually mentor the participants so they could actually launch their business by the end of the class. I had high hopes for the class and many of my hopes were realized. But some of my hopes were not realized and the reason for that was my inability to find and refine my purpose and direction.
But not being able to launch my new direction in 16 weeks didn’t mean I wasn’t working on it. I was and I am.
What’s In A Name?
While many ingredients go into a business, it really starts with an idea and a name. My moniker has always been ‘The Napkin Dad’ and that isn’t changing. The name of the blog has been ‘The Napkin Dad Daily’ and that is changing. It’s now simply, ‘The Napkin‘.
The reasons?
My 4 daughters are all grown women now. Two of them have children of their own. I am not an active dad of young kids that the word ‘dad’ in a blog would hint at.
I most often draw and I write about things not directly related to raising kids or being a parent. This has started to create a conflict in my own head, with the name no longer accurately reflecting what The Napkin is about. It’s no longer primarily about me as a dad, it’s about me as a man and an artist. My focus has changed over the years and I want the name of my endeavor to reflect that.
I want to broaden the appeal and keeping ‘dad’ in the title immediately puts me in a genre I don’t really fit anymore. People come to blogs based on those sorts of genre titles and it’s appeal is limited because of the title.
Absorbent Art
The other element in a title is the ‘tag line’. It’s the descriptive phrase that succinctly says what the enterprise is all about. At the beginning the word ‘absorbent’ attached itself to the blog. As I worked through new ideas the word ‘absorbent’ stayed constant. I recently tried out ‘Absorbent Ideas for Head and Heart’ But it still lacked the definition I wanted. Last night I changed one word.
Now it reads, ‘Absorbent Art for Head and Heart‘.
That clarified and focused my thinking about the entire endeavor.
The Napkin is about:
My art; the creating, sharing and selling of it.
Sharing other artists and their art with you in conversations, studios, galleries, museums and online.
Helping other artists via creativity coaching.
Exploring the ideas, subjects and beliefs that drive the creation of art.
Inspiring and motivating others as a speaker to bring out their creativity in positive ways.
My passionate belief that the individual and the world can be changed for the better by art.
Call To Action
Yes, I would like you to do something for me. Maybe even a few things.
Suggest improvements or new features on the website or if see a problem, let me know. The contact information
Donate financially to the building of The Napkin. There are costs associated with trying to get this launch off the ground and any little bit helps. There is a ‘Donate’ button over on the right.
Hire me as your Creativity Coach. If you need a jump start with your own creative endeavors I will work with you to get you back in the creative groove, no matter how long ago you put that groove on the shelf. Here is a post about it.
Hire me as a speaker. I am available for corporate and group speaking engagements and can speak on a variety of topics having to do with creativity, art, social media, photography and more. Contact me if you or your company is interested. Take a look at the ‘speaking‘ page for more information.
Subscribe to The Napkin if you haven’t already. It will come to your email whenever I post.
Promote ‘The Napkin’ to your friends and social media followers.
Comment on the blog. Even if you just say ‘Nice’ or something like that, it helps my traffic statistics.
New merchandise will be coming soon. Buy something (maybe as a gift?) when the time comes.
So, there you have it. I love creating ‘The Napkin’ for you and hope to continue doing it even better well into the future!
Absorbently,
Marty
Drawing by Marty Coleman
Quote by President John F. Kennedy, 1917 – 1963, 35th President of the United States (1961-1963)
The artist had 3 friends. The 3 friends were with the artist at a bar one night when they all saw a very attractive man at the same time. They decided to play Rock, Paper, Scissors to see who would get the first chance of going up and saying hello. Paper won.
Chapter Two
The artist took a picture of them playing the game. He decided to make 3 sculptures of his friends and used the photo of their game playing as a basis for the artwork. The 3 friends didn’t know he was doing this.
Chapter Three
The 3 friends went to the artist’s gallery opening and immediately knew the pieces were of them by the hair and eye shadow color. The crowd loved the 3 sculptures and they sold quickly to a famous collector from Washington D.C.. He was very excited to meet the 3 models and had his assistant take a photo of himself with the models and artist in front of the pieces.
Epilogue
Paper ended up pregnant with the very attractive man she met that night at the bar. The baby was born 9 months later. and by that time the very attractive man at the bar had enlisted in the army and was off in Afghanistan. He was killed by an IED the day after the baby was born. Paper moved back to Minneapolis to live with her parents. They helped raise the baby while she worked and got her GED then bachelors degree. She worked as a bookkeeper for 40 years and never married. Her daughter became an art dealer.
The artist went on to have a great career, in large part because the collector had bought those pieces. He ended up marrying Scissors who went on to get her Ph.D in Anthropology and taught at Columbia until she retired.
The collector sold the 3 pieces 15 years later for 17.5 million dollars at Sotheby’s to an anonymous telephone bidder. He reinvested the money in land and retired to the Virginia countryside to raise horses.
Rock turned out to be the anonymous buyer of the sculptures. She had made her fortune in Pharmaceuticals, working her way up from salesperson to CEO of a very large company. She displayed the sculptures in the lobby of her company, feeling they reinforced her philosophy that hard work, game playing and chance were the driving force behind all success.
The paintings the artist did of nude men with big penises didn’t sell at all and he stopped painting them. They eventually ended up in storage in the barn at the family farm in Texas. They were stored in a loft, covered with sheets and stuck behind a wall of barrels, undiscovered until 28 years later, after the artist died unexpectedly. His children put the paintings up for auction where they fetched 225 million dollars, a record for a recently deceased artist at the time. Paper’s daughter was the dealer who sold the paintings. Her commission was 11 million dollars.
I see myself helping my daughters grow up, so that must be my purpose. Or perhaps you see your work efforts as a social worker pay off so that must be your purpose. Those are simple definitions. Simplicity is there because we usually think our purpose is defined by what we can quantify, explain, organize and see. When we do that it’s not a stretch to feel our purpose pass us by. We get older, our kids grow up and don’t need us as much or we retire and our job is over. Then what? Then we can become depressed and lack enthusiasm for life if we aren’t careful.
Your Complex Purposes
But what if you believed that your purposes in life are MUCH more complex than that AND you gave up trying to figure them all out? Don’t get me wrong, it’s important to try to figure out and focus on some of them, of course. But there are dark periods of life when you are blinded by the pain and can see no purpose. There are also sublime moments in life when your purpose is SO OBVIOUS that you can miss the other, more subtle purposes. And then there are the purposes your life has that you will never, ever know.
A Further Test
Does a person in a coma have a purpose? If yes, then obviously it’s a purpose they are not in control of. If no, then you are categorically giving up having any doctor, nurse, staff, family or counselor learn and grow from treating, growing or learning from the person in the coma. But we know that is not true. We know the medical staff could possibly learn very important things in how to treat a coma patient. We know a family member could be deeply moved and transformed by seeing their loved one in a coma. And what is that if not part of the person’s purpose in life?
In other words, If you are alive, you have purposes. They may not all be ones you are aware of, but your life is greater than you realize and accepting that is a key to both happiness and hope.
Drawing and Commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote attributed to both Richard Bach and Lauren Bacall
“Here is a test to find out whether your mission in life is complete. If you are alive, it isn’t. “
The origin of the drawing was a quick sketch at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. There was an area of the temporary exhibition where people were handing out paper and clipboards and encouraging people to draw. I took one and told them I would use my own pen but they said pens weren’t allowed. So I used their pastels instead. I only took the black one, which they thought was odd. I did the quick sketch of my wife Linda gesturing like a spokesmodel on ‘The Price is Right’ to two paintings behind her and brought it home with me. I drew and painted it to completion this morning.
The Nickname – A Short Short Story
Prologue
Penelope hated her nickname.
Chapter One
She was excited to go to the opening because she really liked the artist. She wore a strapless dress and clunky heels. She spent a fair amount of time at the opening explaining to her friend, Benita, different things about the paintings. Benita listened but didn’t really care. She just kept thinking how glad she was she didn’t have that nickname, especially in this particular situation.
Epilogue
Penelope eventually moved away from New York. She landed in St. Paul, Minnesota and made sure no one there ever knew her nickname.
This past Saturday I turned 60 years old. I’ve been thinking about this birthday for quite a while, for years actually. But I haven’t thought about it negatively. Yes, there is a sort of fatalistic element to some of the thoughts, I am growing older, I don’t have forever, I wonder if I will live as long as my mother (died age 62, way too early) or my father (died age 96, just about right). I am working on the 96 assumption. Gives me more things to plan for! Of course I really don’t know, as do any of us, when my time to move on will come. I have been through enough tragedy and accidents to know it could happen any time and I am ok with that.
Most of my thoughts about turning 60 have been very positive. For example, it’s great to get up in front of the runners I coach and say, “I’m running a marathon at age 60. If I can do it, you can do it.” I also don’t mind being able to run faster than 90% of the people I coach, many of whom are 1/2 my age. It’s also a bit of a thrill to say I am 60 and have people stare at you like you are crazy because they just don’t believe it. A little ego boost is a good thing at 60.
