She's so artsy...

I was recently at an art show where the artist had painted some very interesting and vibrant images. She painted busy images of cows wearing hats, and dogs in dresses and such. It was all colorful and visually appealing but not my taste of art. I found the images a little disturbing. I found myself grinning despite myself, not because the art gave me a silly or whimsical feeling, but because the artist looked very much like one of her subjects. She had on a huge Silly hat and what appeared to be her entire collection of jewelry, though I doubt it. Through the evening she repeatedly blurted out unrelated statements, lost her train of thought in the middle of conversations, and made a general mess of each area she landed in.
My encounter with this artist’s personification of what an artist is, or what she represents got me thinking of how untrue that eclectic, messy, unorganized, and generally discombobulated image of a professional artist is. In my experience it is quite the opposite of the perception.
It offended me that many people might see her and affirm their pigeon hole view of the typical artist. I could almost hear folks making the excuse “she’s so artsy…” when trying to bring some rationality to her appearance. Her stage show seemed to represent all that is rare in the qualities of an artist.
Art is no less a process of detailed dedication and standard method than any engineer must employ. I know this because I make my living as a Quality engineer, I get paid to design and develop mechanical and automated processes. And I am an Artist, I was born that way and like artists everywhere I must understand the basic requirements of my medium, physics and chemistry and composition. I must also understand how to design and develop an idea. These are all traits that are required in any other technical field of study. So why is the quintessential artist seen as a flake?
An artist must be more than just creative, to be successful he or she must also be able to develop mentally and emotionally to the point where they can “feel” the world. Like the mechanic who listens to a car to diagnose it or an machinist who can put his hand on a machine and tell if it is working properly an artist must understand his tools well enough to use them only when needed. An artist must be able to methodically mix paint, prepare a surface, mold or carve a material and envision the next step or an end result. An artist must learn to act on this internal feeling. An artist must be organized so that they have the right tool when they need it. They must be systematic so that they can automatically perform tasks that might draw their attention from the moment of creation.
I have been fortunate enough to have two very artistic parents. At an early age I was steeped in the arts. Museums, art shows, performances and art classes were more common than baseball to me as I grew up. We camped our way up the east coast visiting outdoor arts festivals and craft shows and always found our way into some of the greatest museums and galleries of the US. I rarely met or read about a professional artist or craftsman that was a babbling, disorganized person in a ramshackle wardrobe, though I am sure that Picasso may have been close to this at times.
Writing this I can call to mind many friends and acquaintances who meet my description.
I think my friend David Greenbaum expresses this well. He is a potter of some renown and has been a professional potter for 37 years. David has his silly side, he is a joker. He often has clay residue on many of his daily wear clothes and under his nails but away from his studio you would not know he was such a successful artist if you were to meet him at a party. His studio is well organized, straight and tidy and maintained for folks to drop by. My friend Linda is a professional painter who’s studio and style are equally businesslike and structured. She keeps detailed notes on each painting and her colors and materials so that her students can benefit from those hurdles or experiments that she takes on. I have many artist friends who for one reason or another are not full time artists; these folks too are structured and methodical in their job. I work with a Quality analyst who is also our technical writer but as a musician he comes alive, he teaches and judges competitions all over the US and has been collecting and cataloging early American music for 30 years. He is meticulous and scrutinizes every action with the precision of a surgeon. He wears the casual business clothes of a corporate employee, but he is an artist.
I know and respect Perry Yung as a musician, actor, and craftsman. He plays and makes the Shakuhachi flute and in learning to do so he had to learn to recognize the bamboo that will make a good flute. He had to learn to see and feel the possibility in a living stalk. And he had to develop his awareness of the mechanics and a method of a shakuhachi’s construction so that he could understand how it will work before it is completed. Like a machinist Perry must build a flute in a methodic and precise way. He must have the ability to overcome the unexpected with the awareness of a master machinist. When he plays in the process of making or repairing a flute, he must be able to “feel” the music and in doing so he must have his tools and work space clean and organized. His abilities are articulate and his manner must be that of a perfectionist. And in playing a flute that Perry has made or repaired, his patrons know him to be a master craftsman.
The artists of the 60’s and 70’s are stereotypes that need to be changed. In our hearts all artists are free spirits but in reality we are creatures of habit and organized existence.
So I did some research into what the term artist refers to exactly. What I found is that artists are classified very differently depending on who is performing the research. A “population” of artists is classified most commonly in the following ways.
Here’s what I found. Princeton University has done some interesting studies of artists, The percentages here are from one such study. All can be found here: http://www.princeton.edu/~artspol
Identifying artists by population in percentage of most common to least common (This might truly surprise you.)
Membership in a Professional Artist Group or Association (32 percent)
The Amount of Paid Time Devoted to Artistic Work (24 percent)
Professional Qualifications (14 percent)
Reputation and Recognition (10.5 percent)
Self-identification (10.5 percent)
Directories (9 percent)
Donnell Butler, Working Paper #12, summer 2000
So when identifying who is an artist we have way to many points of reference. Is it based on time producing art? Is it based on education? Or is it based on the groups you belong to or the awards you’ve won? Personally –I was born this way.

