Happy Soul Food Friday!
This week… Try a little Tenderness
- Arties Remarks by Yours Truly …Time steals our youth fast enough. Why are we buying into and contributing to this forced acceleration? What if the opposite reality became the norm and you were only an adult-in-training for just a short time, and then rightly trained and equipped, your youthful attitude, zest for life, belief in the impossible, & focus on the positive were the longest season of your life cycle during your short time here on earth?
- 20+ Reasons Why Being A Nature Photographer Is The Best Job In The World…
- Enough: A Poem by Andrea Gibson
- The Values Revolution- Embedding Empathy & Equity More Centrally in how we Imagine Progress and Success
- Mission Fed Artwalk 2016 Preview
20 + Reasons Why Being A Nature Photographer Is The Best Job In The World…!
“Enough” by Andrea Gibson
Last night I painted a purple tree on my bedroom wall
I woke up this morning in a pile of leaves
The color of a million different faces
Thinking of that hand
That planted the seed
Of the family tree
That grew us all
And how each one of us
Will one day fall back to the ground
This morning
I was listening to my heart pound
Knowing with every single beat
That a thousand other hearts
Were falling asleep forever
On a day they never thought they would
And I know there are tribes of aborigines
That decide how and when they’ll die
After a hundred years or so
They walk into the desert alone
Offer up their breath
And within two minutes
Soar into a death
As beautiful as their life
And I was thinking I
Will probably never be enlightened enough
To decide how I want to die
So this morning
I decided how I want to live
What I want to give
What kind of song I want to sing
Now I’m no longer
Looking at my days like they’re a cup
Calling them half empty or half full
When they’ve always been enough
They’ll always be enough
To fill me up
If I stop thinking so much
And start drinking them up
Until I get so drunk and high on my days
I’ll be walking up to strangers and saying things like
“Hey, I know Jesus was born in a manger
But I woke at dawn today
To watch the earth’s horizon
Give birth to true rising sun of God
And I can’t stop singing hallelujah”
Can you believe we’re here?
Can you believe there are gods somewhere praying to us?
I want to be that nut on a bus
Who’s really a prophet
Telling everybody
“Smoking is bad
Stop it
You might be an opera singer some day
And how are you gonna hit the high notes?”
I wanna live like those high notes
That rise from the throats of old ladies
When they see little babies
Riding in shopping carts
I wanna start somebody’s heart like that
Taking ninety years back
So you’ll have sworn
You weren’t born
Until you saw me
Planting roses
In all the sidewalk cracks
So when you trip
You’ll fall in love
With someone you thought you hated
And now look at what that love has created
Look
There’s a sky
On her faded blue jeans
With a flock of birds
About to fly to my words
And my next line’s
Gonna rhyme with her eyes
And she’ll wink
And I’ll think I’m as beautiful as him
I wanna live my life
Like it’s a little league game
I don’t care if I win
Just wanna watch some little girl
Get her very first hit
Watch her father cheer so hard
He spills his beer
And decides to quit
I wanna split some woman’s
Tired eyes open
Wake her with her own sunrise
So she knows
There’s reason to be hoping
She’ll say
“There are stingers in my heart
But I’m sure that I’m a queen”
And that night
She’ll vow to swarm
Until every angry car horn
Is reborn a song
Of let there be light
Every angry war cry reborn
A song of let there be life
I wanna build the timid teenage boy
A microphone that will
Echo his rhymes
The same way
They echo in his shower
When he’s home alone
I wanna write poems
In the tone
Of your mother’s eyes
When she whispered your name
For the very first time
Poems that will make you go home
Pick up the phone
And call her
While I call mine to say
“You know those lines
On the kitchen wall
Where I grew
Taller and taller and taller
Put a couple more there won’t you?
Cause I’m growing up here”
No longer looking at my days
Like they’re a cup
Calling them enough
From now on
They’ll be overflowing
Since now I’m knowing
It’s up to me
To fill them up
Making the case for He-Art…
Arties “Live in Color” 2016 Remarks
What does it mean to live in color?
Why would individuals, businesses, whole communities want to support Art?
Eye, Ya Yai!
In the words of Marvin Gaye, “What’s Going On?”
Have we opened our eyes and looked around lately?