But there has been something deeper about turning 60 than just an ego boost. It’s also about being at that interesting tipping point in life when you no longer have to prove or defend yourself, but you still have hopes that some of the most profound and important things in your contribution to humanity are still ahead. You aren’t done, but you aren’t just starting either. For example, I don’t have to try to convince someone I am an artist as younger people often do. If they don’t have an exhibition record or sales or a lot of work to show, then are they really an artist? Can they make it as one? Do their parents and family think they really are one, or are they just dabbling, is it just a phase?
I don’t have to worry about that. I started as an artist at about age 17. That was 43 years ago. I have 43 years of being an artist. I have years of teaching, selling, showing, etc. It’s already a done deal. That doesn’t mean I have been a great success, I haven’t. But you don’t have to be a great success as an artist to be an artist. All you have to do is create art. I’ve done that for a LONG time. I am an artist.
60 at 60
One of the things that came to me leading up to 60 is that I want to be more conscientious and deliberate about things I do. To do that I decided to make a list of 60 things I want to do at 60. Each thing is to be done in multiples of 6, preferably simply 6, 60, 600, 6,000, etc.
I haven’t finished the list, I am giving myself 60 days to do that. But I have some written down so far. I know myself pretty well at age 60 and I am not making some grand proclamation that I am doing all of these. They are ideas I hope to implement. I think I will implement some completely, some partially, some not at all.
Here is my list so far. Feel free to contribute ideas in the comments below.
Write 60 cards to people.If you want one of these, send me your street address to my email, Marty@napkindad.com
Walk the dogs 60 times.I know, I know, don’t I already do that? No, I don’t. So, sue me.
Sell 60 art pieces.I already sold one this year. That one counts even though it was before my birthday. Why? Because I say so. If you want to buy a drawing, let me know!
Attain 6,000 average viewers a day on my blog and associated platforms. I probably first should figure out my numbers as of now, ya think?
Add 600 people to my newsletter address book. I have about 900 now so 1,500 total would be a good goal.
Give away 60 books. I have a lot of books. Most of these will go to Goodwill I think.
Delete 60 people from Facebook friends list. I have 1,900 or so friends so 60 shouldn’t be too hard, right?
Book 6 paid speaking engagements. I have given a lot of presentations over the years and need to organize and promote that better.
Finish 6 major website upgrades. The first one is already done, that is a theme change that I implemented last week. 5 to go.
Do 6 pull ups. I was able to do 3 last year but now am back down to 1 (I’ve been lazy in the cross-training department)
Fix 6 things . I went to Virginia to visit my daughter last month and I did a ton of DIY stuff around her house. If I can do it around her house I can do it around my house too.
Build 6 things. I built a cool bookshelf from our old piano a number of years ago. I want to do more things like that.
Cook 60 meals from scratch.I love to cook but most of the time I do more heating up than cooking. When I do cook it’s usually nothing special. I want to cook more cool stuff from scratch.
I asked on Facebook for some suggestions and here are some I think I might work on as well.
Melanie suggested 6 fish tacos
Lauren said be grateful for 6 things when you wake up and 6 when you go to bed.
Angelika offered 6 half marathons
Sex 60 times was Sam‘s recommendation
Byron thought riding my bike 60 times was a good idea
Jenny wants me to do 6 or 60 random acts of kindness
Jenny also thinks I should give $60 to someone who needs it or by $60 dollars worth of stuff for someone.
Jill thinks I can try 6 new food types each month
Janis wants me to wish on 6 or 60 or 600 coins thrown in a fountain
Robi thinks running 600 miles this year is doable.
Take pictures of 6 families who can not afford a photographer is Anna‘s offering
Judy has ‘pay it forward at least 6 times’ as her recommendation
Jill says a bubble bath for 60 minutes while I eat 6 chocolates and drink 6 (or 60) ounces of champagne should be on my list
Margaret concludes 6 affirmations said to myself and repeated 6 times for 60 days would be worthwhile
Cynthia thinks I need to do a top 6 countdown of something
Suzanne says visiting each grandchild 6 times this year needs to be done
Courtney wants me to donate $6,000 dollars to her 6 times in 2015
Chanting 666 on public transit until I get beat up is Julie‘s brilliant idea
Jeanne suggests 6 marathons in 6 states in 6 days
John wants me to back a big cake and cut it into 60 pieces and freezing them so I can bring one out every 6th day and eat it
Pam wants to hear me sing 6 songs from the 60s
Roxanne contributes 6 times a day for 6 days find 6 reasons to make 6 people’s lives easier
Sidney thinks I should breathe 60 billion times and keep count
John wants me to attend a concert with 6 musicians in it
Earl says I should do 20 push ups three times a day
Run 60 miles in 6 days is Brian‘s suggestion
I will keep you informed of my progress over the year. In the meanwhile, what are your suggestions?
