by Marty Coleman | Sep 5, 2013 | Darien - 2013, Travel Napkins |
The Flight Home
I spent 9 days on the east coast, going to my HS reunion, visiting my sister, an artist friend and my daughter Rebekah and my first Grandbaby, Vivian. But alas, I eventually had to head back to Tulsa. I was excited to see Linda again, it had been a long trip, but I was very sad to say goodbye to Rebekah and Vin. I spent the hours on my flight home drawing.
The Executive
I got into a conversation with the woman across the aisle as we both sat down but I was on the window seat and when my row partner sat on the aisle, the conversation pretty much stopped. Later the woman on the aisle was trying to sleep and wasn’t having a very easy time of it so I traded places with her so she could lean her head against the interior of the plane. By that time the woman across the aisle, Catherine, was reading so I picked up my sketchbook and started to draw her. I captured her face first, then her hands as quickly as I could since I know they were the most likely part of her to change at any moment, which they did. She brought out her laptop and at that point I started drawing the background.
The entire cabin was dark and the light from her screen lit her face in a beautiful way. I wish I had taken a photo so I could remember the lighting pattern now. We started talking again after a while and I found out she was coming to Tulsa for just one day for work. She was an executive with a large software developer and had a series of meetings starting early the next morning. She was tired after a while and laid her head back to sleep.
This is the drawing before I painted and colored it.
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The Flight Attendant
After my aisle mate started napping I noticed the flight attendant sitting in the jump seat straight ahead. She was in the dark, with one single overhead light above her, and some light from the galley on her left. She was looking right at me so I mouthed the words, ‘I am drawing you.’ and she responded with a smile and a thumbs up.
She sat still for almost the entire time I was drawing. There wasn’t anything going on in the cabin, almost everyone was asleep or at least had their eyes closed. She could have easily changed her arm position, crossed her legs differently or adjusted her clothing or hair, but she did none of that. She just sat still and looked straight ahead. Once in a while she would look at me and I would mouth the words for wherever I was at, ‘I am drawing your legs now.’ or “I finished your dress.” I knew she couldn’t hear me since I was actually making no audible sound, but it was obvious she knew what it was I was saying. She sat that way for probably 20-25 minutes, long enough for me to get a thorough line drawing done.
She had to explain her stillness to her fellow flight attendant at one point, and the other flight attendant came over to see how the drawing was progressing. She thought it looked pretty good and gave Jessica the thumbs up. That made her smile. It was very cool and otherworldly to do the drawing almost in complete darkness, almost like a special bond formed between us as a result. I showed her the line drawing after and she was very happy with it. She introduced herself as Jess and we exchanged contact info so I could get the finished drawing to her. Here is the line drawing before I painted and colored it.
And with that we landed, the lights came up and I was able to be greeted by my lovely wife at the airport. It was a wonderful journey meeting old friends, new family, and strangers who became friends.
I love traveling into the past and finding the present.
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 21, 2013 | Darien - 2013 |
An Early Morning Run
Reunions are all about visiting the past while in the present. One of my most anticipated moments of the weekend was not about seeing my old friends. It was about seeing my old town. Yes, I was going to be driving around and seeing it. But what really excited me was to do a long run around it. I am training for a marathon and knew I would need at least a 10 mile run that weekend. So why not spend some time in advance planning out a route that would take me by some of the spots I wanted to see, even some spots I had never seen before. I planned it to start from my hotel using the Dailymile.com site where I record my runs. If I planned it right I would go by some spots I had never seen and some familiar places and get back to the hotel in time to greet my BFF from back in the day, who was coming down from Rhode Island on Sunday morning for the last day of the reunion.
At 7:15 I was out the door and ready to run. Beautiful morning air, the sun just up over the trees and I was happy.
One of the best things about running in a new place is not what you expect to see, but the joy in seeing the unexpected. My first ‘I have to stop and take a picture’ moment was a flock of wild turkeys meandering around a riding ring. I wanted to sneak up further on them to get a better shot but time and the road called me on.
I turned the corner from the turkeys and immediately found this 1850s tombstone in an even older graveyard. One thing that sets New England apart from much of the more westerly parts of the US is how OLD it is. Yes, we have graves this old in Oklahoma and California, but we don’t have little neighborhood cemeteries that are about 3 house lots wide (if that) being such an integral part of the present as you find here.