Because we are in mixed company, I will refrain from lighting the powder keg of politics or social justice
So let’s find a common denominator:
If you are like 99% of us, you are stressed.
Stress is the #1 epidemic in most of the world, costing us billions in both hard costs and human consequences.
We have traded false formulations of success (counterfeit correlation) for our happiness, wellbeing and fulfillment both as individuals and as a community.
It is almost as if we have forgotten what it means to be human. Have we really lost touch with our humanity? What is going on?
“Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure!”
Artists find their inspiration in this dynamic tension…
The Case for America’s Finest City:
We talk about creating the 21st Century Innovation Economy. Some are starting to call it the Impact Economy.
Today, let’s consider the Imagination Economy
Our imagination is a preview of coming attractions
What does your imagination hold for you and for our community?
What is YOUR craft?
“Creativity is as important as literacy and we should treat it with the same status” says Sir Ken Robinson
We want creativity, from ourselves, from our teams from our kids, yet most of the time we don’t create the conditions for it.
Anyway you look at it, convention is in dire need of an intervention! Bring in the He-artists…
It is time to Re-Imagine His-tory and Her-story
It is time to get real, find your smile, and rekindle our humanness perhaps by learning, if not from each other then from another species: the dolphins with some insights from bestselling author Dr. Shimi Kang.
We think we are the smartest creatures on the planet but I think it is the dolphins and here is why:
Let’s use POD as a way to capture their genius…
P: Play more. They play! Play is a prescription that has equal efficacy to antidepressants or other medicines, yet we don’t make time for play
What kind of play am I talking about?
Lego of old v. Lego of new (unstructured, open, free v. proscribed and formulated)
Here is the thought experiment:
If you were a Lego set, what is the picture on the cover of the box you are trying to craft and create?
Do the puzzle pieces in your box line up with the picture on the cover?
Are there any pieces missing?
Art creates the space for play to matter, & can answer these existential questions- as well if not better than science…
O: Others are important. Make connectedness count. We are social creatures. Loneliness is today’s smoking when it comes to health risks. Are you a pack a day isolate?
Enough me, me, me already- enough selfies.
How about WE? What happened to WE?
Art connects us to our most humane and universal essence.
D: Downtime matters. Our lives are way too fast-paced and just like elite athletes, for peak performance we need the oscillation of intense activity with periods of rest and stretching- you do too. Take more breaks, and experience more breakthroughs!
We say we are too busy for downtime. Busy is a false indicator of us doing work of importance, just as sleep deprivation is a lousy indicator or your amazing ambition. If you can’t make time for down time, what you are really saying is you can’t make time for creativity, what you are really saying is you can’t make time for be your best self!
So now let’s apply this to our kids…
Children learn what they live
Sadly, you are only a kid, for just a short time, and then relegated to adult status for the rest of your life. Yet instead of celebrating childhood, we lament that “youth is wasted on the young”, then do our best to steal it from them with developmentally inappropriate expectations, forcing them to grow up, catch-up, over-extend, over-schedule, all over-tired.
Play, Downtime, Creativity, Art. We’ve got no time for that.
No Child Left Behind, resulted in no child LEFT!
Time steals our youth fast enough. Why are we buying into and contributing to this forced acceleration? What if the opposite reality became the norm and you were only an adult-in-training for just a short time, and then rightly trained and equipped, your youthful attitude, zest for life, belief in the impossible, & focus on the positive were the longest season of your life cycle during your short time here on earth?
Time steals our youth fast enough. Why are we buying into and contributing to this forced acceleration? What if the opposite reality became the norm and you were only an adult-in-training for just a short time, and then rightly trained and equipped, your youthful attitude, zest for life, belief in the impossible, & focus on the positive were the longest season of your life cycle during your short time here on earth?
Kindness is NOT weakness. Busy-ness is not Fulfillment “Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure!”
My plea to you: Enliven your P.O.D. , live in color and find your craft
As this is Martin Luther King week, I have to end with some MLK quotes: “In the end we will remember not the words of our enemies but the silence of our friends!” Please don’t be silent about art- live loud, proud and in color!
You are brilliant, powerful, creative, limitless, and boundless Like Dolphins: Shoulder to shoulder, not face to face- we can change our world Take time through your craft to celebrate the moments no one will ever know, when you best self showed up!
As MLK said, “The time is always right to do what is right” Blessings….
The Values Revolution- Embedding Empathy & Equity More Centrally in how we Imagine Progress and Success
The Values Revolution: Embedding Empathy in the New Economy
2016: LIVE IN COLOR!
Presenting the 2016 Mission Federal ArtWalk Featured Artists, and ARTIE AWARD Honorees
Each year, Mission Federal ArtWalk spotlights a special group of artists. The eight Featured Artists for 2016 represent the diverse talents, mediums and genres exhibited at the annual festival. Congratulations to these amazingly talented and creative individuals!
Also in this issue, we present the individuals who were selected as the 2016 “ARTIE AWARD” honorees at a special celebration on January 19 at The Westgate Hotel.
For updated information on Mission Federal ArtWalk, please visit:
April 30 and May 1 – On the streets of Little Italy
2016 Mission Federal ArtWalk
Featured Artists
Dave Ness
San Diego
Photography
A former engineer and business professional, Dave Ness found his passion behind the camera by capturing the peace he found in nature and sharing it with others. Since 2007, Dave has participated in numerous art shows and his work has been featured in various galleries in California. He touts his ability to utilize camera techniques that capture an impressionistic representation of a scene giving his work its calming and healing effect on those who enjoy it.
Deanna Rae
Alta Loma
Sculpture
Deanna Rae is a sculpture artist whose inspiration derives from her years growing up on a working ranch where she cared for and trained young horses. She earned her degree in Equine Science and traveled to Spain in her last year where she had the opportunity to study some of the greatest artistic masters and immersed herself in the culture. Upon returning to the US, she continued to pursue her artistic interests and studied figurative drawing which translated into expressive movement in her sculpture.
Desarae Lee
Salt Lake City
Drawing, Pen & Ink
Known for her detailed cross-hatching pen and ink drawings, Desarae Lee was born and raised in the Rocky Mountains of Utah. Many of her pieces find the light in the darkness and the idea of walking between good and evil continues to affect her work today. While studying art education at Brigham Young University, Desarae began to experiment with many different art mediums but her exposure to very prominent illustrators introduced her to her true voice in pen and ink. She continues to explore themes of beauty in decay and light in the darkness while pushing her work to ever more complex depths.
Irina Negulescu
San Diego
Acrylic, Oil
Irina Negulescu was born in Romania and began secretly drawing on the walls behind her family’s furniture or the back covers of books since unlined paper was scarce and very expensive. Her art continued to take priority through her academic career where after high school she was accepted into a prestigious art school, Scoala Populara de Arta in her native city of Constanza graduating with honors. Irina immigrated to the US in 1989, where she continued her studies and became a citizen in 1994. Since then, her work has appeared locally and internationally on television shows like HGTV and in print in various magazines and newspapers. She attributes being raised during harsh years of Communism with her ability to capture the soul and essence of her subjects, especially children and the female figure.
Leslie Pierce
San Diego
Oil
http://www.artistlesliepierce.com/
Originally from New York, Leslie Pierce spent years of her childhood at the Natural History Museum where her father worked as a scientist. Her early exposure to museums and special exhibits influenced her choice to become an artist. She is motivated by contemporary culture and the rapid pace in which information and images are absorbed. Leslie relocated to San Diego in 2014 and has been expanding her series called “Code Defied”, which focuses on how this information hits our retinas and the different ways images can be reduced, re-assembled, translated and interpreted by thought. If something is left out of a story or an image, our brains automatically fill in the rest. The series includes paintings, video art and multi-media installations. In addition to being a working artist, she teaches painting and drawing classes.
Lynden Saint Victor
San Diego
Acrylic, Digital, Oil
With no formal art training, Lynden Saint Victor started to paint as a way to deal with a transitional time in his life in 2002. He considers himself more of an illustrator and a story teller where he can express his journey through life onto the canvas. He believes that expression through his art was his calling that took him years to accept. In 2003, the first formal presentation of his work resulted in a sold out show, media coverage, multiple gallery offers and a publishing contract. Lynden is also an internationally syndicated cartoonist under another name.
