I know most people think that Christmas is about giving, but what about those who are on the receiving end? Christmas is the one time of the year where it's appropriate to be a graceful and thankful and even overwhelmed recipient. What would giving be without a receiver? Without a Givee, there wouldn't be a chance to be the Giver.

There are so many types of giving.

There's the sort of giving that happens when someone takes you under the wing and includes you in how they take care of themselves, which is a brand of sharing or mentoring. There's the kind  of giving where someone imagines what you might be missing and fills in something the givee never knew they could use or might want to have. There's the sort of gift that works like a tool that begs to be taken for the ride it deserves.

A long time ago, I used to turn up my nose at art that was functional. But I had to get over that attitude as a sign maker, because what I was doing was making art that had a practical, communicative use.

Guess that I couldn't come up with goofy stuff such as this if I hadn't experienced a change of heart.

These are the two charming guys who drew me to return to Hawaii before all the windows I had to paint were done. Didn't leave anyone in the lurch - I had my apprentice Gino ArteFino paint them for me. You might like to look at Gino's artwork too!

http://www.pbase.com/artefino/

Gino doesn't mention it on his website, but he's also an accomplished trumpet player and is the one responsible for composing the song everyone sings at birthdays now in Bolinas.

I've been studying humor lately, and Christmas humor in particular can be twistedly goofy. Every year I "gussy up" windows for businesses, many of whom expect me to to show up to do this regularly. I have three customers who I've been decorating for the holidays for more than thirty years.

I painted this window with the shiny gold ribbon. Most people would be suitably distracted by the beautiful classic car in front of the window.

How to express tactfully one's intentions or needs? To marry intention with action - this  is a life skill. If we do not have someone to model after to train this skill in the context of the subculture in force, we are bound to make social mistakes casting around for appropriate way to express ourselves.

Establishing rapport is the most important ingredient. Thinking about consequences is another.

A characteristic is of genius is fascination. Investigating different psychological systems that attempt to explain and group human nature has been fascinating for me. What gets grouped and what characteristics are considered mutually exclusive is curious.

How do you perceive? Well, you just do it. That's an inadequate answer, so I decided to do some thinking about this.

Perhaps the way I teach people to observe themselves would be relevant to making up a language for perception. It's my business to be teaching people to perceive what they take for granted by teaching Alexander Technique. I use the often ignored kinesthetic sense as a medium, rather than the visual or auditory...but maybe we can cross-pollinate with it.
Blog Archive
Blog Archive
Categories
Categories
Links
Links
Voicebox
Voicebox
Voicebox
About Me
About Me
Loading