And then there is this scene. Can you ask for a more picturesque example of a Connecticut waterway? This is Five Mile River and somewhere along it (I don’t remember where) we had our boat docked for a number of summers. I ran along this little lane, stopping beside two local folk who were walking their dog (and also taking pictures). We talked for a few moments as we took some shots, me telling them of my fond memories for the area and being at the reunion. Then they waved me adieu and off I went.
But not before stopping quickly to take a shot of one of the beautiful homes looking out on the scene I showed you above.
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Julie
When I stopped to take the shots above I noticed a woman running up upon me. I started running as she passed and we struck up a conversation. If you know me, there is nothing I love more than meeting new people in unexpected ways and connecting to them. I love meeting people in airports, resorts, restaurants, stores, and on the road. It doesn’t matter where. The odder the place and circumstances, the better.
And so it was with this woman, who I found out was named Julie. As we ran side by side we told each other our running history. She had run in the Nike Women’s Marathon in San Francisco a few years back with her sister. I asked her if she was in training for another race. She chuckled and said her reason for running now did not have such an exalted goal attached to it, “I am a stay-at-home mom of one & a half year old twins. I run to escape!” I understand what she meant.
We ended up running together for 4 miles. She knew the area and so I basically forgot my map route and just let her lead the way as we talked. I told her why I was in Darien for the weekend and she told me she had also gone to the High School, having graduated in 1999. That meant she was just a year older than my oldest daughter, Rebekah, whom I was going to be visiting a few days hence. Rebekah had just given birth to my first grandchild so Julie and her were in almost the exact same place in life. Knowing she had gone to DHS in the late 90s I asked her if my friend, Bruce Hall (see part 1) had been her principal at the time. He had been and she was happy to hear he was doing well. She didn’t know his mother Helene, but she enjoyed hearing me tell her about what a great woman she is.
I, of course, wanted to take her picture as a memento of our serendipitous run together. She wasn’t too hot on the idea due to her being in her ‘I just woke up and ran out the door’ look. But I loved that look, she was energized and alive and beautiful in the best sort of way, and she granted me permission to take the pic.
Funny coda to my Julie story. A few days after I returned I got an email from Bruce saying he had taken his dogs for a walk and had run into an old student of his out for a walk with her twins. She greeted him and told him about having a run with some guy who happened to know him. A small world indeed.
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Church and Girls
My parents didn’t go to church but my best friend Jim’s family did. I started going to the local Congregational Church with them in about 1969 or so. I wasn’t religious (I’m still not) but I love ideas and conversation and church is always a good place for both. Of course at my age then (about 14-15) I loved girls more than ideas or conversation. And Jim and I discovered two girls at the church that we liked a LOT!
Meridith became Jim’s girlfriend and Frances became mine. They were from the other Jr. High, Mather, and thus were ‘exotic’. We were cool to have girlfriends from the other school. We also incurred the wrath of some of the boys from that school, but we didn’t care. Anyway, the boys who hated us then became great friends in High School.
And Meridith and Frances? Well, Jim and Meridith dated quite a while, well into High School. Frances and I didn’t last all that long as BF/GF but we remained great friends throughout High School and beyond. They both turned out to be wonderful woman whom Jim and I are still connected to in the best of ways, as dear, dear friends.
Meridith, now and then
Meridith didn’t make the reunion, but I visited her in Seattle in 2011 and got this shot of her.
Frances, now and then
Frances was at the reunion and I got this shot of her at the Sunday picnic
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Home
The last stop on my running tour was my old home. I had already driven by it but I took a bit of time to really look at it this time. They had changed some things, it has an odd stucco siding on it, something that looks great on a Spanish or California style house, but looks very odd on a simple New England style box.
As much as the house was interesting to see, bringing back memories of sneaking out late at night (or as Frances told me at the reunion, the time Meridith and her snuck out and drove over in their pajamas to hang out with us), it really was the entire street that brought back the sweetest memories. Memories of walking our beautiful Samoyed dog named Vodka (we had alcohol troubles in our family, can you tell?) down the street and back. Memories of the woman who lived behind us and the cat she ran over that I tried to save as it bit my finger in a jaw death grip before it passed away.
Memories of various cars in the driveway, including a Volkswagon Campmobile with a fold down bed. Parents, it might not be the wisest idea to give your teenage son access to such a car. I’m just sayin’…
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Jim
I made my way back to the hotel, figuring I would be back right about the time Jim arrived from Rhode Island. And sure enough, as I ran up to the hotel entrance, Jim was walking up at the same time. He had even passed me on the main drag and figured it was me finishing my run.
