Ok, she wasn’t actually sitting on the phone. Well, ok maybe she was sitting on A phone, I don’t really know. But she wasn’t sitting on the phone she was talking on. She was talking on that phone. It would be weird if she had another phone with her that she was sitting on, wouldn’t it?
Epilogue
She was off the phone (the one in her hand, not the possible one she may or may not have been sitting on) but still sitting there when I had to leave. I showed her the drawing I did. I think she thought I was weird. Which I might be.
Here is part 3 of my video series on doing my napkin drawings. This segment starts with the line drawing now complete and I am starting to color and shading.
These were all originally Periscope videos. Periscope is live video from your mobile device with chat interaction. In other words, you talk on your video live and people watching can text to you and the texts will scroll up the screen.
You can find me at @thenapkindad. It’s owned by Twitter and is available on iOS and Android.
When I am done these videos will eventually be on their own ‘video’ page.
I am old enough to have seen the original Mad Max when it had its US debut back in the early 1980s. It was a crazy adventure thriller, basically one long car chase, with a lot of death and injuries. It was set in a dystopian future.
Fast forward 35 years and a new Mad Max is released. It is also a crazy adventure thriller, basically one long car chase, with a lot of death and injuries. It is also set in a dystopian future. I wasn’t all that excited about seeing it until I read comments online about the public reaction to it. It turns out there were some men pissed off because, while it does have Max in it, and he plays a big role, the main protagonists are a group of women escaping from captivity. This made me want to see the movie. I like seeing strong women overcoming harsh situations and thought that would be a good twist in the story.
After an opening scene showing the capture of Max, the movie turns its attention to Furiosa, played by Charlize Theron. She is leaving the Citadel, the enclave of the tribe, in a huge tractor-trailer. She is driving it to another enclave across open desert. She is a hard ass truck driver with short-cropped hair, black makeup covering the top half of her face. She has a large group of vehicles going along with her for protection. Mid-way through the trip across the desert she veers off course. She convinces those escorting her that there has been a legitimate change of orders.
Max meanwhile has escaped and is following the same route. He eventually engages with the escorting vehicles, who have realized the truck driven by Furiosa is going rogue. Mayhem ensues as you might expect, with a three-way battle between the escort vehicles, the truck and Max. Eventually Max is left unconscious near where the truck has escaped, now temporarily safe from their pursuers.
This is the scene Max finds when he awakens.
Along with Furiosa are 5 young women. They have been hiding in the truck and Furiosa has planned all along to help them escape. From what, we aren’t sure exactly. Later we find out they are the 5 wives of the evil leader of the tribe. One is pregnant.
They are all supermodel thin and minimally dressed and this is ok in the scheme of the movie. They were pampered captives, coddled and protected, not forced to do anything physically demanding or harsh so it makes sense that at the beginning they act that way. Unable to do much but be scared. They try to help but aren’t of much use. Furiosa is the only warrior.
Fast forward to the middle of the movie. While Furiosa and Max have been fighting non-stop the five women have been looking worried and scared. They are minimally involved with the fighting. They have helped a bit in tending to some wounds and fixing some things on the truck. They have loaded a gun or two. What they haven’t done is evolve and develop. This in spite of the fact that along the way they have met up with a tribe of older women who are fighters and warriors. Do they learn from them and take their place as they fall in the fight? No, they don’t.
Fast forward to the end of the movie and, spoiler alert, good has triumphed. And the 5 women? They are basically the same women we saw at the beginning of the movie. Why is that a problem? Because they and their truck were under attack for the past 2+ hours of the movie and they didn’t transform into warriors, into mechanics, into drivers, into intellectual leaders. Do they learn from the older women and take their place as they fall in the fight? No, they don’t. Do they learn from Furiosa, Max or Nux, an unlikely hero who joins their ranks? No, I don’t think they do.
Max and Furiosa don’t develop either. But in some ways they don’t have to since they are already where they need to be given the plot of the movie. Actually there is only one person in this movie who does evolve and develop and that is Nux, the character who starts out as a villain and becomes a protector and hero for the women.
One might ask, so what? Why can’t some not end up being warriors? That is true, and if one or two of them didn’t that would be ok. But when none of the five make any progress in becoming warriors and war is the only thing happening in the movie, then a great opportunity is wasted.
And that’s why, in the end, I was disappointed in the movie.
In part 1, I gave a tour of my studio and explained how I pick out a quote to use in my drawings.
Today’s video shows me choosing the quote and thinking through it’s placement on the page and then starting in on drawing the main character in the scene.
Periscope
By the way, These videos were originally broadcast live on the Periscope app. That is why they are in a vertical format. If you would like to follow me on Periscope you can find me at @thenapkindad
I have recently started to use a new app on my ipad called Periscope. It’s live video with chat interaction. People watch you live and they can text messages, questions, etc. Those messages scroll up the screen as the video plays. You can then save those videos and post them wherever you want; Youtube, Facebook, etc.
