IdeaJones

Tag: Art

  • Pin Tales: The Boy With The Hat

    Pin Tales: The Boy With The Hat

    I’m 137 pins distributed into this project as of today. This means about 140 interactions with people so far, and as you might expect, those interactions vary widely. This project is about human interaction — how we choose to treat other people. I was telling my friend Janice about some of them, and she said, “You’re writing these down, aren’t you? It’s part of the project! You should be telling the stories that go with this.” So begins “Pin Tales.” These are the stories associated with this project, both the good and the bad. When you feel like a bit of light reading, join us on Tuesdays for the latest Pin Tale. First up:

    The Boy With The Hat

    Mark and I went to a theme park (we love theme parks). As we were leaving, we found staff lined up to wish everyone a good night (and probably to answer last-minute questions). I was passing by a young man (every year, more of the population is younger than I am. He was probably in his 20s). As I passed, we smiled, but then he looked at the Love Bead Safe Harbor Pin (let’s say “Love Beads”) I was wearing. He approached me, speaking softly.

    “Do you know what it means to wear the safety pin?,” he asked. I said that yes, I did, it was a Safe Harbor Pin and that I’d made it. I always carry a few with me, so I offered him a set.  As he took it, he said, “You made this?”

    “Yes,” I answered, “I make them and give them to people.”

    He didn’t say anything for a moment. He just stared at the set of pins, lying in his palm on their little card. “People are getting harassed,” he said quietly. “I know people who’ve been bullied, and…” He looked up and made eye contact. “Is it all right if I hug you?”

    As people who know me can tell you, I’m not big on physical contact with anyone I’m not close to, but I couldn’t say “no.” I nodded, and he hugged me quickly. “I can’t wear this while I’m working,” he told me, “but I will wear it. Thank you.” We said our goodbyes, and Mark and I headed for the Administration Office at the park (we had a quick errand there).

    As we came out of the Admin Office, I heard my name. Looking around, I saw the young man jogging toward us, with something in his hand. “This is the hat I wear when I’m not at work,” he said, showing me a hat with his new Love Beads front-and-center. “I’m going to tell my friends,” he said, “that this came from someone I didn’t even know, who makes these and gives them away. I’ll tell them that we aren’t alone, that there are people we don’t even know who want us to be safe.”

    “There are people hoping good things for you who don’t even know you,” I said.

    “Can I hug you one more time?,” he asked. We hugged, said goodbye, and Mark and I left.

    I’m a big ol’ introvert, so just talking to strangers is a stretch for me, but a very wise friend once said, “If it’s important to you, don’t wait until you feel like it, or feel up to it. Do it scared.”

    When I started this project, I wasn’t even sure of the purpose of it myself. It was instinctive, divine inspiration, a need to react to the increasing negativity and hostility I was seeing and hearing. Soon, I realized that it’s about the potential in every human interaction. Every time we meet, or talk, we make a choice about who we are and how to treat other people. Friends can tell you there are no signs of incipient diety about me. No aura of sainthood. I fall short of my expectations on a daily basis, if not hourly (some days are like that). So this project reminds me of the potential in every moment.

    With each interaction, I make a choice of how to approach or speak with someone, and he or she makes a choice about how to treat me. All the choices we make become who we are, in our own eyes, and in the eyes of others. We are largely who we decide to be.

    In that moment, I decided to come out of my comfort zone, and so did The Boy With The Hat. We decided how to treat each other, and how to respond to how we were treated. In that moment, we both decided to cooperate to build something small and beautiful.

     

     

     

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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

  • Love Bead Safe Harbor Project Is On!

    The Project Is On!

    That thing is a finger, I swear. There’s no good time to have your hand slammed in a trunk lid and broken, but there are definitely *worse* times. Like when you’re trying to create 500 Safe Harbor Love Bead Pins.
    Even so, the project is going forward. We’ve given away almost 100, and this week, the first “sponsored pins” go in the mail. Someone bought three sets of pins, sponsoring three more to be given away free.

    The official GoFundMe is in the works, but as you can imagine, typing is very hard right now, so it’s taking longer. But it’s happening. More Safe Harbor pins are being given away. More hope is being spread. Broken Finger or no.

  • The Love Bead Project

    The Love Bead Project

    We can all be “Safe Harbors” for the people around us!

    I never pictured myself becoming an activist, and certainly never thought of myself and the word “hippie” in the same sentence. When I was in kindergarten, protesters were the people on the news who shouted at everyone, and hippies were the people hanging out in ragged clothes who looked like they  needed a shower.  Suffice it to say that it looked as though the 60s had missed me — I was too busy trying to learn to tie my shoes. Looking back, there were things I did that were very 60s, raising mealworms to feed birds caught in an oil spill, for example. That was the start of a lifetime of volunteering, still I didn’t think of myself as a real child of the 60s.

