Just creating lists today and decided to make this one to share with you all. :)
1. (Oh and this is number one by a MILE!) After more than 50 years, there is finally going to be a female Doctor Who! Jody Whittaker is taking the role in 2018 and I could not be happier or more excited! I still love to watch "my Doctor", the 4th Doctor Tom Baker, and I can't imagine anyone topping him for me. Though Peter Capaldi came very close the last three seasons with his dour, sarcastic leanings and those wickedly, wild eyebrows.
Anyhoo, this is lonnnng overdue and I have held out hopes we'd see our first female actor in the Doctor's shoes since the role of the Master was given, in a stroke of GENIUS, to Michelle Gomez a few seasons back.
I hope Ms. Whittaker will capture a whole new audience and generation with the role and I cannot wait to see her create the persona and make the role all her own.
2. Darci Lynne - Ventriloquism has always fascinated and, as a small child, frightened me. . . it's always been there on my periphery as a somewhat mystical talent/ability. . . then someone sent me this link to 12 yr old Darci Lynne's audition for America's Got Talent: All I am saying is, whatever you may think of these types of talent shows or of the art of ventriloquism, it's something you'll never have seen done so well before and the final few minutes of the video are a tear inducing, feel good moment. :) You GO Darci!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paIYpech9pY
3. Levar Burton Reads Podcast - I love a well told short story and I love the actor Levar Burton. This new podcast has just a handful of episodes right now but I suspect it will be around as long as Levar wants to read to us. This week the newest edition was a story that I read last year and would have listed in my top 5 short stories of all time but, after hearing Levar read it, I'd say it's now my all time favorite short story. It's a tear jerker, so be warned. But it's just beautiful. . . it's episode 11, " The Paper Menagerie" by Ken Liu. It's the most recent episode and the link to his podcast is below. I'd also suggest episode 9 called, "1,000 Year-Old Ghosts", which I had never read, but which is now also in my top 5 of all time. (it's getting crowded in that top five these days!)
http://www.levarburtonpodcast.com
4. Comic creator Gail Simone received an Ink Pot award for her work in the comics industry at SDCC last month. Gail has done so much for inclusiveness in the comic industry, writing diverse characters and bringing very modern storylines to the page that no one else would have thought of or written nearly as well. She's worked on Wonder Woman, Red Sonja, Batgirl and a host of others. If you don't know Gail's story, she is a former hairdresser who is now one of the biggest names in writing comics and, if I can share a little secret with you, Gail used to cut MY hair back in the day some 20 years ago. lol And I am not surprised at all that she has reached the heights she has. . . her compassion, fierce heart and fiery wit all combine to make her a force. . . and she just gets better, and more outspoken, with time. Cheers Gail! :)
5. Back to School - It's that time of year . . . again. Just walking into the store the other day and seeing all the notebooks supplies etc in the front aisles gave me that same feeling I always got as a kid. I've said here before that I feel like September is the start of my year. A reset and check in that is, for me, far more effective than the New Year's tendency of a lot of people. Some of it is truly that something, namely Autumn's essence, is in the air! I am sure that some of it to do with all the school years of my youth. What I remember most was that, coming from a family who did not have a lot, it was the one time of year I could ask for art supplies, paper etc etc and NOT get that "look". lol So that feeling of having what seemed like endless notebooks, BLANK paper, new crayons, gel pens or markers. . . whatever was cool at the time. . . and other implements for drawing and daydreaming, the possibility of it all. . . I don't think I will ever outgrow that nostalgic reminder or the way it rises in me again this time of the year.
6. County Fairs - Also took in our county fair in the past week. There is not much that compares to a county fair in a rural area like this. From the animals (cows, pigs, goats, sheep, ducks, chickens and more rabbits than you could ever hope to see!) to the beautiful fabric art (quilts, weaving, knitting) to the master gardener's garden and the exhibit halls (baking, canning, cake decorating, flower displays etc) it's a great time. And I won't even get into the food - will they never stop coming up new with things to batter and deep fry? :) I settled for a pronto pup and pizza. Passing on the favorites of old like elephant ears, curly fries and funnel cakes. Also, we tend to go on day one as early as possible. I imagine that by day three and four the usually smiling and delightful folk who work every facet of the fairs must be at wits end by then. . .
