Handmade OOAK Spun Silk Necklace & Beaded Pendant ~

~I crocheted this spun sari silk yarn to make a thick cord. It looks delicate, but is very strong. The silver-tone findings are from Fire Mountain, the beads are glass.

~This necklace is $16. plus a small amount for shipping in the US, but I'd be glad to accept offers to trade for other crafting materials such as wool roving, art yarn, velvet fabric pieces, wool or silk fabric, bead de-stash, small pottery pieces, herb seeds, or perhaps something you've made?  Contact me if you would like to send me some pics of your offerings! 

lauriewalkerart at g mail dot com.

$16.00 and $1.97 shipping to US

Handlettered Signs

Hadn't done any hand lettering in a very long time, possibly 10 years!  It appears I can still manage to do it, I am happy to report.  These were fun to do. Not sure why  it has been so long... the last time I did any handlettering was  these wooden garden markers.

Odd Folks

    

    In times like these, where many of the things we've taken for granted have proven to have a downside that is dark and destructive, doesn't this behoove us to become strongly nonconformist, rejecting society's constructs in many ways? 

    I don't understand conformity.  I have always had issues with conformity, and often found I didn't fit into the conversations about what's on television, or what's in style.  I don't really often know what the latest fashions are, and wear whatever I feel like on any given day. Often this means I probably look like what might best be described as, "Helena Bonham Carter meets skate-boarding gardener mash-up". 
    Whenever I've met someone who's also a bit odd in their manner of dress, in their ideas, or even in their behavior, I am immediately drawn to them.  I relish their uniqueness, even if I might not relate to much of what they say or do in a familiar way, since the whole point is, they're offering something I haven't encountered before.  Even if they are dressed in a somewhat bohemian fashion I have seen before, I may understand where they got their ideas, but because their choice of clothing flies in the face of all that is considered "in fashion" others may harshly judge, or avoid this person out of some sense of distress about their lack of conformity, while I will attempt to learn more about them.  I tend to have way more fun thinking about things in unusual ways.
    Creative people right in our own communities are essentially the harbingers we must now look to in order to help us decide on how a new age and new culture may function for us as we head into an uncertain and apparently darkening future.   The value in strange displays of nonconformity may only be accessible and understandable in a hyper-local context.   These are cultural outsiders. What they bring to the table is often more valuable than mass-culture's offerings.       The area where I grew up is very conservative.  There was a lot of ridicule aimed at anyone not fitting in, dressing in the same styles as everyone else, talking about safe subjects, not questioning anything to a degree others find tiresome and so on.  When in a more populated area, I find that this tension eases to a great extent, and you may even find people who value eccentricity, even in a rural area where people have come from away, bringing open-mindedness with them.    Creative types offer displays and endeavors to fascinate and entertain, and often, to teach us something about ourselves or the world we inhabit, but only if we look for the greater meaning.  We might gain insights en mass, and grasp as a nation what needs to change about our culture in a tangible, or in a metaphysical sense.    Can such insights and cultural influence be found in a long-running popular TV series?  Perhaps.  That will depend on the viewer.  The viewer needs to have the vision, and an understanding of the value in examining ourselves and, more importantly, be open to discoveries that may lead us to change negative behaviors.  Does The Walking Dead inspire you to be a better, more caring person?  Something to consider.

    Most artists start off small and perhaps struggling locally, or trying to get a screenplay made into a movie, and so on.  But this isn't necessarily about those struggling or striving to be noticed.  Attempts are made at breaking into the mainstream with a fashion trend, or getting signed on a major music industry label.  Local, small-scale, individual creative efforts that are well away from the mainstream do go on to become well known en mass sometimes.  But how often are they unable to make it if they aren't conforming in some way to the trends, to industry's needs and caveats, to a need for money?  Their creative endeavors are shaped in a million ways, by within that system that ultimately is peddling "lack";  We consume products made by a system that we know is corrupted and destroying the planet.  

    Often rejection of the mainstream is cause for gossip, and some  folks may find this attitude offensive, or interesting, but none of this is the point I want to make here.  Perhaps any attempts to change the culture by being unusual and persisting in committing fashion faux pas, or demonstrating an insouciant lack of familiarity with the latest episode of the popular television series, can only influence a way of being in the world if eccentric types, (be they artists, poets, or just plain folk expressing weird ideas about things), as well as those not necessarily creative, but paying attention,  both embrace an irreverent, steadfast rejection of much of today's culture. 
    They may make some folks uncomfortable, but those odd folks, who might cause us to chuckle and wonder, are an indicator species in our communities, counseling us on what about our own culture, its fashions, habits, customs and ideas, needs to change.

Come Together...

Yesterday, here in Portland, Maine, there was a pillow fight for peace

More on Community Celebrations and Dancing in the Streets

Portland Maine! The Adventure Continues...

