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:
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).
Hi — I guess it’s current events that have me working on peace symbols. Here are some events from 1966:
Sniper atop the tower at the University of Texas kills 12 and wounds 31.
Riots in Watts, Cleveland and Atlanta
Civil rights marcher James Meredith shot.
Sound familiar? Here’s the good news — while it feels as though current events are unique, each generation laments how the world it going to ruin. We remember the past through filters of our own youth. Looking back, we’re always younger, probably fitter, definitely less aware of mortality. I told Mark the other day that what I really want is to move to Santa Cruz circa 1966. He said that Santa Cruz might be doable, but 1966 wasn’t. Would I really want to return the world to 1966, with the same social problems we have now but less progress on them?
With pollution but less being done about it? People I have come to care about shoved back into their closets, or kicked off the bus? No, of course not.
The world is always what we make of it. It’s as good as we decide to be. Which means there’s hope. So I keep making peace symbols and giving my pennies to charities helping people and pets in need, and hoping.
Look at Opening Doors, a small charity helping refugees resettle in the Sacramento area. Just as we’re hearing a lot about how we should just boot anyone who comes here back, there are people helping those who have fled violence and hunger to start over in America.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. ” That’s from our Declaration of Independence. We’ve spent all the time since trying to decide who is included in “all.” Does it mean dark people? Women?
Like the Biblical commandment, “Thou shalt not kill,” it’s hardly ambiguous, yet we argue over the meaning. Both are ideals to strive towards, and imperfect human beings fall short of them, but they give us a goal. Like the idea of peace. We may never achieve perfect peace. We’re not even sure what it would look like if we did. But it gives us something to reach for, a destination to head toward. It gives us hope.
I hope that for today at least you are at peace.
By the way, these designs are available on jewelry at Zazzle.com, and on bags, clothing, and more at our Redbubble shop, where a portion of each sale goes to charities helping people or pets in need.
Hi — we’ve been very active on our Facebook page, but it’s been a while since we checked in on our website.
There’s a lot going on! First, if you get a chance to go to Blue Line Gallery in Roseville, CA, we’ve got a sculpture on exhibit:
Second, our charity for the summer is Opening Doors, a charity helping refugees resettle. They provide everything from “welcome kits” with necessities (the refugees usually arrive with nothing) to volunteers helping drive people to appointments. A portion of each sale we make this summer will go to buy items for Opening Doors.
Among the items we have are silver necklaces from Zazzle featuring our digital paintings, including these peace signs:
