My Budding Artist

Both of my daughters love to draw and color, and in typical fashion I get all kinds of artwork to put on my refrigerator. Some good, some ... well, let’s just say they get filed somewhere else. These two, however, will not go on my fridge, instead they will eventually—hopefully soon—get framed and displayed in my new house. Elisabet did these in her 3rd grade art class. Her monster is so dark, and yet so lovable and original. But I especially love her self-portrait, the way she sees herself.

Life Lessons by Regina Brett

Regina Brett’s 45 life lessons and 5 to grow on
by Regina Brett
Sunday May 28, 2006, 10:13 AM

To celebrate growing older, I once wrote the 45 lessons life taught me.

It is the most-requested column I’ve ever written. My odometer rolls over to 50 this week, so here’s an update:

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for retirement starting with your first paycheck.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye. But don’t worry; God never blinks.

16. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

17. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

18. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

19. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: “In five years, will this matter?”

27. Always choose life.

28. Forgive everyone everything.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

36. Growing old beats the alternative - dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

38. Read the Psalms. They cover every human emotion.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

41. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

42. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

43. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

44. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

45. The best is yet to come.

46. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

47. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

48. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

49. Yield.

50. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

A Modern Bathroom Tale

A dear, dear friend of mine sent this to me and I had to share. I do not know the author, but it was definitely a woman. And probably British. Enjoy!

When you have to visit a public toilet, you usually find a line of women, so you smile politely and take your place. Once it’s your turn, you check for feet under the cubicle doors. Every cubicle is occupied.

Finally, a door opens and you dash in, nearly knocking down the woman leaving the cubicle. You get in to find the door won’t latch. It doesn’t matter, the wait has been so long you are about to wet your pants! The dispenser for the modern ‘seat covers’ (invented by someone’s Mum, no doubt) is handy, but empty. You would hang your bag on the door hook, if there was one, so you carefully, but quickly, drape it around your neck, (Mum would turn over in her grave if you put it on the FLOOR!) down with your pants and assume “The Stance.”

In this position, your aging, toneless, thigh muscles begin to shake. You’d love to sit down, but having not taken time to wipe the seat or to lay toilet paper on it, you hold The Stance. To take your mind off your trembling thighs, you reach for what you discover to be the empty toilet paper dispenser.

In your mind, you can hear your mother’s voice saying, “Dear, if you had tried to clean the seat, you would have KNOWN there was no toilet paper!” Your thighs shake more.

You remember the tiny tissue that you blew your nose on yesterday—the one that’s still in your bag (the bag around your neck, that now you have to hold up trying not to strangle yourself at the same time). That would have to do, so you crumple it in the puffiest way possible. It’s still smaller than your thumbnail.

Someone pushes your door open because the latch doesn’t work.

The door hits your bag, which is hanging around your neck in front of your chest and you and your bag topple backward against the tank of the toilet.

“Occupied!,” you scream, as you reach for the door, dropping your precious, tiny, crumpled tissue in a puddle on the floor, while losing your footing altogether and sliding down directly onto the TOILET SEAT. It is wet of course. You bolt up, knowing all too well that it’s too late. Your bare bottom has made contact with every imaginable germ and life form on the uncovered seat because YOU never laid down toilet paper—not that there was any, even if you had taken time to try.

You know that your mother would be utterly appalled if she knew, because you’re certain her bare bottom never touched a public toilet seat because, frankly, dear, “You just don’t KNOW what kind of diseases you could get.”

By this time, the automatic sensor on the back of the toilet is so confused that it flushes, propelling a stream of water like a fire hose against the inside of the bowl and spraying a fine mist of water that covers your bum and runs down your legs and into your shoes.

The flush somehow sucks everything down with such force and you grab onto the empty toilet paper dispenser for fear of being dragged in too.

At this point, you give up. You’re soaked by the spewing water and the wet toilet seat. You’re exhausted. You try to wipe with a sweet wrapper you found in your pocket and then slink out inconspicuously to the sinks.

You can’t figure out how to operate the taps with the automatic sensors, so you wipe your hands with spit and a dry paper towel and walk past the line of women still waiting You are no longer able to smile politely to them. A kind soul at the very end of the line points out a piece of toilet paper trailing from your shoe. (Where was that when you NEEDED it?) You yank the paper from your shoe, plunk it in the woman’s hand and tell her warmly, “Here, you just might need this.”

As you exit, you spot your hubby, who has long since entered, used and left the men’s toilet. Annoyed, he asks, “What took you so long and why is your bag hanging around your neck?”

This is dedicated to women everywhere who deal with any public restrooms/toilets (rest??? you’ve GOT to be kidding!!). It finally explains to the men what really does take us so long. It also answers that other commonly asked question about why women go to the toilet in pairs. It’s so the other gal can hold the door, hang onto your bag and hand you Kleenex under the door.

Jack of All Trades

I am blessed to know and be surrounded by talented people both at and outside of work. I’ve chosen to highlight three truly creative and inspiring individuals in the next few weeks, starting with Jack Simonetta. Jack is an amazing person, a caring friend, and coworker. He is a graphic designer and owner of PB&J Gallery together with his partner Bob Burkhardt.

I remember always having markers and plenty of paper to draw on as a child. I would pick a color and just doodle one endless line around and around in overlapping circles. Then I would meticulously color each space created, one color in each area, until the whole thing was a tapestry of color.

What is your earliest memory of any sort of artistic endeavor?

Tough one. Maybe it was in kindergarten. There were cardboard building blocks that I would always gravitate to. I remember stacking them to make “buildings.” I still like to play with blocks!

When you started exploring your artistic talents as an adult, what medium and style did you first adopt?

There wasn’t one medium or style that I did, although it was mostly 2-D drawing and painting. In college, I did a lot of expressive, fauve-looking stuff, simple with bold colors. Matisse was my idol.

Tell me how your style has changed over the years and if there was a connection to something changing in your personal life.

When I was a young adult and afraid to express myself, or wasn’t even sure how to express myself, my art was at times very dark and introspective. I was attracted to German Expressionism of the early 20th century, its use of color and stark shapes. Hands are very expressive, so I did a lot of hands, sometimes covering eyes, mouths, faces showing a lot of grief. These past 10 or 15 years I’ve learned to get emotions out in healthier ways, not holding things in as much, forcing them out in my art. Because of this, my art has become more free, lighter at times, but still expressive. It’s as if there’s more room in me to express more things than just the darker side of me.

Another conscious way my style has changed is that it might be getting looser, less controlled, more spontaneous. It’s been a conscious effort to not render things exactly how they are, but to interpret them through my experiences. I want people to bring something of their own when viewing my art. Sometimes I do return to a more controlled style, I think, to prove to myself that I can draw “correctly.” One of my goals is to work abstractly and still evoke emotion from people.

I think this conscious change in style has to do with my personal quest of figuring out for myself what this world/universe is all about. I read a lot about living each moment rather than in the past or in the future. I read a lot about Buddhist teachings, as well as other religions, and history and space to try to form some answers for myself. These have all affected my art in my push toward a less controlled style.

In addition to using all sort of different mediums on paper and canvas, I know that you also sculpt. How long have you been sculpting and what are you working on right now?

I’ve been sculpting for about six years. My newest sculpture is an oversized soapstone hand.

How do you deal with writer’s block, so to speak? How do you get the creative juices flowing again when you feel like you’ve hit a wall?

I’ll usually sit down and not think about representing something. Just play with the movement of my hand with a brush, using whatever color attracts me at the time. I guess it’s a sort of visual meditation that clears my head of trying to think of what to do next. Not that it shows me what to do next, but it lets me continue creating something until the next thing finds me.

Tell me what was the inspiration for your latest watercolor series?

Somewhere in my mind, I saw a visual of cliffs coming down forming a small pass-through. I did a quick watercolor while I was working on a series of women’s faces just to get it down. When I returned to the subject later, it changed into cliffs going into the sea. The last piece I did was using thinned down acrylics on canvas emphasizing wash-like brushstrokes, kind of like finger paints.

What would you like to master in the next five or 10 years?

Tapestry weaving. The craft-like quality of weaving attracts me. I bought a book on it once, and Bob even bought me a portable loom, but it looks like an art that you have to be taught, not try to figure out from books.

Top to bottom: A relaxed Jack; “Sunset Marsh,” probably the first painting of Jack’s that I saw and admired; “Remixed,” one of Jack’s many fabulous paper collages (of which I own two); “Adulation,” one in a series of men’s faces; “Reaching for the Moon,” a sculpture he recently sold and shipped to Texas; “Scylla Charybdis,” one of several in his most recent watercolor landscape series.

A little excited

For some time now, I have been itching to do something to highlight some of the talented people I’m surrounded by at work and in my private life. I have tried to determine the best way to do it and finally decided on mini interviews featuring three artists this spring and, hopefully, three more this summer or fall. Starting off the series will be Jack Simonetta of PB&J Gallery in Kirkwood Station, a new artsy development in east Atlanta. Jack is one of the most multitalented artists I have had the pleasure of getting to know over the past four years. Look for his interview and a taste of his work to appear the first week of May.

To give you a sneak peak of Jack’s work, I offer you a detail of one of his pieces, but you have to wait until next week to see the whole thing.

So, what up?

Social networking has become very popular. We have MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, Twitter and Plurk, among others, I’m sure. I have passed some by, thinking they are not for me, and embraced some. Facebook is easy to use and helps me keep in touch with my computer-challenged mother in Sweden. Flickr is a great place to drop my photos for comments and encouragement, and to keep a few of my favorite shots of the girls within easy reach. Twitter was OK ... until I found Plurk. I am totally hooked, and it seems, so are the other Plurkers. My friends on Plurk seem to be the same group of enthusiastic jewelry designers as on Flickr, but here we can keep a running dialog without having to refresh the screen. It’s all happening right there, with lots of fun emoticons to liven up the comments. It gets hysterical some times.

Why don’t you come check it out here?

First pedicure of the season

They always make them look so good … and I can’t reach them anymore. Sad really. And yes, my toes are very much right next to each other, despite the fact that I wear lots of pointy-toed shoes. And I like ’em that way. So there.