 

The city is wonderful!  So accomodating, and we can walk less than a mile to do any number of things that really impress us!  Back bay, the eastern Prom, Old Port... 

Friday nights are free at the Museum of Art.  We managed to go and see Monets and Degas 6 blocks away! 

We were at the Farmer's Market in Monument Square on Wednesday, braving the rain above and puddles below for some plump, fresh, local organic bok choy. 

 Nik is making Stir fry as I type... 

 The food choices are astounding. The local movement is alive and well.   Arts are thriving.   "Community" is very welcoming and full of ideas and groups for every interest.   The "local" movement that's alive and well and while rest of the economy seems to be in the tank, this feels doable.   There are a plethora of  small, independent businesses of all sorts here.   The community comes out in support of one another in a big way, and do a lot of collaborating.   There's the "Hours Exchange" where by volunteering/donating whatever skills you can offer, you "bank" the time spent.   Everyone's time is valued equally! 
People here seem so unpretentious and just, well.. cool!

 LGBTQ  pride parade organizing itself.
literally just outside our stoop.

 I was pleased to see that an accepting and forward thinking community exists here.

 Feeling very much at home. Still many things on our list of things to do.... 

I've been enjoying this "minimalization" process I'm in, though it's going to be extreme for a time, it will shake me out of my comfort zone to live with very little, just what we can cram into the back of our little truck.  Kitchen wares and food storage, personal care items, his clothes, my clothes, and whatever I can fit of my art supplies... 2 folding tables, a folding chair, a small computer chair, my desktop PC, his laptop, and 2 bicycles.  That's it.   That's not a lot.  Nik says "I don't want to be "Clampetting" it into town ya know".  To which I warmly replied, "That's it!  That's exactly what this is like!  Next thing ya know, ol' Jeb's a millionaire"...
We did not strike oil, however, and if we did, we'd pay someone to move us!

More or less intelligent... ? Nay, more or less modern!

Why some groups seem more or less intelligent, and how it ain't necessarily so.

In the New York Times Blog "Room for Debate" (February 26, 2012), five individuals pipe up with what amounts to an even handed estimation of the question; whether, in fact, people are getting dumber.
James R. Flynn, the author of "What is Intelligence" penned "Thinking in More Sophisticated Ways He describes how our grandparents would not have fared as well as we likely could on today's IQ tests. He examines this phenomenon from several perspectives. First, he dismisses any likelihood that we somehow have more cognitive stuff to work with at birth, or any inkling that our ancestors were simply lacking enough intelligence to deal with concrete world of everyday life, instead positing that today we live in a time which offeres us a broad range of cognitive challenges than those of our forbears. We have developed a higher level of cognitive functioning.
Flynn describes the differences between the utilitarian world that grandma and grandpa inhabited, and our modern world. Increasingly we deal with the abstract and the hypothetical. This is good news because we're better equipped to learn about science and also, reason about ethics. He brings up the fact that, in the past, some would have defended racist ideas about an inherent inequality between whites and blacks, but the evidence is not there to support such a claim.
Flynn then links to an article from the "New Yorker" (December, 2007) that describes the Flynn Effect, which is the increase in IQ that has been witnessed through the generations since the tests were developed. The theory that is discussed is "modernity." In other words, we haven't necessarily become more intelligent, but rather, more modern. The distinction is an important one. On the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder, s the world of concrete concerns, of poverty, and hand to mouth existence. It is no wonder then that IQ is also found to be lower. Most of these folks don't have time, money, or inclination to take in Shakespearean theatre, and are very unlikely to be fascinated by the writings of the great philosophers.
Stereotypes about Asians being more intelligent may more accurately understood as Asians are more persistent in their scholarly pursuits, but some prefer the meme that Asians are more intelligent. The article then discusses Flynn's research into the IQ question, and reaffirms that this is overwhelmingly shown to be a nurture issue, not nature.

Flynn, James R. (2012). Thinking in More Sophisticated Ways. Room For Debate: The New York Times. Retreived from: http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/02/26/are-people- getting-dumber/thinking-in-more-sophisticated-ways

Gladwell, Malcolm. (2007). The New Yorker. None of the Above: What I.Q. Doesn't tell you about race. Retreived from: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2007/12/17/071217crbo_books_gladwell? currentPage=all

All Education Matters: Ruminations: The Battle for Student Borrowers

All Education Matters: Ruminations: The Battle for Student Borrowers

Traditions and Cultural Evolution

Cultural traditions evolved because they carry a people forward. Some cultural traditions have been carried around like a cross to bear, unnecessary burdens that no longer serve the purpose they once did. Technology, mobility, and advances in education and available knowledge have rendered very much of our great grandparent's worlds completely foreign to us.