The artist, Bethany, was having her first solo art exhibition in 3 years. She had done a series of paintings of nude biblical figures. The painting she was giving her gallery talk about was titled ‘Mary and Elizabeth’. It depicted the New Testament story when Mary went to visit her cousin Elizabeth after she found out she was pregnant and Elizabeth’s baby jumped in her womb when the two of them greeted on the road in front of Elizabeth’s house.
Chapter Two
Bethany was explaining why in particular she painted Mary, the mother of Jesus and Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist, nude. The paintings had caused a lot of controversy, even having been mentioned on cable new shows. Fox News had condemned the exhibition, saying it was disgusting and disrespectful. Others had been not so opinionated but still said they didn’t think the exhibition was worth seeing. “Unbiblical” was what one mainstream news outlet had said. A satirical website had called the piece ‘umbilical’, which Bethany thought was pretty funny.
Chapter Three
The artist told the story of her own life, having been raised by nudist parents in California. She said she loved being raised that way and that it taught her so much about not judging people based on outer beauty or style. When she went away to college to major in art she was drawn to figure drawing classes. She hit upon the idea of painting biblical figures nude when she went to Europe and saw many allegorical, historical, and mythological paintings that included nudes. She noticed however that paintings illustrating the Old and New Testament almost never had complete nudes in them. She decided to do a series on New Testament stories as a result.
Chapter Four
She had two of her friends pose for the piece. One was KimLee who was raised in an evangelical family who would not approve. They had met in college when KimLee had come into the Student Union gallery and looked at Bethany’s paintings. They became friends. KimLee had already posed secretly for her a number of times. She had always been shown without her face or Bethany had changed her face so she wasn’t recognizable, which Bethany promised she would do this time as well. The other was the Gallery’s assistant curator, Suzy, who had been pregnant with twins when Bethany came up with the idea. Not many people knew it but Suzy had been an ‘adult entertainer’ in college. She loved the idea of being in the painting. She wanted to be Mary in the the painting because she thought it would be cool if a stripper was Jesus’ mom.
Chapter Five
KimLee and Suzy met for the first time at the gallery talk. It turns out their babies were born just two months apart a little more than a year earlier. They hit it off while contemplating the painting after the gallery talk, comparing notes about what it was like to pose and to have their naked bodies out in public for all to see. KimLee explained how no one knew it was her and Suzy explained how everyone knew it was her, including some former ‘clients’ who had come to the exhibition not realizing Suzy was no longer a stripper but a respected gallery worker. They both laughed at how they had come from such different directions to arrive at the exact same spot.
Epilogue
KimLee and Suzy became great friends. They had playdates for their kids together, went to lunch once a month and eventually started a company together that had sales topping one million dollars last year. Their sons became best friends and both became elementary school teachers.
Bethany’s next show was of self-portrait nudes. It led to her being kicked off the PTA.
I am now officially Papa Marty. I went to visit my daughter Rebekah after Christmas. Her daughter, my first grandchild, Vivian, was old enough to call me ‘Papa’ and so it’s official. Next year my Grandson, Mr. Otis, will hopefully be able to call me the same.
When Rebekah was young her Grandfather, Dwight Johnson, was around a lot. He was a fixer. With an engineering degree 2 times over and a mechanic’s mind he could and did fix, install, repair, build and rewire most anything. Didn’t matter if it was a car, a house, a washing machine or a wheelchair. Didn’t matter if it was electrical, gas, water, air, big, or small. He would figure it out. I learned a LOT from him over many years.
I also learned a lot from my own father, who was quite handy with a saw and drill, and from my own grandfather, Papa Powell, who was an excellent woodworker with his own beautiful woodworking shop in the back of his house. I learned a LOT about how to use hand and power tools from them both.
So, when I went to visit Rebekah I saw a number of projects I could do to help them out, carrying on the Grandpa tradition. Here are the ones that were the most fun.
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The Table
This looks like a photo of a collapsed and broken table, and it is. But it’s secondary to the task at hand, which you can see on the far right, that white bench area. I had been looking at the window bench area, thinking it would be cool to have a cushion there for Vivian or someone else to sit on. Their breakfast area is very small so an extra seat would be great.
We also were putting thin plastic over the windows to help insulate the house from the cold. But, to get a good look at the bench area and to put up the plastic I needed to move the table. The table, unbeknownst to me, was in a precarious state and promptly fell apart when I moved it. Oops!
