StUff Kevin Wrote: Put your buckets down where they lie

 

Well life as an unemployed person has been well………….. strange………..

It has its financial disadvantages, lots of them

But hey……….. I needed to lose more than a few pounds

Anyway

And like they say

“No cross no crown

Yup unemployment is a bitch…………………but

It also has given me a time out

When your unemployed people tend to hide from you

Now this may be all in my head

I speak to all of the people I spoke to before

Anyway….People

They don’t mean it

And it’s not about money

It’s about it

Rubbing off on them

I get it now……..Besides

Every one is hurting;

You can’t call any one to bitch about job security

Or money, so lets talk health care

No lets not

Where was I

Ill says it again

Every one is hurting………..

Having said that I have been able to make art like I used too.

Ten, twelve hours a day.

Drawing sculpting writing.

I started a series on Albinos

Which turned into a series about

Arabs, and illegal aliens, monsters and then the tea party

Llions and tigers and bears Oh My

A series about the isolation

Of a color or a thought

Any one or any thing that is looked

Upon................ as different some how.

Anyway, I am having a blast

Where was I …………..

Teaching was wonderful

I learned more than they did, and now I have the chance to apply what I learned

To my work

Teaching takes up tons of your time

It drains you and it’s worth it

But I am old and tired

Tired tired tired as Bernie Mack would say.

As an artist I am inherently selfish

So............. broke as I am it’s a pleasure to just work

And work and work

Besides you don’t need a school to teach

Or a church to preach

There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t talk to

One or more of my students

Be they grown, in college or secondary schools

Their isn’t a day when I don’t talk about art and life to some one

For Instance There is the girl in the corner store

A really bright attractive well mannered girl of 19, she is brown as I am

And I really can’t tell if she is Brazilian, Dominican

This means she is a hybrid, because I can always tell where some one is from

Having said that

This is a really bright, well mannered, young lady, who because of, these bad times, wasn’t able to afford the extra money. That it would have taken for her to go to school Good school………….no offense……..

This little girl wanted to see the world

and her dreams were deferred because of these horrible times

Anyway she is at the local community college, willing to stay there

Until times turn around

Or until she can get to that better school

Now that is courage………..

Not me whining about my lost of Twinkies and Lunch meat

Anyway

She deserves better……..Don’t get me started on the budgets cuts

Please don’t

Anyway

A few months back

My Aunt Vernell sent me art books like she has been doing for years

I gave this girl a book on the Metropolitan Museum

And a book on Monet’s lilies

I told her not to let any one stop her, that if she was in a better school

It would afford her what she needs the most……….Exposure to the wider world

To culture to the beauty of our differences.

I told her that the beauty of living in Newark, is that we live next to New York

And any thing she just about wants to see she can see there

So get started, go to plays to movies, to art shows………….

Anyway

Last month she asked me for directions to the Metropolitan museum of art

She went and took several of her college friends

And she fell in love with the art, with the grandeur of New York

And its culture………

You could see the light come on

You could see it in her face………….

She has been back twice and you can see the change in her stride

The excitement of a wide open world

She loves art and culture

She is now going to see those lilies

I told her of how I never understood

Monet or what the big deal was about those lilies

Until I saw them in person

They took my breath away and I understood…….

Two days ago…….after giving her another book

Aunt Vernell sent me

On the Studio Museum in Harlem

Not my favorite place …..But a must see

She is planning a group trip there in a few weeks

So I can make art, Teach and feel productive

It’s a strange world we live in and we must all adapt

Or as booker t Washington said

With my addition………….

“You have to put your buckets down where they lie”

One door closes another one opens

I can’t remember the last time

I was able to do this much work at once

Go figure

Thank god for the art…………..it always supports and heals me

I have a secret I can actually eat art……….figure it out………..lol