So here I am thinking about the woman I met. She was unusual, that’s true- but I have rarely met or read about a professional artist or craftsman that was a babbling, disorganized person in a ramshackle wardrobe.
My encounter with this artist’s personification of what an artist is, or what she represents got me thinking of how untrue that eclectic, messy, unorganized, and generally discombobulated image of a professional artist is. This understanding has been rising in me for some time and a funky smelling lady in a huge hat wearing a patchwork dress clinched the perception for me.
So as I sat down to start writing about how inaccurate the image of an “artist” is in our society.
I began to realize that the image and personification is kept well fed by some very talented folks. The entertainment industry occupies the other side of the arts, the performing arts. The likes of which include the band Kiss, Marilyn Manson, Lady Ga Ga, and many of my favorites The Red Hot Chili Peppers, Ministry, various Jamaican bands, the list goes on and on. Mainstream media helps feed these freakish personifications by exploiting every action and incident and I am sure that the PR manager for most performers orchestrates a good deal of the publicity negative or otherwise. Then there is the culinary arts, martial arts, and even architecture and mechanical arts. In the end I think I will just give up. We are all artists in some degree. Those who make it as a professional artist are organized and well planned –but not always. And who is classified or pegged as an artist could be anyone. We are all artists in many ways. Some write, some build, some design, some act, joke, teach… the list goes on and on. To me an artist is a person who creates, and we all create something. We are all passionate about something. But in my eyes a professional artist combines passion with perseverance and skill, and structure and mastery. So the sky’s the limit when it comes to artists. We are what we are, weird to some, artsy to others. But whatever the stereotype I am sure that most of us will never fit into that mold, but in time maybe some of us will become it.

Depths of my reason

The depths of my reason.I believe that I am a physical being. I believe this because my senses tell me that I am interacting with physical things. I touch the ground, the chair, a tree, my family. I am also eating, breathing, smelling, seeing, hearing. I smell my clothes warmed by the sun and feel the sun on my skin. The sun is real right? This is just one of many types of deep chains of thought that I will only wade into. I say wade because diving into them seems to be so dangerous. I recently had a conversation with someone who assured me that the consciousness resides within our brain. After I cited numerous articles on cellular memory and small muscle memory and organ implants that carried memories and emotions to the recipient, my friend proceeded to draw a line in the sand with a statement of “It can’t be because it’s just silly to think that way”. Well my friends it is something that has been observed in the medical community and by yours truly. I have also had similarly shallow discussions about dreams, the phenomenon of precognition and telepathy. The brain controls all our basis for reality and if it controls these things than does it also have some influence in what is real? One of my early masters stated that deep thought is wasted thought because it takes us away from the present moment and focuses us on God. “What does any of that have to do with God?” I said. “Everything and nothing –God is by definition unknowable, beyond contemplation and imagination and so are these deep thoughts.” He said. So was instructed to develop a foundation on that which I know and have experienced. That foundation is built in a spiral, up and up I have built over the years and when I have built my tower of knowledge Anyone will be able to enter at the bottom and climb on stable footing. I have to wonder if this is different from many of the deep contemplative teachings that we examine today. Aren’t we merely looking down into the tower of knowledge that was build over the last several thousand years? So I have been taught and I believe that when we dive off into deep layers of thought and begin to build a chain that carries us link by link further into the dark unknown the more dangerous it is.

Arming yourself for the future

Being laid off will have lingering effects on your life. One of which is the decision you make next. “What now?” is assuredly most common reaction. What now in deed.
For many of us the scenario is fraught with feelings akin to the loss of a loved one, grief, anger, blame, denial and acceptance. But during that cycle you are forced to address the question “What now?”.
For me it happened like this. I was a successful manager of a department that was well under control. I had been managing the department for several years and wanted a challenge. I was offered another Management position with far more employees and far more challenges. Challenges that I was sure I could handle despite the fact that this position was in a different division and a field entirely. But I believed that managing people and processes would be basically the same, and I had managed large groups in the past in a previous line of work.
Within the year, I had the employees trust, I had provided training and career paths where they were needed and in doing so the department had lost some of those folks who were better suited for different work. The illustrious numbers were great and all was well except we (the company) had been implicated in a recall and some related litigation. Stock prices fell –and middle management got cut. 5 out of 11 managers found ourselves holding a box. And as I was walking out like an escorted guest I remember thinking how pleasant the trial and conviction had been; all positive and professional with apologies and handshakes and wishes of good luck. Like at a funeral. And then I wondered “What did I sign?”. Sitting in my car after shaking the Security guards hand I thought with a tear in my eye “What now?”.
After sulking for a few days with the gears of my mind spinning like they were lubed with molasses I began to paint, garden, read cook, clean and pick the kids up from school. I thought that if we cut back on groceries and gas and we ate out less and a hundred other things happened that I could stay home do some freelance work and supplement my income with the sales of my paintings. Well, in reality what I thought we could do was misaligned with what we needed to do to cover my medical bills, insurance, food, utilities and so forth. After crunching the numbers it wasn’t gonna save us much if I stayed home. SO There I was again “what now?”
Looking back I realized that this next decision was very counter culture. What I choose to do goes against the US dream and the primary edict of our government. What I choose to do was downsize myself. I chose to find a job that was not management; I wanted less money and less responsibility, less damn prosperity. I decided that I would look for less stress, for less demands, less hours, just less of those things that had driven me for the past 25 years. I was ready to begin focusing on what drove me instead of the economy.
Well that’s easier said than done. Overqualified people are often distrusted like that free horse whose teeth no one is supposed to look at.
“So Mr. McLeod, tell us again why you left your last company?”
“You do realize this is not a salaried position.”
One man even said “So are you sure you won’t mind if we perform a background check?”
Seriously why is it so hard to understand why someone would want to look at their life from a position of living rather than earning?
Every day we are bombarded with get rich quick schemes, ways to work less and get paid more and even ways to get paid for doing things that don’t seem like work. But the fact of the matter is these jobs are marketed to people who want more. Our whole society is built on desire and ambition and the prize at the end. “Mo-money, Mo-money, Mo-money –Yah!” Not this man. I don’t like the view that that type of lens provides. That road seems endless. And frankly when I began to look at what I had and what I wanted to have when I first began working as a kid, I was there. That realization made me content. I began to see how comfortable I was and I began to realize the stability I had by working less and living more.
So now I have time to grow a small garden that provides more memories with my family than food. I have time to meditate and play the flute. I have time to take professional courses and get training in areas I never thought would interest me, like programming and bookbinding. And when I look over my finances the funny thing is we are able to save more because those things that drove me to make more money also drove me to spend more money, needlessly.
I believe that at least once in everyone’s life they are given a chance to arm themselves for their future. We are given a chance to pause on our journey and look at what we think we need to do next. Most of us seem to go for the gold. But for some of us paper plates are just fine.

Wild flowers and kudzus

As human beings we have been given the power of choice. We can choose our surroundings, we can choose our interactions, we can choose how we look and in so doing we can choose how we are perceived.
But I have found that in most cases people in general fail to choose the way they grow in the world. As humans it seems ingrained in us to struggle for control of things we can’t possibly get control of and to ignore those things that we could. I recently spent about 20 hours in a car driving through the south east. As I drove along my wonderful and scenic route I noticed that there were dramatic similarities to how people and nature coexist. There are of course stark lines demarking corn fields and pastures and wooded tracts. These are tended by men sitting alone in a tractor, constantly vigilant of the borders of their control. There are those segments of land that were once clear-cut and decimated, that lie feral. These lush places are littered with dead wood, dense undergrowth, and many animals all balled together in a chaotic biomass waiting for time to dictate their place in the scenery. There are fields and prairies, lakes and swamps each melding into one another with splattered edges and fingers of encroachment. These places are well established and their boundaries’ have been shared for hundreds of years as the weather permitted.
But as I look beyond what man or evolution has placed upon the land I see two stridently apposed attitudes.
There are huge tracts of land engulfed in the invasive kudzu. These areas are much worse in my opinion than those fence tracts reined by the tiller. Kudzu sees only its desire and its dominance. It slowly moves to cover its neighbors with its needs and its will. Its fruit and roots expand it without check heedless of its destruction as it chokes its neighbors.
This virulent plant spreads its attitude in all directions like a gale on a calm lake. It is senseless, reckless and unchallenged. We all know a kudzu.
In stark contrast are the wild flowers they are everywhere; in dump sites, on dilapidated roof tops, reclaiming abandoned strip malls, and especially intertwined with those other areas. They even stand stately and revered alongside and within those stark boundaries of farms and fence lines. They happily poke their smiling faces from under the Kudzu that fights the fenceline, rock ledge or roadside.
I see these two types of people growing along the route of my life. I make a choice many times a day which one I will be at home, at work, and in my surroundings. I hope that the bright colors and shiny attitude that I feel in my mind is expressed in the way people see me. And I hope that we can all keep the kudzus at bay.

Cool water, life giver, life taker - Respect for life's blood.

I love old movies. I especially like old movies about treasure hunters and gangsters. And I have always been a little intrigued with the fascination of bathing in gold or cash. This has always seemed weird to me. I understand that it must fulfill some people’s desire to have enough money to bathe in but I never understood it. Never that is until recently. I am looking at things much differently since my neighbors well ran dry. I think I understand the desire to bathe in something rare and precious.
Have you ever realized that water is a very crucial and well mixed ingredient in the cake of our lives? I mean besides the fact that we can’t live without it and we are mostly comprised of it.
We are surrounded by it. We are literally baptized in it. Water is not the root of life; it is the stuff that that root feeds on and yet most modernized people don’t seem to have any respect for it. Well that’s sad. I believe the saying that: “Water unused returns in rain, water shared returns in grain, water wasted causes pain, and when waters poisoned we all are slain”.
This seems to be a silly saying from the old west, but we are all involved in this interesting yet simple prophesy. The best action to take is the simplest - be mindful. If we live in the moment then conservation becomes mandatory and waste becomes illogical. If I am brushing my teeth –Then the water doesn’t need to be turned on –when I rinse the toothbrush –I turn on the water. Logical
When we bottle it, it’s poisoned by plastics, when we defecate in it it’s poisoned by bacteria, when we mix it with chemicals like the common things we use to preserve food –it’s poisoned. When we mix it with chemical fertilizers -it’s poisoned. And now even rain is poisoned. I don’t like to think of my children’s future when I see some dumbass washing down the parking lot of the local Gas station. I can’t stand that water restrictions are only placed on residences –not on golf courses or huge factories that dump pollution as steam or drainage.
Water and air, we are mostly water and air and yet we continue to have such little respect for these things. My antagonists in this argument claim that I am just as much to blame as they are. In some ways I agree. But we live on a shallow well –that has forced us to look at everything we use water for as a drain on a quickly depleted resource. I collect rainwater, a lot of it, that we use for anything that doesn’t require it to be clean. I don’t fertilize with anything but compost. Quick showers, no washing the cars, Water efficient clothes and dish washing and when I can afford the expense we will have a grey water collection and filtration system.
There are many people who say I’m weird to go to this extreme. To them I say one day maybe they’ll change their mind. I can only hope that in the future kids won’t watch old movies about treasure hunters and gangsters, and wonder why the heck those people would want to bathe in that dirty stuff. After three days without it, clean water becomes the most valuable thing we could ever want. Where will you hide your treasure?

Super Buddha -up, up and away

In several conversations, written down in Sutras The Buddha speaks of a superman. Buddha himself makes the statement that he is a superman and says that such a man can be recognized by “32 marks” or traits. He says that such a man has only two paths in life. These supermen can either live a life of a world liberator ie; Buddha, or that of a Leader of men in politics and worldly power. I have read these 32 marks or traits and found them to be so bizarre as to suggest that in fact the Buddha was suggesting that anyone can be a king of men or a Buddha. These 32 traits seem so fanciful that they are almost sarcastic. But yet I’m not sure. In the Diamond Sutras these traits are said to be –“…thirty two are really… no-marks” when Buddha is speaking to Subhuti: “The Lord asked: What do you think, Subhuti, can the Tathagata be seen by means of the thirty-two marks of the superman? Subhuti replied: No indeed, O Lord. And why? Because those thirty-two marks of the superman which were taught by the Tathagata, they are really no-marks. Therefore are they called 'the thirty-two marks of the superman.”.
I think that each of us may be born with the potential to become so destined. I think that it is akin to winning the Spiritual lottery. If you have enough Karma in one life you can get many more tickets and improve your chance of winning, but just like a lottery, many drawings might be held until someone gets just the right combination of numbers. So perhaps the Spiritual Lottery has thirty two distinct number slots or factors. This means that if we presume that there are only say 200 distinct marks or traits of the human body and psyche (e-harmony only uses 29). Then we must calculate 1X as 32/200. 2X as 31/199, 3X as 30/198 and so forth down to 1/169 Then we must represent these as decimals and multiply them together. 1X * 2X * 3X * 4X and so forth. This presents us with a probability that any of us might be able to be a Buddha or a King of men. But we must also factor in all those who were born and died since the last Buddha, unless we would like to expand our chances and include folks like Gandhi, and Hitler, Churchill, and Jesus –then perhaps our chances are improved. But what if we also except that some beings will evolve and others will regress. Wow the number I reached before putting all these constraints into the equation was already 32 decimal points below zero. Well my point is that I think The Buddha was making a point. He was essentially saying we are all Buddhas and there are no Buddhas, We are all kings and there are no kings. Life is based on a point of view and we all have one.
Personally I like to think of Leaders of men as Superman –it makes them more human. And I love the idea that when Buddha put on his working robes and some glasses, No one know who he was.
What do you think Superman or sarcasm?