So, after putting the plastic over the windows I went to the hardware store and got some brackets to put the table back together. I used the brackets (and glue) to attach the legs to each other and then to the table top. Easy peasy. Vivian approves!
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The Window Bench
Now we could work on making a cushioned bench top for that space. It wasn’t something I had done before so I did what any good DIYer would do, I went to Pinterest. I searched under ‘window bench’ or something like that and the very first item that came up was a ‘how-to’ on making a window bench. It took me about 5 minutes to read it (if that) and I was ready to go.
I needed the following material:
Peg board (or some other type of very thin, sturdy board – masonite of some sort basically)
Foam
Fabric
Fabric Glue
And the following tools:
Measuring Tape
Stapler
Saw
Scissors
Box cutter knife
First I measured the space and drew a drawing of it with measurements in all 3 dimensions. Then Rebekah and I went on a shopping trip to find the material.
First stop was Home Depot where we found 4’x6′ peg board. We needed it cut since it wouldn’t fit in the car. We ended up getting 3 identical pieces in size, plus 3 smaller pieces. We brought them all home in case our first effort was a mess up. Patrick, Rebekah’s husband, was also needing pegboard for his tool area in the basement so it worked out great. We also got a stapler and the staples I thought would be long enough to go through the fabric and the pegboard effectively. We looked at foam at Home Depot but the pieces were too small and not of very high quality.
We then went to JoAnn’s fabric store in Fairfax. When I was looking up fabric stores on Google the reviews of Joann’s had been terrible for customer service but they were fantastic when we went there. The woman waiting on us explained why we should use a certain type of marine quality vinyl for the fabric. They also had a large piece of high quality foam that we purchased. They explained what spray on glue would be best as well.
Patrick and I worked on putting it together. First thing Patrick and I did was mark and cut the pegboard to the right size. We used a handheld jigsaw which was pretty easy. It was a bit nerve wracking getting the measurements right but I felt confident we had, plus we had 2 extra pieces in case we blew it. Always nice to have a back up!
We then put the pegboard on top of the foam and marked it. At the store the person cutting the foam for us had used an actual electric knife, like you use to carve a turkey at Thanksgiving. We didn’t have an electric knife so I used a box cutter knife. It wasn’t quite as smooth but it was sharp and did the job just fine.
We then put the pegboard and foam together and measured and cut the vinyl to fit. We were told by the woman at Joann’s that we needed at least 4 inches to overlap on the backside. The foam was 3″ thick so it was a total of 7″ larger on all sides than the foam/pegboard.
Before we put it all together I took a test piece of pegboard and vinyl and stapled the hell out of it to see who well it would work. I found out I REALLY needed to press down on the head of the stapler or else they just wouldn’t go in. I also folded the vinyl over a number of times to see how well it would staple in that thickness. I figured it out through practice and it worked fine.
We took the whole thing outside and Patrick sprayed each section with the glue as I held the fabric out. We then quickly folded it over and stapled it. We had to work fast since it was about 35º out and the glue was only suppose to be used at 60º or above. We tested the folds at the corners first before gluing and found we had a lot of extra material. We cut that all away before we sprayed and stapled.
And about an hour later we had our window bench done. It looked and felt great, just the right height and the right amount of cushion.
Here is Vivian trying it out for the first time, right before bedtime. The vinyl is durable and washable, something that was critical when you know a toddler is going to be sitting on the seat!
The next morning at breakfast she walked right over to it and tried to climb up. It’s going to be a perfect place for her to sit and eat and play. Even though it was a simple project, I think my grandfather, father and father-in-law would have all been proud!
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The Tile Patch
The other thing I did was patch some tile in the guest bathroom. It was crumbling right where I had to stand to use the sink so I went and got some patching material and fixed it. The small tiles had been coming up for a while and I wasn’t confident I would be able to find all of them so I bought one 6″x6″ tile to cover the main area. I wouldn’t have done that but they are hoping to completely gut and remodel the bathroom next year so a weird tile stuck in the middle of the bathroom is no big deal temporarily.
I was thinking of using a different quote today but when saw this one come up I liked the idea of recreating the image again this year, as I did in 2011 and 2009.
This is my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr. quote because, to me, it embodies the rock bottom truth behind it all. It doesn’t matter what boat you came on, what matters is that you are here now and you are an American (or want to be one). If you are, then you are in the same boat I am in. I want the boat to sail well and true and I believe you do too. I will work with you to make that happen and I hope you will work with me. I don’t care what your skin color is. I don’t care if your heritage is African or Albanian. I don’t care if you are a pauper or a princess. I just care that you want the best America possible, one that lives out the meaning of its creed. We all want that, right?
