loving art, science and creative kids
1/29/2022 12:28:05 PM
"Life engenders life. Energy Creates Energy. It is by spending oneself one becomes rich." Sarah Bernhardt
Hanan and Mirna
For the past three years, I've been grandma to two African-American children whose parents immigrated from Ethiopia and Somalia. We meet weekly to do art and science projects, read, and take excursions in area parks. The escalation of Omicron brought a halt to my visits. Until we can meet again outside, I have to be wary because they attend school unvaccinated. But, I do miss them. They are a large part of my life.
As I often do when bothered, I escape to my studio. In this instance, I made a painting of the girls showing them wearing masks made at Halloween. I find figurative paintings difficult, but in this case, I persevered. Looking back, I realized that painting them was cathartic. It provided a way to give vent to emotions without languishing and becoming depressed.
Out of the Doldrums
Languishing: a) To be or become feeble, weak, or enervated b) to be or live in a state of depression or decreasing vitality c) to become dispirited or suffer neglect
Catharsis: a) the process of releasing, and thereby providing relief from, strong or repressed emotions
While having my hair, I asked the stylist how many of her customers she would label as languishing. After thinking for a while, she answered, "about a third." That's a lot, I thought, wondering why so many. We both agreed that the Omicron variant was making a large number of people feel dispirited, bored, and without hope. Those who had put dreams, activities, and family visitations on hold, were finding it most difficult to deal with repeating waves of viral infections.
"But, what about the two-thirds who don't feel that way?" I asked. "What's different about them?" The question led to a lively discussion of emotions and the tools people use to heal and keep themselves sane. We talked of ingrained curiosity, and the role music, dance, and the visual arts play in people's lives.
My hairdresser, also an professional dancer, and choreographer, mentioned that she releases her emotions daily through movement dance. Unlike repetitive exercise, her movements vary with her mood. Feeling the music helps her express happy, sad, and angry emotions that send messages outwards that audiences can feel. She stays motivated by having an outlet for creativity that at the same time is cathartic. It provides purpose and passion.
It is those two words, purpose and passion, that when turned into tools are a way to avoid languishing. "How do I get there, you may ask?" The answer is basic. Start with a hungry mind. Curious people are not prone to languishing-they're too busy asking questions and tracking down answers.
Curiosity is a state of arousal. It is energizing when stimulated, and it tends to snowball as one thought leads to another. As psychologist Annie Paul says, it "is the engine of intellectual achievement--it's what drives us to keep learning, keep trying keep pushing forward." When there's a gap in knowledge, curious people feel deprived and are motivated to obtain the missing information to eliminate the feeling of deprivation.
Curiosity doesn't happen in a vacuum. It starts with something familiar yet want to know more about it. It primes the pump as George Lowenstein wrote in "The Psychology of Curiosity," and sets in motion ways to fill the gap. But, researching a topic online or in-person isn't enough. Communicating your findings is equally as important, for discussion adds different perspectives from friends and coworkers and leaves the participant curious to know more.
What can you do if you languish? Study the houses you pass by as you take your daily walk. Imagine what type of people live inside. What personality prefers a contemporary as opposed to a classical home? If you see the person outside, say hello. Get into a conversation to see if the house matches their personality.
Keep the phrase "I wonder if…" at the top of your mind. Look for novelty, something new to keep you stimulated--a game, class, book club, a lecture, a new piece of music. Write down your predictions about something that might happen in the future and follow up to see if they come true. Get your hands dirty. Doing instead of observing. Make art, garden, woodwork, play an instrument, experiment with vegan recipes.
I know someone who retired and took voice lessons. He figured if not now, when? Though not Lyle Lovett, he's turned into an excellent lyricist and composer who entertains friends with his creations. Another retiree I met became interested in geodes and set up a saw in his backyard to cut them in half. Today he has dozens of saws working day and night. His lawn is filled with fossilized wood and rocks waiting to be sliced for customers wanting slabs.
Whether you have one year left of life or sixty, it's always good to ask yourself who you are, who you want to be, and how to get to your next plateau. Life is before you, not in the past. It is up to you to make every minute count.
References:
Stulberg, B. (2021)Languishing and the Art of Showing up. the Growth Equation. retrieved from https://thegrowtheq.com/languishing-and-the-art-of-showing-up/
Paul, Annie, (2013) How to Stimulate Curiosity. Psychology, Time Magazine. retrieved from https://ideas.time.com/2013/04/15/how-to-stimulate-curiosity/
Straker, D. (website) Creating Curiosity. Changing Minds. retrieved from http://changingminds.org/explanations/motivation/creating_curiosity.htm
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Are you languishing? Share your feelings and the steps you're taking to move forward. Please comment on my blog site below.
Art is always for sale: contact me at [email protected]. Hanan and Mirna is an acrylic painting on deep canvas/ 24" by 30" / $985
1/22/2022 1:39:35 PM
I Thought I Knew You
Most of us don’t know what is going on in our family’s or neighbor’s heads, let alone the country. You might be pleasantly surprised they’re engaged in many activities aimed at improving lives.
How can you be happy if you perceive your country's falling apart? After talking to people on the left and right sides of the political spectrum, I realized their main area of agreement is that the United States is on a downward spiral. An immigrant from Ukraine told me that she came here to live in a democracy that followed the rule of law. Increased lawlessness, homelessness, and poverty make her feel like she moved to a third-world country. With the media dwelling on tragedy, promoting falsehoods, and taking pleasure in reporting about backbiting politicians, the woman no longer knows what to believe. An uncomfortable rumble resides in her chest that doesn't subside.
I agree that our political system has lost its way, but also believe many individuals haven't. Though congress and oil magnates may not be combating global warming, private citizens are. Behind closed doors, in homes, and office buildings a great many innovations are being worked on to right society's wrongs.
For example, Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology is on a fast track to revolutionizing transportation. Hydrogen, the simplest and most abundant element in the universe and a major component of water, oil, natural gas, and living matter, is in great abundance. For years, engineers and scientists have been searching for a way to release the energy in hydrogen to power machines.
Hydrogen is a fuel that when consumed in a fuel cell produces only water. Turned into electricity it is clean, highly efficient, and has low power loss. Honda began selling Clarity, its fuel cell car, in 2021. Toyota put the Mirai Fuel Cell vehicle on the road this year. General Motors is expanding the market for hydrogen fuel cells beyond vehicles. They are designing emissions-free generators to power large commercial buildings. Manufacturers of autos, busses, trucks, trains, ships and planes have fuel cell designs in the planning.
How wonderful it will be when we can breathe again without ingesting carbon fuels. I'm excited by this technology and what it will do for the planet.
But, fuel cells are only one of many innovations. Biotechnology has spurred a revolution that will impact our lives the most. Watson's discovery of the Double helix, mapping the human genome, and now CRISPR, a tool to edit genes adapted from a naturally occurring genome editing system in bacteria gave scientists tools for a better understanding of biology. Their labs are opening possibilities in health care and agriculture never before imagined.
Because of CRISPR, scientists developed a vaccine against COVID-19 in one year rather than the twenty years it took for a polio vaccine or 200 years for the one to irradiate smallpox. It won't be long before we see a vaccine targeted against the Omicron variant.
CRISPER is being tested as a means of curing cancer, sickle cell anemia, and other chronic diseases. It might even be possible to resurrect extinct species. CRISPER benefits the agriculture community by improving crops to be more tolerant to drought, heat, cold, and pests. It is being used to develop crops with a longer shelf life and greater nutritional value.
Excited? There's more. Agroecology, the science of managing farms as ecosystems, is a burgeoning field. Scientists study ways to build and maintain healthy soil, manage water wisely, minimize air, water, and climate pollution, and promote biodiversity. The emphasis is away from large ag to locally grown produce eliminating long supply chains.
Regenerative farming is the common term used for implementing sustainable methods to grow and harvest produce. Farms are redesigned to enhance biodiversity and eliminate pesticides and herbicides with plants that protect and nourish soils. Regenerative farming is climate-specific agriculture in that it varies depending on threats like droughts, flooding, or rising temperatures. Soil, weed, and pest management are integrated.
An example of how symbiotic relationships enhance agriculture is in three sisters planting, a practice used by indigenous communities for generations. Corn, beans, and squash seeds planted together help one another thrive. Corn provides tall stalks for beans to climb, wrap around, and stabilize the stalk during heavy winds. The beans have rhizobia that take nitrogen from the air and convert it into forms absorbed by plant roots. Squash plants spread along the ground large leaves that provide shade, retain soil moisture and prevent weeds. A diet of corn, beans, and the squash provides a complete and balanced nutritional meal.
There is so much I could write about--artificial intelligence, robotics, 3D printing, virtual reality, and brain implants that will enable paralytics to operate a smartphone with their mind rather than thumbs. Individual technologies are combined in transformative ways to affect healthcare, supply chains, utilities, and consumer trust. Quantum computing and nanotechnology are leading to small, light, self-contained devices using little energy. We'll have to save this for another day.
Suffice it to say, change is occurring at great speed despite so many people languishing hopelessly in their homes. It is worth getting out of armchairs to look past politicians and media pundits and learn what's going on in the garages, gardens, and labs of innovators. Perhaps you thought you knew your neighbors--check it out. You will find that creativity abounds where you least expect it.
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Do comment on my blog site below. What exciting things do you see happening that people aren't aware of but might enjoy taking time to explore.
REFERENCES:
CRISPER EXPLAINED
CRISPER stands for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats.
Palindromes are words that can be read the same way backwards and forwards. They are common in DNA, serving as backups for damage to our genetic code. Some are common in cancer mutations. Crisper allows the information to be inserted in the middle of a DNA sequence. In the case of COVID, The insertion, or spacer, as its called, contains the genetic code of viruses that have invaded in the past and developed immunization
Website: Fuel Cells. Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office. Energy.gov. retrieved from FUEL
Tabb, M.& Gawrylewski, A. & DelVIscio,J. (2021) What is CRISPR, and Why is it so Important. Scientific American, retrieved from CRISPER
Colarossi, N. (2020) How long it took to develop 12 other vaccines in history. Insider. retrieved from VACCINES
Website (2021) What is Sustainable Agriculture? Union of Concerned scientists. retrieved from AGRICULTURE
Eight emerging technologies and six convergence themes you need to know about. EmergingTechnology . retrieved from TECHNOLOGIES ___________________
Art is always for sale: Contact me at [email protected].
I THOUGHT I KNEW YOU is a 3D painting / 36" by 18"/ mixed media / framed/ $ 399.
1/15/2022 10:58:10 AM
SPRING BURST
A Dream of Spring
As a child living on the 40th parallel in Philadelphia, I looked forward to the changing seasons. No school, hot days, swimming, and bicycling through the woods filled my days. I'd press Queen Ann's Lace in scrapbooks, hold buttercups under my friend’s chins to see if they like butter, and pull the petals off of daisies chanting, love me, love me not. Evenings, Mother would pay five cents for every beetle I picked off her prize rose bushes.
In September, making crunching sounds as I chomped through piles of yellow, red, and rust-colored leaves provided hours of fun. Later, I would go to our garden to guess what pumpkin would grow largest by the end of October.
By December, the silence of early winter snow blanketing city streets was broken by the laughter of children building snowmen. A short distance from home, our unplowed road became a perfect sledding hill. The Gray Nun's pond froze over for ice skating.
When spring arrived, it was Al Jolson's lyrics to April Showers filleing my mind with song.
“Though April showers may come your way
They bring the flowers that bloom in May
So if it’s raining have no regrets,
Because it isn’t raining rain you know, it’s raining violets. . .”
That was my world. It rained in April, and, as if by magic, caused flowers to appear overnight in May. On the first sunny day, I knew the parks would burst with an abundance of colorful blossoms and the songs of robins and bluebirds.
Until I moved west, I didn't realize that seasons differed along the 45th parallel. In the east, the town of Perry, Maine, marking 45 degrees north, gets more snow than Philadelphia and Portland, Oregon combined.
Where I live, I'm lucky if there's a week when I can cross country ski or sled by my house. With the warming climate, there are fewer cold days each year and no chance to ice skate on a frozen pond. Yet, there is a secret January holds that I find uplifting.
Rather than spring bursting on the scene in May, it unfolds in a slow, methodical way that begins shortly after the first of the year. Though horticultural books say it occurs in March, throughout the city, bright red Camellias cloaked in glossy green leaves blossom on bushe. Their blooms warn me that it is time to visit Elk Rock Garden to watch nature renew itself.
The February weekend I followed a botany professor taking a class through its grounds, I learned that my search for spring should begin the last week of January. I had already missed seeing early shoots pushing through the earth and first buds opening on a few branches. Thousands of Crocuses were starting to color the lawn with their purple and white weavings. It would not be long before bulbs of Snowdrops and Grape Hyacinths appeared. Then the Irises and Daffodils would show their heads, and with the forsythia, add life to a garden stretching its roots after a short winter's nap.
By March, buds rushed to open. Magnolias, Trillium, Tulips, Rhododendrons, and Hyacinths add more color to the city. A spectacular show of cherry trees hits the riverfront in April. And, in May there are more blooms than I can count--Rock Roses, Russian Daphne, Spirea, Barbery, Zinnias, and Peonies to name a few.
May is also the Month soil in backyard gardens is turned, fertilized, and made ready for planting. Vegetable and flower seeds are carefully spaced in rows and Sunday gardeners get prepared for a summer of weeding and watering.
Known as the City of Roses, Portland honors the most famous flower in the world. A trip to the Rose Test Garden in late May offers a cacophony of smells and colors as red, yellow, orange, and purple flowers surround the strolling visitors.
By June, when walking through the city, I revel in the ripening of the trees and think back to the first buds and shoots that appeared ing the New Year.
Though it's mid-January, with winter storms and cold weather along the 45th parallel. Though Portland's weather is balmy today and we may yet be faced with an arctic freeze and snow, daylight is lengthening, in my mind, spring has already arrived.
REPLANTING THE GARDEN
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I look forward to your comments below.
Art is always for sale: contact me for information at [email protected]
Replanting the Garden - 20 x 16 Framed / acrylic painting, $ 425
Spring Burst - 20”x16/ deep canvas/acrylic painting/ $395
1/8/2022 12:09:28 PM
Spring Snow on Oak Trees
It snowed in February 2020 when Portland residents were sequestered with COVID-19. The painting of Oak Trees was completed after taking a walk the first day. It was a fearful time when no one understood the full extent of what the world faced. Seeing flowers pushing through the snow gave me hope and lifted my spirits. I learn a lot from nature—life continues on and seasons change. There is beauty in snow and the flowers that follow. But nature also lets me know that when damaged and not respected it can cause havoc.
Unlock Your Mind
In Braiding Sweetgrass, Robin Wall Kimmerer discusses how the environment drives cognitive processes. Thinking, she says, extends beyond your head and is intertwined with tools, people, environment, and your visual field. Throughout, she writes about symbiotic connections between plants, animals, earth, and human beings.
She learned to see the world in a way common to indigenous peoples. Even rocks have a life force to be acknowledged. When a tree is downed for shelter or creatures used for sustenance they are acknowledged for having contributed to their well-being. And though people have to take to survive they also give back by adopting practices that allow natural resources to grow and prosper. A process of mutual support is intertwined with respect and willingness to learn from voices in nature.
Stevie Wonder, in the 1978 picture, The Secret Life of Plants, documents plants responding to human care and nurturing. It shows how they interact with humans, their reaction to music, and their lie-detecting abilities. Plants showed pain when trimmed by people who didn’t know what they were doing. Supporting their work is a study by the Royal Horticultural Society that discovered that talking to plants can help them grow faster and that they react better to the vibrations of a female than a male voice.
When a child, my father often took me fishing. I never thought the bass and flounders we caught on the Atlantic coast experienced pain until I reeled in a trout as an adult. As the fish hit the air and my hook tore through its eye, I heard it scream. I shuddered to my core as I released it to return to the pond.
Was the trout’s shout in pain purely my imagination? Conventional wisdom has long been that fish do not feel it as we do. Yet, no one can define what that means since even the way two humans experience pain differs from one another.
Today’s scientists indicate that our previous beliefs were wrong. Biologists worldwide show evidence that just like mammals and birds, fish also experience pain. They have neurons called nociceptors that detect potential harm from high temperatures, intense pressure, caustic chemicals, and fish hooks. They also have innate painkillers as mammals do and react differently when injected with painkilling drugs.
When injured, nociceptors get stimulated that initiate electrical activity surging toward the brain. Studies of fish injected with acidic acid show that their lips swell, causing them to breathe more quickly. They rock back and forth on the bottom of the tank, rub their lips against the gravel and side of the tank and feed slower than a control group injected with benign saline. In other experiments, fish injected with painkillers were more willing to remain in painful environments than those untreated.
All organisms want to live—plants and animals alike. A mutualistic relationship is when two species work together to benefit both parties. A bee flies from flower to flower gathering nectar to make food. When they land on the next flower, some of the pollen from the first rubes off to pollinate the plant. The bees eat and the plants get to reproduce.
In humans and other animals, a certain kind of bacteria lives in the intestines. The bacteria attack food a human can’t digest and partially digest it, allowing the human to finish the job. The bacteria benefit by getting food to live and the human also benefits by being able to digest the food it needs for its survival.
Humans are a biological species linked in symbiotic relationships to the natural environment. Plants, animals, rocks, and minerals dug from the ground are too often taken for granted. Human activities that affect the environment are transforming biological and cultural evolution. Our actions change relationships between species in fundamental ways. Being mindless as most of us are, produces unexpected results damaging to our health and society.
Unlocking our minds to broaden our visual field will make us more cognizant of the interaction between tools, people, and the environment. It will enable an understanding of how biology, social economics, evolutionary psychology, and environmentalism are interrelated. Thinking will change to make us better stewards of the land and more prosperous as a species.
References:
Vanderlinden, C. (2021) It’s True—You really Should Talk to Your Plants, Especially If You’re a Woman.The Spruce. retrieved from https://www.thespruce.com/should-you-talk-to-your-plants-3972298#:~:text=Especially%20If%20You're%20a%20Woman&text=In%20a%20study%20performed%20by,sound%20of%20a%20male%20voice.