OK, New work coming in a day or two but I wanted to share that all with you and I hope there are dozens of such things in YOUR world making you Smile! Please feel free to share some of them here with me!
Until the next. . .
nicolas
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label happiness. Show all posts
Wednesday, August 30, 2017
Sunday, July 10, 2016
The Landscape of Imagination
I mentioned that I had begun reading "The Natural World of Winnie the Pooh: A Walk thru the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood" by Kathryn Aalto
It's a wonderful peek into the world of Winnie the Pooh's creator, A.A. Milne and the landscape, childhood memories and characters (his own son, Christopher Robin, and his stuffed animals that became the characters) that bring to life the Pooh books we all know.
I want to share a passage with you and then, a realization it opened for me.
In recent years, there has been concern that the very nature of childhood has changed. People have begun questioning if there has already been a "last generation" to play outside. In "Last Child in the Woods", author Richard Louv writes about the modern disconnection between children and nature and the importance of providing children some autonomy in the natural world. "Whatever shape nature takes, it offers each child an older, larger world separate from parents. Nature can frighten a child too and this fright serves a purpose, too. In Nature a child finds freedom, fantasy and privacy, a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace."
When we are young, tramping through forests also leaves footprints on paths well into our adulthoods.
Throughout the writing of this book, for example, I heard laments from grandparents and parents about the diminishing range our children are now allowed to wander. Milne's childhood and his stories are touchstones of a paradise lost, of a bygone time that many - writers, psychologists, parents - believe is important in the development of a child. with these rising concerns over the nature of childhood itself, Milne's books offer a reminder about the importance of freedom in nature.
And that took me into thinking, as I so often do, about my own childhood.
I often say I grew up in a city, which I did. A large industrial eastern US steel town. One decaying under the weight of the loss of those mills and industry. And many of my childhood experiences and the process of "becoming" are tied to very city-like adventures. Riding streetcars by myself, exploring downtown and all the people and activity of a city. But I immediately recognized something that I now feel so eternally grateful for. That in the midst of the urban life, I was fortunate to have woods, dense tree covered hillsides, (under which old mines lay) on either side of the house that I spent much of my childhood in. Entire days were spent exploring, making tree-houses (even if many of them were just a board slung through the branches to sit upon), following birds and squirrels, digging, climbing and creating worlds apart from the ones of my family and their adulthood. Time to be whatever and whoever I dreamed of being.
Much of what I write about in the short stories I am working on came from those childhood experiences and the imagination that the time. A mix of city experiences like "pitching nickels" with school friends against buildings and walls downtown. And also the woodland adventures scouting from treetops and crossing imaginary bogs and quicksand pits. Hiding from trolls under large spruce trees. . .
But to choose, one or the other? It's not even a question. The woods were far far more important to my future self.
The freedom of nature.
A separate peace.
And there was much in the world around me to necessitate that peace, that break from the slip-slide into adulthood.
Even today, my conversations with my own mother, who never had such a childhood and who I used to think of as being so overprotective but who, in comparison to many parents today would have been seen as very permissive, tend to be fraught with her lamenting the daily decline of the world around her. The news blaring from her tv all day long. And me, with no tv at all, no social media feeds, no newspapers. . . still the dreamer and believer, and every day seeking a deeper connection to that childhood me instead of that adult "other".
Maybe part of the problem is that it's the adults who forget and who become so lost in the very ideal of their own adulthood and it's many pitfalls and traps, that childhood seems eons away. Like a distant dream nearly unattainable now.
Or maybe more and more adults are coming from a childhood that lacks that time in nature, that freedom, that ability to develop those skills of nature's teaching?
I am saddened by the way kids become more screen bound and less independently imaginative with each passing year. I see it in the small town I live in, one surrounded with woods, blackberry patches, out of the places all bordering an expansive estuary/coastline/bay. The computers at the library are always in use. . . while many, many great and inspiring books, graphic novels and natural resources are not.
People defend this modern age as just the changing of the times and I do not disagree. Change is a given. . . but that simplified view asks us to accept that all change is, or can be, good, and that all change has an equal exchange within it of what is lost and gained.