Jim and I met when his mother forced him out of his house one afternoon, telling him, ‘Go meet the new kid down the street and don’t come back expecting dinner until you do.’ He walked down Shady Acres Lane and did. We were best of friends from then on. It was a great relationship. His family and home were a refuge for me during some trying family times. His parents were accepting and loving and seemed happy to have me around, even as I tried their patience with some of the mishaps I brought with me.
I am not sure what my house and family offered him, but I did have an older sister who, along with her bevy of best friends, were the hottest girls of the class 2 years before us. For a teenage boy, that’s a pretty good reason to hang around a friend’s house.
We went on spring break road trips together to Florida (during high school no less), spent summer vacations together now and then in Montauk, Long Island and Fire Island off of Long Island. We went on winter skiing adventures to Vermont, me learning nothing about proper skiing form and hitting trees left and right, him learning to avoid the trees with a bit more technique and by watching me. We, along with his older brother Michael, learned to fly airplanes together, yes real airplanes. We were members of the Sky Life Flying Club starting at age 13 and learned to fly little Cessna 150s and 172s. We took Transcendental Meditation together, smoked pot together, learned to drink together. We learned about girls together.
In 1979 we got married within 2 weeks of each other, both attending each other’s wedding. Within short order we had 3 kids each, not too far apart. I am the first to have a grandbaby but I suspect he will have one relatively soon and catch up with me.
It’s great to have an awesome friend like Jim throughout the years.
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You can read and see more of my trip to the East Coast here:
The Napkin Grandbaby
Rebekah and Vivian go to the Laboratory
The Napkin Dad meets the Napkin Mom
The Past and the Present – Reunion, Part 1
The Past and the Present – A Morning Run
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And finally…
I am trying to land a speaking gig at the 2014 SXSW Interactive Conference. I am in their ‘PanelPicker’ process. Meaning I proposed a photography workshop and now people vote on it. There are THOUSANDS of proposals so I need to rally my Napkin Kin to vote for me. So, would you be able to vote for my photography proposal for SXSW? Here is the link.
http://panelpicker.sxsw.com/vote/24603
You do have to register so that sucks but it’s painless at least. If you aren’t comfortable registering, perhaps you can amplify the link on your social media channels. That would be very cool, either way. THANK YOU!
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 15, 2013 | Darien - 2013, Family History |
The Present Moment
Friday night, Aug 2nd, 2013, Linda and I went to the opening of ‘Oh, Tulsa!’ Biennial, a group exhibition featuring work that both celebrates and critiques the city of Tulsa. I had 2 pieces included in it. The first is a photo of me in front of my collage of Tulsa’s KJRH Channel 2 new reporter and anchor, Marla Carter. The second is of Michelle Linn from Fox23, also in Tulsa. These are a part of an ongoing series I have been doing since 2009 called ‘IN Public/Private’ of reporters and anchors I meet in my media travels.
The Tulsa Evening Anchor – Visual Poem #8
Marla and Michelle both were extraordinarily willing to follow my vision for the shoots. They came with NO makeup on (not the usual situation for a TV personality) and let me photograph them that way. They then both put on their makeup as if there were getting ready for the TV lights. Michelle actually came out of the Philbrook Museum bathroom with half her face made up and half still natural just because she thought it looked cool. My kind of model! We did a whole series of shots like that that were great fun.
The Tulsa Morning Anchor – Visual Poem #6
I ended up submitting these two collages for the show since they focused on the personality of Tulsa via those who report about Tulsa to the rest of us.
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The Red Eye to the Past
I wanted to attend the opening but my High School reunion was starting that same night, 1,500 miles away in Darien, Connecticut. I spent my teenage years there, after being raised on the beaches of Southern California. It was a culture shock to say the least, but I adjusted (and they adjusted to me) and I had a fantastic Jr. High and High School experience in that town.
I choose to go to the first hour of the exhibition opening, catch a late flight to Denver then take the red eye flight to NYC, rent a car, get some shut eye, then be there for the majority of the weekend festivities. It was going to mean a likely all nighter, but you only live once so why not.
So, with about 3 (maybe) hours sleep, I did this first thing in the morning. I got a couple hits, scored a couple runs, ran down and slid all over the outfield trying to catch fly balls. The softball game was a fun way to break the ice and play instead of having to immediately go into ‘This is who I am now, who are you?’ mode in conversations.
