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  • A Field Guide To Love Bead Safe Harbor Pins: The Civil Rights & Social Justice Pin

    A Field Guide To Love Bead Safe Harbor Pins: The Civil Rights & Social Justice Pin

    Why this color? What does this charm mean?

    A Field Guide To The Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin (kind of like a bird watcher’s guide to birds)

    If you’re new to the Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin and you see one “in the wild,” on someone on the street, in a restaurant, at school, at work, or any of the places you might find cool people, you might wonder if there’s any significance to the color, or the charm hanging from the pin. The answer? Sometimes yes, sometimes no.

    The safety pin is what makes it a “safe harbor” pin. So no matter the color or decoration, it’s still a Safe Harbor Pin. The rest is about standing up for a special cause that is close to your heart. It doesn’t mean you don’t care about anything else, just that this particular cause is one you’re especially passionate about, or is especially relevant to your life, or in the lives of people you know. First up:

    The Civil Rights and Social Justice Pin

    Equality before the law and human rights.

    This pin will be iridescent black (the individual beads shine with a lustrous finish like the colors of the rainbow, so in this case, a black bead that has a shiny finish that shifts in the light, like light playing on water). It looks kind of like very dark steel. The color signifies the strength and durability of steel, like the strength and durability people have to show fighting for freedom and justice. (I know, “Oooooh, deeeep!” But it’s true).

    Mine have a peace symbol charm, or a heart. The peace symbol is a charm I use on most of my Love Bead Pins. In addition to the usual meaning of the peace symbol, on the Civil Rights Pin, the peace symbol also honors those who, like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, use nonviolent means to fight for their causes. That is probably the hardest route to take, to not lower yourself to the level of those who oppose you and hold to your principles in the face of opposition or even danger.

     

     

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  • The Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin Project

    The Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin Project

    The schedule for the 500 Safe Harbors pin event is coming together (more on that in a second). But just in case you’re new to the Safe Harbor movement…

    Safe Harbor is an idea that came to us from Great Britain (as did scones, which are wonderful, and tea, also great). People started wearing plain safety pins to signal that they were safe to approach, wouldn’t harm or be abusive toward you… that they were “safe harbors” in the social sea. I started wearing one after friends reported they or people they knew had been abused or threatened. They signal your commitment to treating people with respect and courtesy.

    Then reports started of white supremacists wearing plain safety pins. So I, and others, started decorating our pins, taking back the symbol. After quite a few conversations where I was asked to explain Safe Harbor, and ended up giving up the pin I was wearing, I began carrying a few in my purse wherever I went. If asked about my pin, I’d explain the idea of Safe Harbor and offer the person a pin. I put them on old business cards in little gift bags to tell the recipient “this is a gift, a bit of my time given to you.” Thus they became “love beads” as well, an idea that came out of the 60s, hand-beaded jewelry given to express friendship and good wishes.

    On a vacation, we met a young man who asked if I understood the significance of wearing a safety pin. I told him I did, and had made that pin, and offered him one of his own. Later, he showed me the hat he wears when he’s off work, with my pin front and center. He asked to hug me and said he was going to tell his friends about this. I determined to make more pins and give them away, spreading the idea of Safe Harbor.

    I made 100 pins and went out to give them away, no small task for an introvert. I was prepared for it to take hours, or even to come home with many of the pins. They were gone in 15 minutes.

    Now, I’m getting ready to try to distribute 500 pins in one weekend. You never know how people will respond, so I’m mentally prepared to come home with some of the pins. Talking to at least 500 strangers in one weekend sounds like trying to climb Mt. Everest with one foot in a cast (did I mention I’m an introvert?), but it’s happening.  Here’s why:

    At least 500 times, I’ll be spreading the idea of Safe Harbor. Tossing my pebble in the water and hoping some of the pebbles create ripples that spread. That people will consider, even if for a moment, that we have options in any interaction with others. We have the option of treating other people with respect and courtesy, even people we disagree with, or don’t like. If we don’t choose that option, it’s a choice to do whatever we do instead, because we could have chosen respect. People will have a choice of how to treat me, whether they accept the pin and hurry on, don’t accept the pin and hurry on, argue with me, talk to me, whatever. At least 500 times, I’ll be offering them an opportunity to stop for a moment and choose.

    When I give pins away, I do not solicit, nor do I accept, donations. People can choose to go online and sponsor a set of pins to be given away (and get a set for themselves), but in person, it’s a gift, from me, or from me and the person sponsoring that set of pins, given and accepted freely. I don’t ask where the recipient is from, what their politics are, who they sleep with, or what they believe. I only ask if they would like a free Safe Harbor pin. This is an apolitical movement.

    It’s simple, really. I’m advocating for what my mother would have called “simple decency and good manners.” She was a real fan of good manners.  As a work of art, it’s about choice, and consciousness. That we choose how we behave and react. Mom used to say that how you treat someone says a lot about who you are and who you want to be, far more than it says about the other person. This will be 500 little nudges, 500 opportunities for people to choose who they will be.

    I’m doing my largest event yet in San Francisco to mark the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love. Specifically, I’m honoring the people who came together to help the kids who arrived in San Francisco with no money, nowhere to sleep,  no support system. Crowds of them descended on San Francisco in 1967, and the city wasn’t prepared for an influx of unemployed, broke kids. So people in San Francisco organized food, clothing, health care, help finding shelter, etc. That, to me, is the real beauty of the Summer of Love.

