Category: life

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learning web 2.0

It’s been an uphill learning curve. Being quiet on all things personal while standing willingly on stage for all things art, this web 2.0 thing has had me flummoxed. “Is it safe?” I asked myself. I guess, at the ripe old age (that I am now) I’m more concerned with learning, growing and finding out more about who my friends and customers are. How can I really serve if I don’t know that? I get that much. It’s no conversation if I’m talking to myself. I’m learning that it’s all about you, not what I think. And that most of the me, I’ve been wrong on that. The interesting thing is, that the way the journey goes, it’s not discouraging to know I’ve been wrong, but encouraging that I could figure that out and move on! I read on my friend J’s blog that she misses the days (brief) when friends could sit around the table and debate, disagree, and even argue..and still walk away friends. I think that day is at hand again, if we choose it. The politics of hate and fear I hope will bounce off us like rain on a freshly waxed car.

It reminds me, actually, of the poppy. You don’t see poppies in cut arrangements, decorating tables in fine dining establishments. You don’t see cut poppies anywhere. Cut them and they die in a matter of minutes..drooping their lovely heads in defeat. Left with their roots intact, shining their faces toward the sun collectively, whether there are 5 or 5,000, their collective smile is contagious to all who look upon them. Yet, they are maligned, abused and destroyed. Here is a poem I wrote about why I paint the poppy:

Poppies are…
Beautiful
Radiant
Misused & Abused
Maligned
Killed by Governments
Yet….Free
Transparent
Fragile and,
Connected…..Like We Are.

That’s why I paint them. The muse in me is pondering flowers. I’ve been told many times that I’m the rose….most notably known for the layers and layers of petals amidst the many thorns. I can see that and it’s probably true though I’d smile more if it were the fragrance and beauty that inspired the likeness! hmmm.

What about you? What flower are you most like? (just for fun..a fun diversion to make those foul things bounce off) Yes, I’m bouncing around here. It’s allowing for the stream of consciousness to show itself on this blog. wahoo.

Angel Fire ArtSpace,
3469 Mountain View Blvd, Suites B2-4 Angel Fire NM
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Reflections

What a Spring this has been. I’m sure you can see its been a couple weeks since my last post. Spring is generally seen as the coming forth, and new life rising from the frozen death of winter. This Spring has been, for me and my (extended) family, a new level of understanding of new life.

March 12, 2007, my Dad, Richard Crabb, passed from this life, in death defeating the foes that he grappled with. Only 68 years old, the legacy he left us is only now coming into view. I used to think all I inherited from my Dad were issues that I considered I would be better off without. It is only in his death that I have come to see there is a richness and indeed what many consider positive aspects of who I am, that are mine, from my Dad. I’m thankful to those who have shared with me, how they saw my Dad, how my Dad impacted them. You knew him in ways that I never did. How bittersweet it is to know those things…why could I not know it while he lived? Such is the nature of Spring, perhaps. The flowers that will bloom after the heavy snows and harsh winds of Winter will fill this valley with color we have not seen in years. Is it that the harshest Winter brings forth the brightest life that awakens in Spring?

My Dad’s death was not to be the end of it. April 25th, my Uncle, Dr. Francis Wall, joined my Dad on the other side. So fitting, yet so ironic. A giant chasm existed between the two men for decades. Though some level of reconciliation had happened in recent years, it is profound to me that little more than a month separated them in the final reconciliation. I’ve no doubt the passing of the two of them will bear fruit in the lives of their children, me, my sisters, and my cousins. It is a perspective that humbles me, and compels me…not a moment to spare in really loving those we are connected to, be them family by birth, or by choice.

I’ll be honest here, really putting myself out there for those I love, is not something I’ve been good at. Letting them in, really in, something foreign to me. May I learn to do that. To participate in relationship rather than to simply be there. Now, I think I’ll hit “publish” before I change my mind at being so frank. Besides. the washing machine is calling.

Angel Fire ArtSpace,
3469 Mountain View Blvd, Suites B2-4 Angel Fire NM