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:
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.
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).