    Here’s the schedule so far. This event will be in San Francisco, CA on the weekend of June 2-4, 2017:

    Friday, June 2, 1-2 pm : Haight Ashbury Free Clinic,  558 Clayton Street. Celebrating their 50th anniversary this year, they help many of the poorest San Franciscans. I’ll be out on the street for one hour, giving away pins. Feel free to stop by, get a pin and say hello!

    Friday, June 2, 2:30-3:30 pm… meeting up with some tour groups on a Summer of Love tour. Wish I could say where, but the Parks Commission has asked that I not advertise. But if you see me, come on over!

    Saturday, June 3, 10-11 am… oooh, another park appearance, can’t say where! Silly, I know, but those are the rules, so if you’re interested, check your favorite SF park and you might find me.

    Saturday, June 3, 1-4 pm:  SCRAP, 801 Toland Avenue. The incredible recycler offering materials at low cost for artists and teachers. I’m teaching a class, open to the public, $20 including materials, on how to make Safe Harbor Love Bead pins. People who take the class will also get a set of pins from me, and if you’re at SCRAP while I’m there, hit me up for a set of pins. http://www.scrap-sf.org/workshops/

    Sunday — this one is still being confirmed, but I’ll announce it as soon as it is.

    If you know anyone in San Francisco, or who will be in the Bay Area that weekend, please let them know they can come to one of these events, get a set of Safe Harbor pins, and participate in a work of performance art!

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  • Beauty and Art and Junk

    Mark said this morning, “I was just thinking about the difference between beauty and art. Art is deliberate. Beauty can happen without an artist. Art may not be beautiful, but there is thought involved.”  Conversations like this are part of why I love Mark.

    Intent is at the core of art. For me, the main difference between art and crafts is communication. The artist is trying to express something (which implies an audience, and an attempt to communicate some idea). Crafts are created for the satisfaction of creating them, to make something useful, or pretty, or both, but they aren’t really trying to communicate ideas.

    Which doesn’t make them less valuable. It gives me an itch when someone dismisses something as  crafting, not creating art. There is value in making useful and/or beautiful things, even if you have no deeper intention. And there is no particular medium that is by definition art or craft. Painting, quilting, jewelry, sculpture, film, etc. can be craft or art, and either is good.

    So that’s what I’m meditating on today, perfect for a rainy Saturday.  I’m also turning internal handsprings. I saw our listing on the official San Francisco Travel Association website. There’s something about seeing it listed. There’s more to the class than the listing. I’ve decided to bring samples of other things that can be made using repurposed/recycled items. There is a lot of good materials out there waiting, and beautiful things to be made. It it art or craft? I leave that to you. But making it, and seeing it, is fun. http://www.sftravel.com/article/event-calendar/?entry=ataglance#/event/6257068-make-a-love-bead-safe-harbor-pin?radius_miles=25&location=94112-san-francisco&sections=all&date=2017-06-03

  • Peace Waves

    Peace Waves

    The 50th anniversary of the “Summer of Love” is this year. I’ve been drawing peace symbols, partially because of that and partially because recent events have a lot of us feeling jumpy, and being jumpy isn’t ground where peace grows well.

    I’ve also been drawing a lot of rainbows. The rainbow is a symbol of hope and renewal. Also, I have friends who are LGBTQI, and they’ve been feeling pretty nervous. Hard on the heels of the legalization of gay marriage comes a backlash, and I’ve talked to people who have been threatened, or had friends threatened.

    It’s never easy to be human, but sometimes it’s harder than usual.

    So many battles from when I was a little kid in the 1960s are having to be fought again. The fight for civil rights is ongoing as someone is always trying to gain an unfair advantage by stomping on possible competition. They never seem to figure out that the people they’re stomping on are more likely to be potential customers, and that if you let everyone cook, there are more pies, so more opportunities to get more slices yourself.

    Anyway, here’s the latest peace symbol from our Redbubble store, available on all sorts of things from stickers to clothing:

    Peace Waves by IdeaJones

    https://www.redbubble.com/people/ideajones/works/25878578-peace-waves-by-ideajones?asc=u

  • Happy International Women’s Day! It’s a good time to reflect on the women who came before us. True, it’s tough to be a woman sometimes (sometimes it’s tough to be a man, but for now, let’s ignore that familiar urge to put everyone else first).  We still don’t earn as much for the same work.

    We still get grabbed, catcalled and generally harassed (FYI dude, I don’t care what you think about how I look. I just don’t. Feel free to keep it to yourself). We get “now you can be/do anything!” along with “but you have to be hot, as defined by everyone but you!” I’m old enough to remember Charlie’s Angels, the fictional crimefighters who tottered around in high heels and clingy outfits, flipping their perfect hair while catching bad guys. Tee hee!  Even now, female superheroes dress in glorified swimsuits and cheerleader outfits. We are “empowered” somehow by using our sexuality to beg for approval.  Our own President defines women according to whether or not he’s attracted to them — that’s their value.

    Unless you just decide to live life on your own terms and pick your own role models. Go see “Hidden Figures.” Read about the Suffragettes. Remember you are the descendant of women who started new lives in unfamiliar places, raised crops, livestock and kids, and made their way forward step by step. Somewhere in your past is a woman who just did not give up. Probably more than one. And you can be that woman for the generations that come after you. Wearing whatever you damn well please.

    Available in our Redbubble.com shop.