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Drawing by Marty Coleman
Quote By Martin Luther King, Jr.
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This drawing, and all my drawings, are for sale. Email me at marty@napkindad.com if you are interested.
Penelope was a Tour Guide of impeccable reputation. She knew everything there was to know about the art in the museum, including the current exhibition. She would explain in great detail why the artist made the choices she made and how one painting led to another and when she did what she did and who she was influenced by and where her art had been shown and what it all meant. People loved her and always gave great compliments about her to the staff of the museum as they left.
Chapter Two
She was also a thief. She only took when no one was looking, on those rainy, cold days when she would have just one person in her tour, or she was walking through the galleries and saw an easy mark. The museum was an old place without a lot of money so it hadn’t yet installed security cameras. She was happy about that. She had learned to pickpocket when on a vacation to Barcelona. She actually watched others doing it on La Rambla and simply imitated them again and again until she had it down. She mostly stole wallets. It was a fun challenge for her and she was quite prideful about her abilities.
Chapter Three
What she didn’t know however was that the current exhibition’s artwork held a secret. It was more modern than the museum. The artist, unbeknownst to anyone, had installed a camera into one of her sculptures in the exhibition. Her father had worked as a camera repairman and often told her he thought it would be fun to secretly put cameras in art to see how people reacted to the work. He got the idea when she was a child and he had brought her to Disneyland. They went into the haunted house and he kept wondering if the animatronic figures had cameras in their heads to catch the reactions from people. When she did a large sculpture of a head for the first time he asked if there was any way the head could contain a camera. She figured out a way to make room while he adapted a little spy video camera he had got into the repair shop that had never been picked up after being dropped off for repair.
Chapter Four
The artist, a woman named, Britt Smithson, was getting a kick out of watching the video of people looking at her artwork. In particular the reactions to her paintings of sloped-shouldered slackers with big penises. The men usually wouldn’t say much but the women would usually crack up or whisper to each other. The camera didn’t have audio and she really wished it did when she saw this. Some people hurried past without taking barely a glance. Some seemed to really like the work, spending time looking and reading the little handout.
When she saw the Tour Guide pickpocket the woman in front of the painting she was dumbstruck. Not because she knew Penelope, she didn’t. But just because it was so unexpected. She showed the tape to her father who was very excited. He and his daughter had caught a thief with their little collaboration!
Chapter Five
They spent a lot of time talking about what they should do. Should they simply show the tape to the director of the museum? Maybe to the police? Maybe go and talk to the Tour Guide and let her know what they saw? But if they did any of those things it would be found out that there was a camera in the sculpture and she didn’t want that to be known. In the end they decided to set up a ‘gotcha’ operation. They would have Britt’s sister, Goldy, be a solo museum visitor. She was an easily distracted, spacey person to begin with, so asking her to play that role wasn’t a big deal. Goldy was up for it. It would allow her to put some of her long ago acting lessons into action.
Goldy was to get Penelope as a Tour Guide, make sure her purse was wide open, slung behind her with her bright pink wallet easily accessible. The wallet would have a little tracking device in it that her father had bought at Radio Shack and had installed. Once it was stolen, Goldy would go to the front desk and complain, explain about the tracking device and bring out her iPhone with the tracking app on it. It would be easy enough to track it back to Penelope that way and she would be caught. It was a simple. easy plan that would still allow the camera in the sculpture to be kept secret.
Chapter Six
The plan seemed to go perfectly. Goldy played her role to perfection. Penelope stole the pink wallet just as they expected she would and Goldy went to the front desk when she ‘discovered’ the theft after she had finished the tour. The wallet’s signal could be seen on the iPhone and a security guard, a beefy, bearded guy named Gus, went with Goldy and her phone to find it. They had to go through almost the entire museum to where the signal was coming from and the security guard turned out to be quite a flirtatious character. In the five minutes it took to walk to the signal he had tried to finagled a date out of Goldy. This happened to her much more often than she cared to admit and she held off saying yes for the time being.
When they arrived at the back of the museum, they were led to a trashcan just inside the entrance to a restroom. The security guard took the plastic swinging part off the top and looked in. There, on top of a pile of wet paper towels was her pink wallet. The security guard reached in brought it out and asked her to check to see if anything was missing.