I decided to do a Napkin Dad Show, showing my studio and me drawing a napkin. I did the show in several parts for a few reasons; first, the videos take up a lot of memory and take time to upload if they are too long so breaking them up is easier. And second, showing the entire process is boring. It’s just like in cooking demonstrations. They show you bits and pieces and then show you the finished product, which they had made prior to the filming. It’s kind of like that with doing art.
Here’s my first in the series. It’s about 5 minutes long.
The Napkin Dad Show – How I Do My Drawings, Part 1
Last month I entered the Tuaca Napkin Art contest. I found out after submitting the napkin drawing that the contest had been extended another month. I took the time to think up another napkin for the contest and here it is. I used one of their sayings, “Moderation is an Art” to create the theme, which is that drinking is great fun and a wonderful social activity. But it’s great and fun in moderation, not in overdoing it.
I Periscoped with a TV Newsperson the other day (see the end of the post for an explanation of Periscope).
She was in a cab after a long day of work and play. Her name is Sara Haines and she is a Lifestyle and Pop News Anchor for Good Morning America on ABC. It’s a good fit for her because she is chirpy, funny and a energized ball of laughs and smiles. She had been Periscoping during commercials and then later at a party. But now she was done for the day and on her way home.
Understanding Kim
I and others were watching her now in a more relaxed, contemplative mood, reflecting on things based on questions we were asking. Someone asked her if she liked the Kardashians. The person asking may have been expecting a typical, ‘I hate them, they are terrible’ type of response, I don’t know. But that is not what they got. Sara said she is intrigued and fascinated by them, especially Kim Kardashian. She said she tries to imagine what she would do if she was raised like her, looked like her, lived her life, had her money. What choices would she make and how different would they be from the choices Kim does makes? In other words, she doesn’t judge or shame Kim, she empathizes with her. And that means she can simply enjoy her for who she is and try to understand her.
Empathy Covers Shame
So far the 21st century is the century of public shaming and judgment. But what Sara shows in her attitude is that happiness and joy comes from empathy and understanding of others, not judgment and shaming. It’s a lesson we all need to learn again and again, that when we are tempted to judge, especially in the public arena when we truly don’t know the person, it’s best to step back and try to empathize, to understand what it is they are feeling and reacting to in life. That is when we will grow and learn.
Hope for Humanity
I like Sara from what I seen of her on TV, but she went to the top of my ‘I have hope for humanity’ list when I was able to hear her talk about her way of seeing the world and the people in it. She’s also now at the top of my ‘What TV person would you most want to have lunch with’ list. I think the conversation would be fantastic.
Periscope – Periscope is a live video broadcast with texting interaction app from Twitter. It’s available on the iOS and will be available on Android soon.
I loved my mom. She was wonderful and flawed at the same time, like most moms. I’ve written posts about her in years past and will put the link at the bottom of this post for you to read if you would like.
But today I am also thinking about my other mothers. They were the women who also helped raise me. They didn’t help raise me in the ‘I went to live with them’ sense. They helped raise me in the ‘they took time to love me and nurture me’ sense.
Aunt Betty (left) and my Mom, Lee Coleman
Aunt Betty
Aunt Betty wasn’t my aunt. And her husband, Uncle Frank, wasn’t my uncle. I didn’t realize this until I was probably 10 years old or so. That’s when I figured out we called them that because they were as close as relatives to us, not actual relatives. What they actually were were my God Parents.
But in real life Aunt Betty was my mother’s best friend while we lived in California. They were the Lucy and Ethel combo, funny by themselves but hilarious when together. From the time of my birth until we moved away when I was 12 Betty treated us (my older sister and I) like her own kids, and my mom treated her kids as her own as well. That included watching over us, keeping us in line and feeding us among other things. It included letting us have complete freedom within their house. Their house, high overlooking the Del Mar racetrack and airport was, and still is, the best, most fantastic house I’ve ever ‘lived’ in. It was definitely the golden age of free range parenting and we ranged wide and free around both homes. I wouldn’t change a thing about my young life and she’s a big reason why.
Libby
When we lived in Maryland briefly during my first few years we had a housekeeper come in once in a while. I don’t remember Libby from those years. Years later we had moved back to California and when my mother had a late pregnancy and my younger sister was born Libby, who had also moved to California, actually came to live with us for many weeks to help out. While my mother took care of Jackie, Libby took care of the house and my sister and me.
We had a nice house but it wasn’t big enough for Libby to have her own room. My room was actually a big playroom downstairs, big enough that Libby became my roommate for those weeks. It was totally awesome.
What I remember about Libby really is pretty fuzzy but I remember how much she loved me. I also remember how she silently championed me, the younger underdog, in my battles with my older sister. She loved Nancy as well and didn’t take sides, but she was always letting me know that it wouldn’t always be that she could beat me up, or it wouldn’t always be that she would be the boss of me. I held on to those promises for dear life during those years.