I had on my Texas Rangers hat. Caitlin, my Texas girl, would be proud that I was representing!
Actually that was after a tour of the new high school. It was a new school, not resembling anything close to our old school, except that it was on the same land, so while it was fun to walk around and shoot the breeze with people, it didn’t really bring back memories as it would have if it was the old school. Still, it was nice seeing our town was continuing to grow and move forward.
The Younger Woman
After the game I knew I needed to get in a nap before the big soiree later that night. But before I did I had a few people I needed to see. First I stopped by the house of a dear friend from High School, Julie Kudenholdt. She was a few years behind me. We dated briefly my senior year but alas, as usual, we lost touch over the decades. But Facebook brought a lot of old friends back together, and she was one of them.
It turns out her beautiful home backs up onto the woods behind our first house in Darien. You can even see our house through the woods during the winter. Julie and her husband Steve were incredibly gracious when I visited, especially considering they had a pool party happening for their daughter, Julie’s mother was just leaving after celebrating her birthday, and Julie’s sister was visiting as well. But no matter; they welcomed me, fed me and we had a great time talking about then and now. Julie is reviving a dormant acting career, being featured in a number of indie projects in NYC. It was great to meet her family and see how she had still retained that beautiful sense of joy, wonder and curiosity about others that I had admired 40 years earlier.
One of the best aspects of the visit was not how the older adults welcomed me, but how the plethora of 21 year olds in bathing suits did. Their daughters and friends were confident, gracious, well-mannered and polished. They spoke well and looked me in the eye. It was a nice reminder of one of the best aspects of my upbringing in that town. We learned how to be confident and act like adults among adults. I appreciate it a great deal now that I look back on it years later.
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The Artist
I then went to visit one of our family’s dearest friends. We moved to Darien in the first place because this family lived here. My mother had met Helene Hall in a grocery store in Hagarstown, Maryland back in the 1950s. They had become friends due to their humor and sass, which they both had in abundance. Helene was an artist and a former show girl in NYC. My mother was a debutante from a wealthy family who nevertheless made merciless fun of the pretentions of that world. But she was refined in her appreciation of art and connected to Helene from then on.
When our family was going to make the move to the east coast, my mother naturally wanted to live near Helene, who had moved to Darien with her husband Floyd and son Bruce, and so we did as well.
Helene was instrumental in my art education and inclination. Starting at age 13 she was always encouraging me in practical ways to create and understand art. One of her most enduring lessons came when she took me into New York City to the Museum of Modern Art. We were there to see a Picasso sculpture exhibition. But they were made out of cardboard, and paper, and junk. They were not made out of what sculpture was suppose to be made out of. And, as one often hears from people who don’t understand art, I said to her, “I could do that!” while looking at one of these supposedly easy to create pieces. She stopped me right then and said, “Ok, then do it. I challenge you to get whatever material you want, and make a sculpture. Then explain to me why you made it and what it’s all about.” I accepted the challenge, went home, bought some material, mostly thick gauge metal wire and proceeded to start making a sculpture. I would show her.
But I didn’t show her. She showed me. I never did finish the piece. It hung around in our basement work bench until I finally threw it away, just a bunch of junk taking up space. It was that practical lesson that taught me in real life what she had told me at the museum in response to my ignorant dismissal of Picasso’s work. She said, “What matters isn’t IF you can make it. What matters is if you DO make it.” And I realized then that art derives from an idea, from a passion, from an understanding of something and from a desire to understand something even deeper. it isn’t primarily about material or technique. It’s primarily driven by the idea. I have never forgotten that and I always try to keep the idea, no matter who fractured it is, close to the essence of my images.
Helene Hall and her son, Bruce Hall
Helene Hall and Me
Here is Helene today, 96 years old, nearing the end but still filled with life and love. I made sure I told her how important she had been to my art life. Her son, Bruce, laughed when I did and said, “You know what’s funny? My best friend says almost the exact same thing to Helene each and every time he comes to visit.” Helene knew how to inspire and push art out into the world in her own work and in her friendships with others. I am trying to emulate that same spirit in my life and art as well.
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You can read and see more of my trip to the East Coast here:
The Napkin Grandbaby
Rebekah and Vivian go to the Laboratory
The Napkin Dad meets the Napkin Mom
The Past and the Present – Reunion, Part 1
The Past and the Present – A Morning Run
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40.832555-73.699921
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 12, 2013 | Darien - 2013, Family History |
We went on an outing to debut Vivian to Rebekah’s colleagues. She is a Ph.D. candidate in neuroscience at George Mason University so we were visiting her lab.