Chapter 7
Goldy suddenly realized she had done a very stupid thing. Her sister and father had told her to take anything really valuable out of her wallet but in the nervousness of doing this secret mission she had completely forgotten to do that. She had left all her credit cards, all her ID and all her money in the wallet. She was feeling like a complete idiot as she looked through the wallet. Relief came over her though when she discovered the only thing missing was her money. It had been more than she usually carries, probably around $120.00. But that wasn’t going to throw her into poverty or make her miss her rent payment. It was just going to mean not buying anything at the flea market later that day. She was pissed off at herself and relieved at the same time.
Gus said he would report the theft but chances are they would not be recovering any money. Goldy asked about fingerprints on the wallet. Gus said if they reported it to the police they would do that but if she just wanted to be done with it and not report it, then no, he wouldn’t be taking fingerprints. Goldy asked if he thought he could find out who did it. He said it wasn’t likely but he would look as people left, keep an eye out in general and who knows, something might turn up.
Chapter 8
Goldy decided to just cut her losses and not call the police. She knew that is what her dad and Britt would want. And she had no intention of telling them she had stupidly forgotten to take her money and credit cards out of the wallet. Gus gave her the number of the security office at the museum as well as his cell phone number. He also asked for hers in case he found something out. She had a feeling he wanted the number to continue to try to get a date. She wasn’t wholly against the idea and gave him her number.
Chapter 9
Goldy called Britt as soon as she was out of the museum and explained everything that happened, not including the loss of the money. Britt and their father were disappointed. They did have the tape showing Penelope stealing the wallet if they did want to go to the museum or the police, but it really didn’t seem to be worth it since as far as they knew nothing had been lost. They still did worry about Penelope and her continued thievery. They just weren’t sure what to do about it.
Chapter 10
Gus had been wondering for a while about the loss of wallets and other items in the museum. He had seen all the reports come in, most via telephone after someone would get home from the museum and realize something was missing. At first he thought it was a ring of pickpockets that had been around the city over the past few years. It had been reported on again and again but there hadn’t been any progress in catching anyone. But after a while Gus came to the realization that something else was going on. First, it was only women’s wallets that were reported stolen, never a man’s. The city-wide issue had mostly men being targeted. Second, it only happened on slow day, never busy ones. The city-wide pickpocketing was almost always at busy tourist destinations. Gus was starting to have an idea that this might be someone from inside the museum. He instructed the other security guards to watch everyone, including staff. And when possible, discreetly use their cell phones to take pictures of videos of suspicious situations.
Chapter 11
It was a little over a week later, during a spring downpour in the city, that one of the security guards, a young women named Jolene, decided to follow Penelope from a distance. It really was a reflection of Jolene being bored more than anything else, but she also had never liked Penelope nearly as much as everyone else. Penelope had treated her rudely a few times in the back offices, basically ignoring her when she said hello and turning her back on her while she was saying something once.
Jolene had her cell phone recording video from the very far side of an empty gallery when it happened. She was looking the other way, out into another room, as if she was paying no attention to Penelope and the lone women she was with. Penelope was explaining one of the paintings, pointing to the volcano in the background when she brought her hand up to the lady’s purse and quickly snatched her wallet out of it and put it in the museum bag she always carried with her so she could hand out information sheets.
Chapter 12
Jolene brought the video back to Gus who immediately went back with Jolene to the gallery and confronted Penelope. Later that day she was both fired and arrested. They found 5 sets of credit cards and 10 wallets in her apartment. She confessed and told the authorities she had thrown away all but the nicest wallets. She had sold most of the credit cards on the black market except for the ones she had stolen recently.
Gus called Goldy and told her Penelope had been caught. Penelope in turn called her sister and father and told them. They all took a deep sigh of relief over a resolution happening without the hidden camera being found out.
Epilogue
Gus also took one last chance to ask Goldy out. Goldy said yes. Gus and Goldy ended up dating for 2 years and getting married 3 years later. Penelope was sentenced to jail time, spending three months incarcerated. She was ordered to repay close to $10,000.00 but never did, since she was basically broke the rest of her life. Her life didn’t last long. She was hit by a taxi in a rainstorm two years later.
Britt never did another piece with a camera in it. Her father stuck to listening in on his Ham Radio to conversations in distant lands.
A few days ago I drew the first of my labels series. After I posted it on Facebook my sister took me to task for it only being about women, not men. I explained that 75% of my audience is women, that the person depicted was a woman and that 3 out of the 7 words used were gender neutral. I also said it was just a sample of what people might say, not a thorough compendium.
After thinking about what would be next in the label series this morning I started thinking about what a man might be called compared to a woman. I had the words ‘ugly whore’, ‘slut’, ‘goddess’, and ‘pretty’ as the four gender specific words in the first drawing. What might be the equivalent, or would there be an equivalent, for a man? I ended up using 2 of the same words exactly as before; ‘smart’ and ‘stupid’. I used ‘handsome’ instead of ‘pretty’ and I used ‘God’ instead of ‘Goddess’.