One of the most profound and devastating moments of my life, the first real eye opener into the wider world I ever got, was the day we went to Libby’s house. I had never seen it and I just assumed, as most kids would, that she probably lived in a house like ours. I was wrong. I remember driving up and seeing what in my mind was a completely dilapidated shack. Worn wood, crooked steps, mud. I really truly was shocked. I remember thinking we needed desperately to bring Libby back to live with us, that we just couldn’t let her live in that type of place. I had no idea about poverty or race or inequality until that moment. I was 9 years old.
Libby taught me so much but most of all she told me that no matter the issues of race, poverty or inequality, you still could be loving, supportive and happy. I also always remembered how she gave me a hope for the future. Of course, in my case, my hope for the future as simply to be able to wrestle my big sister to the ground, but she knew that and gave me the hope that was appropriate for who I was. That was a big gift.
Helene
Helene was another friend of my mothers. She had met my mother in line at a grocery store decades before in Maryland when we had lived there for a brief time. We moved to Connecticut when I was 12 and we moved to the same town she lived in by then, Darien, Connecticut. Helene was not a typical Darienite. She was bawdy and irreverent and funny. She had a witheringly sharp tongue for pretension and snobbishness that could rear it’s ugly head too often in Darien. My mother was the same way.
What made her an important ‘other’ mother to me, and what really set her apart was her creativity and her desire, no – her demand, that one pay attention to creativity in their own life. It was a godsend for me as an artistic teenager to have someone like that pay attention to me.
Floyd and Helene Hall (left) and my parents.
Her home was a reflection of all that as well. It was messy and cluttered in the best artistic way. She had sculptures here and photos there. A painting leaning against a wall, a clay head in the inca style being worked on in her studio. Trinkets and books and everything else inhabiting that space just screamed art, creativity and freedom.
She challenged me as an artist. I remember taking a trip to New York City with her to go to a Picasso Sculpture Exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art. When I told her the pieces looked like anyone could do them she said one of the single most important and profound things any one has ever said to me about being an artist. She said, “It Doesn’t matter if you CAN do it. It matters if you DO do it.” It took me years to figure out what that meant, but when I did it clarified so much about art that it really broke me through to art maturity in my mind.
She also was witness to my family falling apart. She saw my mother descend into alcoholism and she was the first person I called when I found my mother unconscious on the stairs, suffering from what we would later find out was a cerebral hemorrhage. It was not an easy time and she was there to help out.
Ginny Moore
My best friend during my teenage years was a guy named Jim Moore. I can thank his mother for our becoming friends. She saw that we had moved in down the street and within a day or two she kicked Jim out of the house and told him to go down the street to meet the new kid and not go come back until he had. So he did and we became pretty fast friends from then on.
Ginny gladly welcomed me in to her home, always making me feel welcomed and loved. They took me on vacations (and we took Jim on some as well). They suffered through me being the rabble rousing teen that I was, including several instances where I broke, ruined, wrecked or otherwise caused mayhem to descend onto various possessions of theirs.
I was sort of the Eddie Haskell (A 60s TV show, ‘Leave it to Beaver’ reference for those not old enough to know) to the Moore Family. Nice but always tending to get Jim and myself into some sort of adventure. It wasn’t all me of course. Jim was pretty good at finding adventure himself. What Ginny saw was the importance of our friendship and bond and allowed all the wild things to transpire as part of that bonding. I am grateful for that!
The Moore Family (Ginny, bottom right)
When I moved away after my senior year of high school but wanted to come back and live in Darien the next summer, they graciously allowed me to stay the entire summer in their house. It didn’t occur to me until much later what a incredible gift that was.
Vivian Johnson
I’ve written often over the years about the incredible man, Dwight Johnson, who was the father of my first wife, Kathy. I don’t talk as often about her mother, Vivian, but she was incredibly important in helping me move into adulthood and being a husband and parent.
Vivian and Rebekah
We had a good relationship, one that included a lot of patience on her part, watching this young ‘bad boy’ marry her daughter after only about 9 months of dating. We were a lot alike in many ways. We were the two most competitive people in the family, often going head to head in legendary Scrabble battles at the family cabin. She was feisty but also very focused on being positive and nice. She could say sharp things but chose not to most of the time. She gritted her teeth and smiled when she probably wanted to hit me, or at least yell at me.
She was supportive, kind and understanding as she watched her daughter and I build a life for our family, slowly and with a number of missteps on my part. She didn’t always like me but she always encouraged and supported me in spite of that. That taught me a good lesson about what it means to be a parent and parent-in-law.
It Takes a Village
None of us were raised in a vacuum. I am so grateful for all the women I mentioned above (and others I didn’t mention) who made up my village of nurturers, caretakers, friends, and visionaries. They helped me so much, I could never repay it so all I (or any of us) can really do is pay it forward as best I can.
Who are your ‘other mothers’ and how did they help you?