My mother, age 8, on the right, around 1950

So, why do we still dust off so many of the same beliefs, traditions, habits that they held? Is it in order to continue to tell ourselves nothing has changed while the world outside is on fire with changes?
We might begin to look at changes with wide open vision, and examine our beliefs, our traditions in the light of this fire, and do what we can to create new understanding.
Where once there was trust and belief, we must find new ways of coping. Where once there was rituals fit for a world that is behind us, we need new ways to make sense of the world in which we now live.

Learned Hopefulness...

I came from a family situation growing up where I was the youngest by a pretty large margin. My family wasn't affectionate, but being the youngest, I was Dad's favorite and he treated me well. My brothers and my sister resented how close he and I were. They seemed to hate me a great deal of the time, and ridiculed everything I said and did. In fact, my brothers tormented me, picked on me, beat me up, and ran me down. My mom was very hyper-critical and negative about everything I did. You'd have thought it would kill them to say something nice to me. My mother forbid me to play sports, or go on to college, but my one brother was in sports, my sister went to college... I wasn't allowed to get my driver's license until I moved out, but my brothers and my sister were given cars when they turned 16. Once my siblings had all grown up and left home, dad (who traveled a lot, and wasn't home much anyway) abandoned my mom and I. I was 11, and hardly saw him again until I became an adult. My mom had mental health issues that came about from all the stress, and she was not "there" for me from that time on. I moved out at 18, 3500 miles away, as fast as I could.

I can still feel very much like a small child when I am around my brothers and sister, and they treat me as such. So I don't go around them. Never. I for-go "family" in order to feel good about myself. Living with criticism is worse than living without any support from family. I can't even fathom what it's like for those who have connections that are helpful instead of spiteful. My mother's father gave my siblings money, land, cars, my sister went to college right out of high school. I don't know what it's like to be treated with decency or to be offered a really great opportunity, or inherit money or property. My grandfather hated my father, and since I was my father's favorite, I suppose I was a pariah. My siblings have way more success by their own standards in life. They've all held their same jobs at the same locations for over 20 years. They all make 3 or 4 times the money I've ever made with "secure" retirements ahead. They consider me "a joke" because I've held a string of jobs doing all sorts of things. If I feel terribly taken advantage of, underpaid, or disrespected, I leave. I am capable of hard work, and I have strong ethics that actually seem out of style to many. When I was laid off from my last employer they sent me packing after an investigation began since they thought I might testify against the owner's wife who was brought up on charges of fraud for stealing money from a sick old man's bank account, so... bad luck? My family would tell you I'm lazy and lacking in work ethic. I don't believe that's what is wrong.

Some people never have role models. Some have been let down too many times. Some people work very hard to overcome some of the hard knocks life throws their way, but a lot will learn that being helpless is a way to accept reality. Change is so much harder than accepting "what is", especially when it seems like you have very little that's good to go on. Sometimes what you believe is what others should want in life is not what they need for themselves. It's probably far more complicated than you can tell from his complaints or from just observing what a person does or doesn't do at work... Learned helplessness is compelling problem. I worked with women who were victims of domestic violence, and had stayed in very dangerous relationships despite all rational perspectives... I learned that people and their lives are often very compelling stories that build up to become the whole baffling person you see.

I used to complain about the lack of opportunity, the injustice I have seen, and felt at times like there was some club I was blackballed from at birth... I"m around 40 years old now, ;) Still playing "catch up" in my life, trying to fit into several career paths at once! I refuse to "learn" helplessness. Started my own online businesses. Going to build a place on some land in Maine in a few years.Staying active and vibrant. Doing whatever I darn well please. I have integrity. So though it was rough on me that my dad left, I did forgive him, and I did understand what he did when I got older. It was only dad who said, you're great, brat! Never compromise! It was he who always believed in me, and he who did just whatever he darn well pleased. If it weren't for that example, if I went on what other examples I saw, I'd probably have become a drunk, or found a way to end my life by now. I guess you could say my dad spent his whole life in a kind of "learned hopefulness"... and now I try to always do the same.

I was surprised to learn awhile back that there are some methods in therapy where a counselor demonstrates for the client the most radical things about that client, affirming the reality of some radical tendency or showing them that it's a legitimate part of their gestalt about themselves... (you might have heard of gestalt therapy). This is something used to recognize barriers a person builds around themselves that "block" them, mostly "psychically" from making needed changes in their lives. Find out what someone imagines, dreams of, or feels he could do but "can't" that would be "revolutionary" in his or her life. A change in attitude might make a difference... but maybe it's far more frightening, such as leaving behind family members that drag him down. (As I do. As my dad had done). That might be a radical idea, and he may even have guilt for thinking such thoughts, right? But it can also be a very rational, well reasoned course of action, and one that brings about the motivation needed for someone to make changes in life.