I drew this 9 years ago. I was thinking about my wife Linda when I drew it and wrote the commentary. I am still thinking about her and her happiness this Valentine’s Week.
Yes, compatibility matters and mutual interests matter and attraction matters.
But nothing matters like wanting your partner’s happiness.
Nothing brings joy like realizing that what brings your partner happiness is something within your grasp to give.
Back when I was single (pre-2006) I used to go to Barnes & Noble regularly to read and draw. I don’t remember anything about this woman now except that she was intensely writing, oblivious to her surroundings. 16 years later I unexpectedly received a large collection of colored pencils so I went back to this drawing I had always loved and finished it.
‘Cafe View’ Tulsa, OK, Marker on Paper, 2017-2018
Once a month Linda takes care of babies in the nursery of our church instead of attending the service. Often I will sit in the cafe on those days instead of in the service and draw. These two men were trying to keep cool by coming indoors on a very hot July morning. I don’t often have the opportunity to do a true city view with large buildings close up so after I had drawn the men I focused on that.
‘The Song Made Them Cry’ San Francisco, CA, Marker on Paper, 2018 – 2019
I was in the Bay Area to run the Oakland Marathon and was attending my daughter Chelsea’s cafe concert in the Mission District of San Francisco the evening before the race. I saw these two women in rapt attention to a particular song and took advantage of the moment to draw them. They both were actually crying.
‘The Grey Day’ Tulsa, OK., Marker on Paper, 2019
I was at a Starbucks waiting for my car to be repaired and I noticed a very striking woman dressed in shades of grey. She was in high contrast, with dark eyes, lips, hair and nails set off against the palest of pale skin and paper. I did the line drawing quickly and used my color imagination later to create the feeling I had looking at her.
Here is a partial list of the things that might enslave you or me (if you think of others, feel free to let me know in the comments).
Alcohol / Drugs
Insecurity
Depression / Anxiety
Phone / Social Media
Change
The scale
Rules / Society standards
Perfection
Control
Shopping
Work
Guilt
Sex / Porn
Expectations
Responsibilities
Sugar
I have personally have dealt with or still deal with at least 5 on this list and if I include my family and close friends then I have dealt indirectly with almost every single one to some degree. I expect if you are old enough you have too.
The Hard Part
Here is the hard part. Knowing we are enslaved isn’t enough. If we are more interested in overcoming than polishing then we must ask and seek the answer to this question:
Why do we polish our chains?
Here’s why we need to ask this question. Saying you hate something about yourself or your situation is only looking at half the issue. The other question we have to ask is:
What do we gain from it?
Because knowing what we gain from it is key to figuring out how to let it go and pick up something else that isn’t as destructive.
What are your answers?
Drawing and Commentary @ 2019 Marty Coleman | napkindad.com
Quote by Marcel Mariën, 1920-1993, Belgian Surrealist
Ten years ago today I started what is now ‘The Napkin’. My first post on the website introduced my readers to why. The original post ends with events of 2009. Since then ‘The Napkin’ has been seen and read all around the world and as a result I have gained many true and wonderful friends from my home town all the way to the most distant of lands. Something I will forever treasure.
The Napkin Dad Daily began as a series of drawings and quotes on napkins that I put in my daughters’ lunches during their middle and high school years, most every day from 1998 -2004.
I started doing the napkins while I was unemployed and making their lunches for school. I did 3 a day, one for each daughter. After many months I felt sort of depressed because, as funny as it sounds, it was the my main creative outlet, the only artwork I was doing at the time, and they were all being thrown away every day. ‘Oh well’ I said, and went about doing them until the end of the year.
My wife at the time was not happy in the marriage (we later divorced) and took the girls to California to visit her family in the summer, and I was not invited. I was home alone on Father’s day when the girls called to tell me they had hid their presents for me around the house. I walked around the house following their hints and found my oldest’s and my youngest’s presents.
My middle daughter directed me to a bottom drawer somewhere and there I found a napkin she had drawn for me …
and below it…there were all the napkins from the entire year! She had saved every one and given them back to me for Father’s Day. It truly was the best present I ever got, I cried when I found them. She really didn’t, and couldn’t, understand how much it meant to me to have her do that, and to have them still in existence. I continued to draw the napkins for 4 more years, almost every day, until my youngest graduated from High School.
In 2005 I started scanning them little by little and posting them to my flickr.com site, which I had set up for my photographic work but had been posting drawings to as well. The napkins got a great response and I started to consider ways I could get them out to a larger audience. In 2008 I started the blog you see here, the Napkin Dad Daily, and started posting a napkin a day. Eventually I added commentary below some of the napkins, in response to conversations that were going on in the comments, or on flickr.
In November of 2008 I was enthusiastic over the exciting presidential campaign and glad that Obama had won. I went looking through my napkin collection to see if I could find one that would be reflective of my feelings the morning after the election. I could not and so decided to draw a new napkin, the first in almost 4 years at that point. I posted the napkin on my blog and on flickr and had an incredible response. Hundreds of hits and comments came in, as they did on many other images people posted that day.
A few weeks later I got an email from flickr stating that Time Magazine was interested in one of my ‘photos’ for inclusion in an upcoming issue. They said if I was interested to contact Time for further information, which I did. I found out they were interested in using that napkin drawing in their ‘Person of the Year’ issue about the President-elect Barack Obama.
When the issue came out the local media in Tulsa took notice and I started to do some print and TV interviews. In anticipation of that I made my first self-published book, a t-shirt with the Obama napkin on it, and a series of coffee mugs. You can see those at my website. A number of companies and individuals saw the various segments and articles and as a result drawing, web design and graphic design work has come my way.
A local gallery & coffee house expressed interest in having a show of the napkins. In May of 2009 I opened the show, title ‘Absorbent Ideas’.
To keep up to date with the napkin story subscribe to The Napkin Dad Daily. you will get a napkin a day AND find out when anything new and exciting happens.