First we went out for lunch (a big deal with a 3 week old) and all went fine as she slept through the meal in the cozy little wrap.
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This is Vivian and Beka being inspired by ancient Greeks and Romans.
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This is what Rebekah does. She studies the brain. Her poster on the right is some simplistic study titled, ‘Regional differences in intrinsic excitability and dendritic morphology of medium spiny neurons during stages of habit learning’. Such a slacker.
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Here is the lab’s ‘stimulation station’. A LOT of coffee, tea and snacks propel the world of neuroscience!
Stimulation Station
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Before getting down to business Beka gets a baby gift from her colleague, Sarah. Beka was at the lab in part to hand off some experiments and projects to Sarah, who is in the same program but with a year or so more to go. They are all VERY committed to their studies, it’s great to see my daughter be such a strong and dedicated woman in the world of science.
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And finally Beka gets down to work. With Vivian taking a nap on the desktop. I think the direct connection to the neuroscience desktop will make the neurons in her brain grow fast and furious, don’t you?
Beka and Baby Head
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You can read and see more of my trip to the East Coast here:
The Napkin Grandbaby
Rebekah and Vivian go to the Laboratory
The Napkin Dad meets the Napkin Mom
The Past and the Present – Reunion, Part 1
The Past and the Present – A Morning Run
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 7, 2013 | Darien - 2013, Family History |
Here she is, the bridge to the future, Vivian Isabel Evans, my first grandchild.
I got to meet her yesterday for the first time at age 3 weeks. What a sweetheart she is, all flailing arms and unexpected facial expressions.
I see some napkins about teeny weenie babies in the future!
She unfortunately lives in Virginia, pretty far away from us in Oklahoma. But we will figure that part out. Expect travel posts!
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You can read and see more of my trip to the East Coast here:
The Napkin Grandbaby
Rebekah and Vivian go to the Laboratory
The Napkin Dad meets the Napkin Mom
The Past and the Present – Reunion, Part 1
The Past and the Present – A Morning Run
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38.821384-77.220699
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by Marty Coleman | Aug 1, 2013 | Darien - 2013, Your ID please! - 2013 |
The High School Reunion
I am going to my 40th High School Reunion this weekend in Darien, Connecticut. Most of us are past the age of trying to impress everyone with how much we have accomplished. It’s not like the 10th where we want to have already graduated from college and grad school. It’s not like the 20th where we want to show we have a family, a career, etc. It’s not like the 30th where we want to show we are aging well and have a nice home. It’s the 40th, when most of us aren’t still climbing a corporate ladder, we are just making sure we can climb any ladder. When we are likely fussing over grandkids, not kids. When we are as likely to be helping our adult kids deal with a divorce as getting a divorce ourselves. When we are wanting to give away things more than gather things.
The Friends
The number one thing I am expecting to hear over the weekend are these words, “You haven’t changed a bit!” Of course, it’s not going to be true. Then again it will be true. My best friend will still be a joking goofball, but also an open-minded, insightful and caring friend, as he was when I first met him at age 12. My 9th grade girlfriend will still be flirty and fun. She will also be confident, witty, soft-hearted and happy, just as she was when I met her at age 14. Many others will be who they were, only older. I expect some will have changed quite a bit. Someone who was a driven corporate type will have chucked it all to be a late blooming hippy chick. Another who was a nerd will have become a suave, debonaire man of the world.
Who We Are
But what I hope most of all is, no matter who a person was or who they became, that they wake up and go into the reunion content in knowing who they are now. Confident that who they are is ok. That we, all their companions of so long ago, would not be coming to this reunion if we didn’t want to know them for who they really are. We don’t need to hide, we don’t need to pretend to be someone we are not. We are among people who love us, who are looking forward to seeing us and hugging us and celebrating life-long friendships with us. No judgment, no whispering gossip, just kind and good thoughts for our friends. It might not have been who we were in High School, but it’s who we are now, and that’s what counts, right?
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Me circa 1973, Senior Year of High School
See, this proves I haven’t changed at all, uh huh!
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Drawing and commentary by Marty Coleman
Quote by Cormac McCarthy, 1933 – not dead yet, Pulitzer Prize winning American author
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