It does not.
Losing the natural world, the freedom to explore, the ability to develop self-taught skills and stir imagination from within. . . there is no substitution for those.
All this is to say I never gave those woods, that space I had growing up, it's due. I took it for granted as just being part of the landscape but see now, thru the eyes of Pooh's creator, how very important it truly was. My own little "Hundred Acre Wood".
I see how it just being there for me each and every day amid the grind, noise and weight of the city, and of impending adulthood, was more important than I could have ever known.
Thank you for reading,
nicolas
It's a wonderful peek into the world of Winnie the Pooh's creator, A.A. Milne and the landscape, childhood memories and characters (his own son, Christopher Robin, and his stuffed animals that became the characters) that bring to life the Pooh books we all know.
I want to share a passage with you and then, a realization it opened for me.
In recent years, there has been concern that the very nature of childhood has changed. People have begun questioning if there has already been a "last generation" to play outside. In "Last Child in the Woods", author Richard Louv writes about the modern disconnection between children and nature and the importance of providing children some autonomy in the natural world. "Whatever shape nature takes, it offers each child an older, larger world separate from parents. Nature can frighten a child too and this fright serves a purpose, too. In Nature a child finds freedom, fantasy and privacy, a place distant from the adult world, a separate peace."
When we are young, tramping through forests also leaves footprints on paths well into our adulthoods.
Throughout the writing of this book, for example, I heard laments from grandparents and parents about the diminishing range our children are now allowed to wander. Milne's childhood and his stories are touchstones of a paradise lost, of a bygone time that many - writers, psychologists, parents - believe is important in the development of a child. with these rising concerns over the nature of childhood itself, Milne's books offer a reminder about the importance of freedom in nature.
And that took me into thinking, as I so often do, about my own childhood.
I often say I grew up in a city, which I did. A large industrial eastern US steel town. One decaying under the weight of the loss of those mills and industry. And many of my childhood experiences and the process of "becoming" are tied to very city-like adventures. Riding streetcars by myself, exploring downtown and all the people and activity of a city. But I immediately recognized something that I now feel so eternally grateful for. That in the midst of the urban life, I was fortunate to have woods, dense tree covered hillsides, (under which old mines lay) on either side of the house that I spent much of my childhood in. Entire days were spent exploring, making tree-houses (even if many of them were just a board slung through the branches to sit upon), following birds and squirrels, digging, climbing and creating worlds apart from the ones of my family and their adulthood. Time to be whatever and whoever I dreamed of being.
Much of what I write about in the short stories I am working on came from those childhood experiences and the imagination that the time. A mix of city experiences like "pitching nickels" with school friends against buildings and walls downtown. And also the woodland adventures scouting from treetops and crossing imaginary bogs and quicksand pits. Hiding from trolls under large spruce trees. . .
But to choose, one or the other? It's not even a question. The woods were far far more important to my future self.
The freedom of nature.
A separate peace.
And there was much in the world around me to necessitate that peace, that break from the slip-slide into adulthood.
Even today, my conversations with my own mother, who never had such a childhood and who I used to think of as being so overprotective but who, in comparison to many parents today would have been seen as very permissive, tend to be fraught with her lamenting the daily decline of the world around her. The news blaring from her tv all day long. And me, with no tv at all, no social media feeds, no newspapers. . . still the dreamer and believer, and every day seeking a deeper connection to that childhood me instead of that adult "other".
Maybe part of the problem is that it's the adults who forget and who become so lost in the very ideal of their own adulthood and it's many pitfalls and traps, that childhood seems eons away. Like a distant dream nearly unattainable now.
Or maybe more and more adults are coming from a childhood that lacks that time in nature, that freedom, that ability to develop those skills of nature's teaching?
I am saddened by the way kids become more screen bound and less independently imaginative with each passing year. I see it in the small town I live in, one surrounded with woods, blackberry patches, out of the places all bordering an expansive estuary/coastline/bay. The computers at the library are always in use. . . while many, many great and inspiring books, graphic novels and natural resources are not.
People defend this modern age as just the changing of the times and I do not disagree. Change is a given. . . but that simplified view asks us to accept that all change is, or can be, good, and that all change has an equal exchange within it of what is lost and gained.