Sarah Stieber
Represented by Adelman Fine Art
San Diego
Acrylic, Mixed Media, Oil
Before graduating Cum Laude with a fine arts degree and a concentration in Psychology from Boston University, Sarah Stieber spent time living and painting in Venice and Florence, Italy, inspired by the Masters’ works that blanket the cities. Sarah’s artistic talent flourished at a young age, winning national art competitions as a child. Today, her contemporary style of electric realism is a spectacle of saturated colors, a kaleidoscope to her world of wishful seeing. Her work shines a brilliant light on daily life, depicting her subjects in a moment of overcoming adversity and achieving the mindfulness and playfulness that reality often corrodes. From her studio in San Diego, Sarah has created custom work for global brands such as Marriott International and Effen Vodka and her vibrant paintings are featured in art collections both nationally and internationally.
Theresa Kwong
San Mateo
Jewelry
Theresa Kwong started her professional career as an architect after receiving her Bachelor of Arts degree in Architecture from the University of California at Berkeley. She spent over twenty years creating 3-D objects on a macro scale, but a career shift into metalsmith allows her to continue creating 3-D objects – this time on a micro scale. Theresa had the opportunity to study under numerous masters at the Revere Academy of Jewelry Arts and is inspired by various organic forms like a blooming flower or seashell or tensile structures like the San Diego Convention Center.
2016 Mission Federal ArtWalk / ArtReach
ARTIE Award Honorees
L to R: Adam Moyer, Jennifer Borba Von Stauffenberg, Angela Carone, Kevin Hellman
The Artie Awards give recognition to some extraordinary individuals in San Diego, for their support of arts and culture in our city.
Presented by Mission Federal ArtWalk:
Alan Ziter has worked tirelessly to create a dynamic arts and culture district in San Diego. His vision and hard work for the past 13 years have made The Arts District at Liberty Station a home to some of the city’s most exciting visual and performing arts groups. Many of the artists you’ll see at the festival in April have their studios at Liberty Station. Alan has long been an activist in the arts in San Diego. Before NTC he directed the San Diego Performing Arts League and co-produced the memorable Bravo San Diego event for many years at The Westgate Hotel.
Angela Carone covers arts and culture for KPBS and is the author of Culture Lust, the station’s arts blog. She is known for her insightful and honest on-air and online reporting on arts and culture in the region. Her fresh and authentic way of covering the visual and performing arts has both informed and entertained us, while keeping arts and culture in the spotlight in San Diego.
Jenn Borba Von Stauffenberg is the president of Olive PR Solutions. As much as good public relations pros like to remain in the background, Jenn has more than earned this recognition not only for taking our festival public relations efforts to a new level, but also for supporting so many other visual arts programs in San Diego and nationally. She is truly passionate about visual art, and she has been investing in local artists for years by purchasing their works, holding art shows in her Little Italy office and more.
Kevin Hellman is the publisher of San Diego Citybeat. Each year, for both of our annual festivals, Kevin comes up with a brilliant lineup of musicians who volunteer their time to entertain festival attendees. Kevin has played this role for ArtWalk events since 2005. When Kevin calls, musicians listen! But this is just one of the many ways he shares his love of music. He is president of the San Diego Music Foundation and he works with numerous local events to help them with their musical lineup.
Presented by ArtReach:
Adam Moyer founded Knockaround, a local company centered around a sunglasses line that was simultaneously practical and stylish. In 2014, Adam invited ArtReach to partner with Knockaround to take a design exercise called Class Acts into local schools. The premise was to give students a basic overview of the design process for sunglasses, to allow each student to create their own design and to pick one student-designed pair to manufacture and sell. All proceeds go to participating schools and to ArtReach; over $30,000 so far. Adam personally invests time and enthusiasm in this program. He makes philanthropy seem effortless and fun, but also very intentional. We thank Adam for supporting visual arts education in San Diego.
Thanks this week go to Ken D, the Mission Fed Artwalk crew, James H, and Larry H.
Live your craft and Pay it forward!
Love,
Neville
“One should guard against preaching to young people success in the customary form
as the main aim in life.
The most important motive for work in school and in life is pleasure in work,
pleasure in its result and the knowledge of the value of the result to the community.”
–-Einstein
Happy Soul Food Friday! 