Asshole
I then added 3 words I think are directed in a derogatory way towards men most of the time. ‘Asshole’ can of course be used with any gender. I even have a female blogger friend who just this morning posted a photo of her foray to the fancy pizza restaurant with her young kids last night. She said the kids didn’t like the pizza because it had basil on it, thus she was an ‘asshole’. But that sort of proves the rule to me. It’s a greater rarity to call a woman an asshole than it is a man. It’s changing though, I admit. Not sure that is a good thing or not.
Faggot
The words ‘Womanizer’ and ‘faggot’ are safe bets to be used primarily towards men. I’ve been called both in my life. Being called ‘faggot’ as a teen really had no meaning for me and didn’t really affect me one way or the other. Primarily this was because I didn’t really know what it meant beyond someone being effeminate. I never worried about me being effeminate and I wasn’t really thinking about the sexual acts that would lead one to be called that when I was growing up. It wasn’t some sort of ‘oh, they know my secret’ type worry. It was just something guys said in putting each other down.
I feel for those among my friends who suffered through being called that and actually were questioning their sexuality and attraction, or who did know they were gay from an early age but weren’t at all sure it was right or ok. I know now, when gay rights and gay relationships are much more out in the open, it still is a hurtful word to have thrown at you. But back then, in the 60s and 70s, I can only imagine that to have that word and accusation thrown at you then had to be very hard to take. I am happy that it’s easier for so many now. I hope it becomes easier for more and more around the globe soon.
Womanizer
‘Womanizer’, on the other hand, I didn’t like being called, probably because it hit too close to home. There were times I did feel like a womanizer and so when I was called that word it hit a nerve.
I’ve had many people over the years ask why I primarily draw, photograph and befriend women more than men. I don’t have a problem being asked that and I am confident in my answer. My answer is: I like women more than men. Yes, because of the physical attraction. But also yes, because of the emotional availability. And yes, because of the communication. And yes, because of the mutual interests. Yes, for a lot of reasons.
But being a ‘womanizer’ is not the same as being a person who likes and loves women. Being a womanizer is being manipulative. It’s being predatory. It’s having an agenda. I have been all those things in the past and it took me way too long to see the damage it did to myself and others. Being called that, and worse, being that, wasn’t a good thing.
Your Nerve Point
What about you. What were you called that you never thought about answering because it wasn’t close to who you were? What were you called that actually did hit close to home and you have had to deal with inside yourself?
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote adapted from one by W. C. Fields, American comedian and actor, 1880 – 1946
What labels have you been given and how did that affect you?
Self-Esteem
I wrote a short story yesterday about a homeless woman and her daughter. The mother was confronted by a woman who judged her negatively without really knowing her. The daughter was upset about the judgment and her mother used the opportunity to explain that the judgment wasn’t based on the lady knowing them. She explained that she judged because she had some hurt in her that she was trying to get out and judging others was her way of doing that. And the mother was right, the judgment occurred because the woman was raised being judgmental. It was how she tried to be like her own mother. It was a convoluted attempt to get her approval, which she never really had as a child. The child was lucky to have a mother to help explain that their self-esteem came from them, not from some random person who did not know them. The link to that story is below.
Their Story
I am guessing those of you reading this have been called one of the words in the drawing above. Some are negative and some are positive, but all of them are fables, or stories. That doesn’t mean they may not have some truth in them. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. But at the most they are incomplete statements of who you are and at the least they are outright lies. Wherever they are in the arch of truth, the reason they are spoken has more to do with the person speaking than it has to do with you.
In other words, they are making up a story about you that fits their needs. It’s not a story about truth, it’s a story their need. Within that story may be some truths about you that you agree with. Maybe you think you are smart just like they do. Maybe you do think you are a slut just like they do. But that is just two stories having a similar character. It doesn’t make their story your story.
Your Story
When I do a photo shoot with a model for one of my art projects I will often ask the following question: What is your favorite facial feature on yourself? Many will answer in the following way: “Well, most people say it’s my… ‘type in facial feature here’. I, in response, will say, “I am not asking what others think is your best feature, I am asking you what feature is YOUR favorite.” That gets them thinking and they often, but not always, will change their answer. They might say, “I know no one else really pays any attention to it, but I love my forehead best because it reminds me of my dad.” or something like that. That, to me, illustrates the difference between the story you would tell about yourself and the story others may tell about you.
Question
What labels have you been given and how did that affect you?