It does not.
Losing the natural world, the freedom to explore, the ability to develop self-taught skills and stir imagination from within. . . there is no substitution for those.
All this is to say I never gave those woods, that space I had growing up, it's due. I took it for granted as just being part of the landscape but see now, thru the eyes of Pooh's creator, how very important it truly was. My own little "Hundred Acre Wood".
I see how it just being there for me each and every day amid the grind, noise and weight of the city, and of impending adulthood, was more important than I could have ever known.
Thank you for reading,
nicolas
 |
| I imagined building little cottages like this in my own childhood woods/forest many times. |
Thursday, November 6, 2014
Returning Home
So, not even a week into November and the holiday rush is here. . . I am inundated with custom orders already and it's still pretty early. . . . to make things seem even more off track this comes on the heels of a week long trip back to my childhood home.
This always stirs so many things inside.
I am, of course, thrilled to see my mother who, in her 80's is not going to be traveling across the country to see me any time soon. And, those of you who have read my blog probably know that I had a magical and very inspired childhood. . . so that should be a wonderful thing to return to, right?
Well, not always.
Here's the thing. . . there is, undoubtedly, a very strong pull to the landscape of my youth but, every time I return, I am reminded how lucky I was to have traveled and explored the larger world before settling into myself in my 20's. I imagine this is a fact of growing up in any strong cultural area but, when I return, more than the nostalgia of my childhood, there is the reminding of the angst of my teen years and the fact that often haunts me is this.
If I had not "gotten out" all those years ago, I would likely never have found my way to the work or the life I have now. So for all of the wonder of immersion back into those fields of imagined wonder, I struggle with the painful reminders of how limiting life there might have been if I had stayed. While most kids in their late teens and early 20's in that neighborhood were partying on the slag heaps of the abandoned steel mills or sitting on the train trestle, feet dangling 50 feet above the river, with liquor bottle in hand, I was working double shifts at an Italian restaurant saving money like mad for my first trip to Europe. A trip that changed my view on life forever. A trip that set me aside from that neighborhood and left me on the outside looking in forever more.
For the few friends of that childhood who I visit with when I return, when we see each other it is like no time has passed. They exclaim time and again "nicolas, you never change" and that, when I am home, they FEEL as if they are 12 again too. Funny to me because I am the one who really changed. .. . yet those times, when I return, are still as they were and not muddied with another 30 years of adulthood in the same landscape. Perhaps that is why, when I go home, I am able to pick up those days right where I left them?
I imagine there WILL come a day when I will be too old to throw that Nerf football around or chase wiffle balls and fireflies. When an excursion through the woods will be best left to manicured paths and level ground. When the lure of those earliest creations and indulgences in imagination will fade to the background. . . but it's hard to fathom now.
The hardest part of those trips back is that, in the time I have alone there, I find myself craving to also return to the games of my days spent in solitude. Which were many and more than those spent with friends.
In my youth, I and my imagination were always best on our own. That's changed too of course, and for the better, but in those days I looked forward to nothing more than the hours undisturbed to dive into the creations and games and worlds that lived only in my own head.
And those, as an adult, in that landscape, are harder to recapture. Maybe it's adult self consciousness or just a reverence for something I know can never be relived?
So I return to the here and now and the myriad of new worlds I have created and share with like souls out there. That I share here with you.
It's every bit as good as those days and, for the adult in me, it's better for the soul.
But the child is there too, neve changing, never far away.
Smiling and dreaming
At home
Eternally and blessedly unchanged
and always
young. . .
This always stirs so many things inside.
I am, of course, thrilled to see my mother who, in her 80's is not going to be traveling across the country to see me any time soon. And, those of you who have read my blog probably know that I had a magical and very inspired childhood. . . so that should be a wonderful thing to return to, right?
Well, not always.
Here's the thing. . . there is, undoubtedly, a very strong pull to the landscape of my youth but, every time I return, I am reminded how lucky I was to have traveled and explored the larger world before settling into myself in my 20's. I imagine this is a fact of growing up in any strong cultural area but, when I return, more than the nostalgia of my childhood, there is the reminding of the angst of my teen years and the fact that often haunts me is this.