    Then I started hearing from people who were being threatened and harassed. Who were afraid, for themselves, their families, their friends, and I got mad. Normally I’m a cheerful sort, and it takes a lot to get me angry, but more and more, people I knew were being ridiculed and threatened. They felt isolated. Unsafe. Unwanted.

    It was about that time that I heard of the Safe Harbor pin, an idea that came to the U.S. from the U.K. Wearing a safety pin was a way of signalling that you were a “safe harbor,” a person who would try to treat someone with respect. I liked the idea and started wearing one. Then word came that white supremacists were co-opting the symbol, wearing plain safety pins. That was offensive, but to whom could I object? Where was the place I could register my complaint?

    So I took my pin and “tarted it up, ” decorating it, making it more flashy and flamboyant. “Good luck wearing something like this, asshole!,” I muttered as I added beads and charms.  I posted a photo of that first pin, and heard from people who said they were now going to “tart up” their pins as well. I made more pins, fastened them to old business cards (perfect size), and started carrying a few with me. Whenever someone  liked my pin, I gave him one.  This created some really interesting and enjoyable interactions.

    Now, I put two on a card, and ask the recipient to give away one, spreading the hope. I don’t ask where that person comes from, what he believes, what his personal life is like. If he wants to talk and I have time, I’m willing to, but the idea is that I don’t have to approve of someone to offer him encouragement, and he doesn’t have to approve of me to accept it. It’s a simple thing, between two human souls.

    I have given away almost 100 pins since December of last year. Now, we’re spreading the hope even further. There’s a class scheduled for June in San Francisco on making Safe Harbor pins, and in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love, I’ll be handing out pins in five spots in San Francisco. My goal is to hand out 500 pins.

    But making 500 of anything takes time and money. My husband and I have been funding this ourselves so far, but to get to 500, I’ll be running a GoFundMe campaign (more details to come). Donors will receive a set of pins and sponsor a set to be given away. I’d like to give some away to centers helping at-risk youth as well.

    While doing this, I’ll be putting my sculpting and other artwork on hold. Like I said, making 500 of anything takes time. Mom used to say that time was the gift so precious, people rarely give it to one another. So that’s part of what I give with the pins, a bit of my time, a piece of my creativity, a morsel of hope — and then hope that person spreads it, too.

    More on the GoFundMe to come.

  • Hearts and Peace Signs

    Hearts and Peace Signs

    Available on zazzle.com or redbubble.com. Just search for “ideajones” and you’ll see it.

    The 50th anniversary of the “Summer of Love” is this year. Maybe that’s why I’m drawing so many peace signs, or maybe it’s just that everyone seems so angry and worried. It seems like a good time to remember that how we respond is always our choice.

    A portion of our commission goes to charities helping people or pets in need.

    Mom was always involved in projects for charity. When I was a toddler, she and my grandmother hand-made beautiful doll clothes for an annual toy drive. I wasn’t that much into dolls, but seeing my mom and grandmother so focused on making them, and seeing how beautiful they were (mom really could sew), I wanted them. I must have been about three when this happened. I told her I wanted (pointing) that one, and she handed it to me, but explained it was made for someone who had no toys. Someone who was going to have a very sad Christmas. Did I want to take that doll dress away from her?

    Let’s be honest — I did. Because mom made it, because it was beautiful, and because I was three. But I put it back.

    Later, she had our Girl Scout troop make presents for kids in hospitals (little paper chimneys full of candy and a little toy), and we grew meal worms for birds recovering after an oil spill. My dad, who ran a furniture store back then, organized employees into refurbishing furniture returned to the store for distribution to halfway houses. I trick-or-treated for Unicef.

    My parents weren’t hippies. Far from it. But they remembered The Great Depression and mom used to say, “There but for the grace of God go I.” She used to tell me that if you’d been really poor, if you’d been hungry, you knew what a kind gesture could mean.

    Whatever our leaders do, on a day-to-day basis, our world is in our hands. Yes, there are things our government should do, things that take all of us together. But if we (you, Mark and me) give a recent immigrant a bus pass, or a bowl of kibble to someone who’s having trouble feeding his dog or cat, or give art supplies to kids from homeless families, we don’t fix all of the world’s problems, but we make one thing just a little bit better.

    So if you’ve ever bought a onesie, or a tee shirt, or a cell phone case, or anything else from us, thank you. You supported a small business. You were a patron of the arts. You were a philanthropist helping someone in need. You hippie, you (lol).

     

     

    http://www.zazzle.com/rainbow_peace_heart_baby_by_ideajones_baby_bodysuit-235514816804770528?rf=238652286093066263