Jabr, R. (2018) It’s Official: Fish Feel Pain.Smithsonian Magazine. retrieved from https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/fish-feel-pain-180967764/
Website. Mutualistic Relationships. New England Complex Systems Institute. retrieved from https://necsi.edu/mutualistic-relationships
Perez,E. (2014) Humans Disrupt relationships in nature, study finds. Florida International University for Physics.org. retrieved from https://phys.org/news/2015-11-humans-disrupt-relationships-nature.html
Seymour,V. (2016) The Human-Nature relationship and its impact on Health: A crucial Review. The University of London. retrieved from https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2016.00260/full.
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Do comment on my site below.
Art is always for sale. For information contact [email protected].
Early Snow is a 16” by 20” framed acrylic painting part of a COVID-19 series displayed on my web site. to view all go to https://www.eichingerfineart.com/collections/142242
1/2/2022 12:48:53 PM
119 Degrees Farenheit
Moving through life is like walking barefoot on a bed of hot coals. The trick is to take brisk steps forward so that you don’t absorb too much heat. The lighter the stride, the less chance of being burned.
Hard steps make you sink into pits of ash from which it is difficult to return without blistering consequences. Just as fire-walkers form a layer of sweat or water vapor on the soles of their feet to block radiation from the heat, people can develop a protective layer keeping them from being overly emotional when hot embers get in the way. As they go, fire-walkers temporarily sniff out small parts of the hot coals, making it possible to walk across without burning their soles. Are there also ways to find your way through the fires that might burn your soul?
The earliest reference to fire-walking was found in an Indian story dating to around 1200 BC, but the practice shows up in cultures worldwide. It is used as a rite of passage, a test of an individual’s strength and courage, or of one’s faith. Some believe walking through hot coals purifies the participant. When I’ve gone through a particularly bad period and come out the other side a survivor, I feel stronger and better able to cope.
In Ceylon, India, fire-walking is often performed on temple grounds though not connected to Hinduism. Participants prepare themselves for as long as ten days for the purification ceremony. They fast, bathe three times daily, refrain from purchasing or borrowing goods, smoking, drinking, and intercourse. A period of silent meditation is often followed by a ritual dance. To prove they are worthy, they are lashed with whips or have wires run through their cheeks, arms, and chests. Only those who survive the beating blood-free can walk over the coals.
Though I don’t recommend such extreme measures, there is wisdom in preparing mind and body for the beatings life gives us all at one time or another. We may be bullied or do something we’re ashamed of and wish we could forget. We become ill, have accidents, face the death of loved ones, and eventually our own.
How do you prepare your mind for tragedy, disappointment, and sorrow? Psychiatrists and doctors seeing the absence of burns or blisters on feet after a half-hour of fire-walking don’t have a complete answer as to why. Nor do psychiatrists and doctors who see people survive disasters with positive attitudes intact completely understand why they stay strong and able to cope.
They do know, however, that as the fire-walker prepares body and mind for their ordeal so can skills be developed to manage harmful and stressful situations. People who cope are not passive and helpless but are resilient, for they seek out ways to take control of their lives. They are skilled in stress and time management, problem-solving, and decision-making. Most especially, they have learned to manage their lifestyle and have confidence in their abilities.
To build resilience takes time, and though the steps to get there may feel like traveling across hot coals, as each one is mastered, it burns with less heat. The American Psychological Association suggests:
- Make and maintain good relationships with family and friends.
- Avoid seeing crises as insurmountable problems by looking beyond the rest to a better future.
- Accept change as a part of living. Increase your flexibility and get rid of goals that are no longer attainable.
- Move towards realistic goals by breaking them into small achievable ones.
- Take action on advert situations as much and soon as you can. Don’t sit back and wish they would go away.
- Look for opportunities for self-discovery. Considering how you have grown through adversity creates a greater sense of self-worth.
- Nurture a positive view of yourself by trusting instincts.
- Keep things in perspective by developing a broader context with a long-term perspective. Avoid blowing unpleasant events out of proportion.
- Maintain a hopeful outlook by visualizing what you want rather than worrying about what you fear.
- Take care of yourself and pay attention to your own needs and feelings. Participate in enjoyable, relaxing activities and hobbies.
In 2022, why not become a virtual fire-walker by walking lightly over hot coals insulated with stress-reducing skills as you go? Choose from the list above and add a few to your New Year’s resolutions this year.
Wishing you a happy and satisfying New Year
I look forward to your comments below.