If I had not "gotten out" all those years ago, I would likely never have found my way to the work or the life I have now. So for all of the wonder of immersion back into those fields of imagined wonder, I struggle with the painful reminders of how limiting life there might have been if I had stayed. While most kids in their late teens and early 20's in that neighborhood were partying on the slag heaps of the abandoned steel mills or sitting on the train trestle, feet dangling 50 feet above the river, with liquor bottle in hand, I was working double shifts at an Italian restaurant saving money like mad for my first trip to Europe. A trip that changed my view on life forever. A trip that set me aside from that neighborhood and left me on the outside looking in forever more.
For the few friends of that childhood who I visit with when I return, when we see each other it is like no time has passed. They exclaim time and again "nicolas, you never change" and that, when I am home, they FEEL as if they are 12 again too. Funny to me because I am the one who really changed. .. . yet those times, when I return, are still as they were and not muddied with another 30 years of adulthood in the same landscape. Perhaps that is why, when I go home, I am able to pick up those days right where I left them?
I imagine there WILL come a day when I will be too old to throw that Nerf football around or chase wiffle balls and fireflies. When an excursion through the woods will be best left to manicured paths and level ground. When the lure of those earliest creations and indulgences in imagination will fade to the background. . . but it's hard to fathom now.
The hardest part of those trips back is that, in the time I have alone there, I find myself craving to also return to the games of my days spent in solitude. Which were many and more than those spent with friends.
In my youth, I and my imagination were always best on our own. That's changed too of course, and for the better, but in those days I looked forward to nothing more than the hours undisturbed to dive into the creations and games and worlds that lived only in my own head.
And those, as an adult, in that landscape, are harder to recapture. Maybe it's adult self consciousness or just a reverence for something I know can never be relived?
So I return to the here and now and the myriad of new worlds I have created and share with like souls out there. That I share here with you.
It's every bit as good as those days and, for the adult in me, it's better for the soul.
But the child is there too, neve changing, never far away.
Smiling and dreaming
At home
Eternally and blessedly unchanged
and always
young. . .
Tuesday, September 9, 2014
The Bubble Factory
These days I spend zero time working on new visual art. But the two or three times a moth I sell a print from my first Etsy shop, I am often reminded of the passion I once felt for creating it. I have written about it before. . . the visual art was my last great attempt to create "adult art" with adult meaning and life perspectives but, while it provided a wonderful creative outlet for my energy, and I am proud of everything I ever did that is listed, I look at it all now like diary entries really.
This morning I awoke to the sale of a print of this piece below called "The Bubble Factory"
I am instantly reminded of a few things.
Created in 2011, this was one of the last original pieces I made while living in the city of Portland. That industrial building was right outside our apartment's art studio room.
Over the two years living there my feelings about that building and view went from grateful as, at first, there was the beauty of the total lack of people. . . only birds came to visit that roof and our windows. . . eventually to feeling the ugliness of the utter lack of closeness to untouched nature. While it was better than staring at traffic or the masses, it still lacked soul. It was during that mood/time I created this image hoping to put a little magic back into the view and in city life.
And it was during that time I felt the entire shift inside to wanting magic all around me. . . all the time. . . whichever way I looked. And that feeling led us to live here
Ok, we do NOT live with this view out our window, our place in down there in the midst of that tiny town just across from the bay and marina. But the magic of this place. . . and seeing sights like these that follow, every day, were exactly what my soul needed. :)
nicolas
magic. . . indeed.
This morning I awoke to the sale of a print of this piece below called "The Bubble Factory"
Created in 2011, this was one of the last original pieces I made while living in the city of Portland. That industrial building was right outside our apartment's art studio room.
Over the two years living there my feelings about that building and view went from grateful as, at first, there was the beauty of the total lack of people. . . only birds came to visit that roof and our windows. . . eventually to feeling the ugliness of the utter lack of closeness to untouched nature. While it was better than staring at traffic or the masses, it still lacked soul. It was during that mood/time I created this image hoping to put a little magic back into the view and in city life.
And it was during that time I felt the entire shift inside to wanting magic all around me. . . all the time. . . whichever way I looked. And that feeling led us to live here
nicolas
Friday, September 5, 2014
The Stories We Tell - Part I
Anyone who knows my work knows that it is inherently connected to the stories I create that go with each piece. I will hold a finished item back from the shops for weeks if I do not have the story that goes with it ready for the listing as well.
Many times when I offer the advice "Create a story for your items" to sellers and artists about their work it is met with, "Oh, I am not a storyteller" or 'What sort of story could a piece of jewelry or an abstract painting have to tell?"
For these folks I like to give them an exercise to try that I remember from writing workshops past. Head out to any thrift or Goodwill store and pick out a simple little doodad from the knickknack shelf and take it home. Sit there for 15 minutes and write a story about it. Where it came from, who owned it, where it has been. That's it. No editing, just write!
Inevitably this is far easier for people than writing a story about their own work and creations. It almost always ends up with a fairly well imagined tale about the piece they just bought. Histories, legacies, treasures of the heart etc etc. Wonderful stuff!
The truth is, most people tell stories ALL the time. Every tale we tell and retell from our lives is really no different than the ones we may create about our offerings in the art world. With the exception that the ones we invent can be anything. . . there are no boundaries and no limits. I think, often, it's THAT which keeps people from writing at all.
So much of what we tell about ourselves is truly a form of fiction anyway. . . or at least a skewed bent of reality. One side of a story. And they do tend to change with time as we all know. . .
Which is all fine too.
But the main reason I believe in using that power of storytelling for my work is this:
I believe the stories we tell about our lives. . . about ourselves. . . becomes the single most important factor in how happy we will be in life. The spin we put on things. The pieces we chose to carry forward. The power of storytelling is immense.
Those who dwell in the negative, the painful, the betrayal and losses and the common-among-us-all poor choices are doomed to relive them again and again with each retelling.
It's how we frame the stories that decides how we experience them in the retelling.
Maybe this is just another spin on my world of paracosms? Maybe it's a "cheat" that I leave out entire sections of my life. . . that I have reinvented who I am again and again and why I carry almost nothing and no one forward from one incarnation to the next.
The past is a world of ghosts. . and as I recall from my childhood, ghosts almost never have good intentions. . . .
( Part II tomorow :)
Many times when I offer the advice "Create a story for your items" to sellers and artists about their work it is met with, "Oh, I am not a storyteller" or 'What sort of story could a piece of jewelry or an abstract painting have to tell?"
For these folks I like to give them an exercise to try that I remember from writing workshops past. Head out to any thrift or Goodwill store and pick out a simple little doodad from the knickknack shelf and take it home. Sit there for 15 minutes and write a story about it. Where it came from, who owned it, where it has been. That's it. No editing, just write!
Inevitably this is far easier for people than writing a story about their own work and creations. It almost always ends up with a fairly well imagined tale about the piece they just bought. Histories, legacies, treasures of the heart etc etc. Wonderful stuff!
The truth is, most people tell stories ALL the time. Every tale we tell and retell from our lives is really no different than the ones we may create about our offerings in the art world. With the exception that the ones we invent can be anything. . . there are no boundaries and no limits. I think, often, it's THAT which keeps people from writing at all.
So much of what we tell about ourselves is truly a form of fiction anyway. . . or at least a skewed bent of reality. One side of a story. And they do tend to change with time as we all know. . .
Which is all fine too.
But the main reason I believe in using that power of storytelling for my work is this:
I believe the stories we tell about our lives. . . about ourselves. . . becomes the single most important factor in how happy we will be in life. The spin we put on things. The pieces we chose to carry forward. The power of storytelling is immense.
Those who dwell in the negative, the painful, the betrayal and losses and the common-among-us-all poor choices are doomed to relive them again and again with each retelling.
It's how we frame the stories that decides how we experience them in the retelling.
Maybe this is just another spin on my world of paracosms? Maybe it's a "cheat" that I leave out entire sections of my life. . . that I have reinvented who I am again and again and why I carry almost nothing and no one forward from one incarnation to the next.
The past is a world of ghosts. . and as I recall from my childhood, ghosts almost never have good intentions. . . .
( Part II tomorow :)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)