School of Life: Lesson 1 - Paddle at Your Own Pace

Included in my thoughts and research supporting studio practice during graduate school are my thoughts and lessons in the School of Life.  I will attempt to keep up with this for the Lord has taught and continues to teach me many lessons this year.  By documenting them, I hope to share the good news, encourage others, and most importantly remind myself of the lessons that I have already learned - I often forget them.

 

December 11, 2014 - I joined some friends from UF Ceramics to take a trip to Cedar Key, FL to partake in some kayaking adventures.  This was to be my second kayaking voyage.  My first, was in Curaumilla, Chile where I kayaked the COLD Pacific Ocean.  I should have learned this lesson then.  I happened to "lose" my breakfast in the great Pacific if you know what I mean.  Not fun.  Well maybe that was a different lesson - one from childhood - don't go in the water for 30 minutes after you eat!!!  At any rate, I was going to conquer this second trip!  I tend to get a little bit competitive at times.

 

As we launched the boats in the water, I could see the destination island in the distance.  For a rookie kayaker, it seemed to be at least an hour away - not really.  My friends zoomed ahead and continued to glance back at me, "How are you doing, Paige?"  "Oh fine," I would reply.  While inside, I was a little frustrated with myself and I wanted to be further ahead than I was.  I was tempted to pick up my pace and catch up with the troop.  As I did, I could feel my body saying to me, "Slow down!"  I began to feel a little nauseated and was finally forced to stop.  A voice inside of me said, "Look at this beautiful gulf."  I paused and looked and the rays of sun were bouncing of the surface of the water.  There were birds swooping down and flying so close to the water that their feathers just gracefully skimmed its surface. "WOW!" I thought. "Look at what I see when I SLOW DOWN to ENJOY what is before me and RELAX for a change."  I began to paddle again, but this time with a different attitude.  I decided that I WILL reach the island when I reach the island.  Maybe that is not when my friends reach it, but that's okay because maybe it was that kayaking adventure that was meant to teach me this very important life lesson!

 

I viewed the trip as a metaphor for life.  We're all on this kayaking adventure.  We're going out into the open sea with nothing in sight of what could come across our path.  Through it we learn lessons.  It may be hard to learn them.  Growing pains aren't comfortable.  However, if you believe what I believe, we have been promised by our Lord Jesus Christ that we WILL reach the island if we trust Him.  Be who you are.  Learn as you learn.  Find joy in the experience of it all.  Are we to be diligent at this? Of course, but don't allow trying to catch up with the crowd get in the way of your pace and what you could be learning.  If you try to race ahead, you may get sick (if you're kayaking) or most importantly, you may miss what it is that God is trying to teach you.  His plan for us is individual and I can't expect mine to line up with someone else's.  It is unique.

 

Are you paddling at your own pace?

 

 

Kayak Cedar Keys!!!! http://kayakcedarkeys.com/

 

 

My Manifesto - I Love to Tell THE Story - Part I

In conversation a few weeks ago with my mentor, he encouraged me to write a manifesto for my art.  I was at my wits end, frustrated, and trying to figure out what I am doing.  I think grad school will do that do someone.  It is really hard.  I won't pretend that it isn't.  However, it is good and necessary to experience in order that one might truly own his work.  I have learned that my work can no longer be about what someone has told me to make it about or even what I think it should be.  No, it has to be what One greater than me has commanded it to be.

 

My second semester of graduate school has been a challenge to figure out that goal.  All I could figure out is that I wanted to tell a story... What story?  I had an idea. "I love to tell the story of unseen things above of Jesus and his glory, of Jesus and His love.  I love to tell the story because I know tis true.  It satisfies my longings as nothing else can do."  That's the story I wanted to tell and that's the story that I wanted to sing everyday.

 

PROBLEM! Not everyone can relate to that story the way I know it and not everyone cares about Jesus the way I do.  HOWEVER, there is something that we all have in common and that is that we are all human.  WOW. Yep. We are.  Flawed and sinful to the core. I know I am anyway.  I need saving.  No matter how hard I try, I can't fix or save myself at all. I must surrender and die to myself daily.  So I have a story - MY story.  It tells the story of Jesus and how He loved and saved me.  Doesn't everyone want to be saved by something?  Doesn't everyone want to be loved?  Can't I show human's desire to be safe and loved? Yes, I can.  That is what I will strive to do.  It won't have a cross stamped on it, but it will seek to share the story of His truth and love that is unchanging and eternal.

 

In reading a book that was recommended to me by none other than my mentor again, Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning, I came across a paragraph that screamed out to me, step it up a notch, Paige!!!!!!!!  You're on a mission!

 

Christian art should grow out of the robust confidence that nothing is unredeemable - that Jesus himself entered into the darkest levels of human experience and transformed them into sources of life and renewal.  A full-orbed work of Christian art should include all three elements of the biblical worldview: creation, fall, redemption.  It should allude to the beauty and dignity of the original creation.  But it should also be transparently honest about the reality of sin and suffering.  Finally, it should always give hints of redemption.  No matter how degraded or corrupt a character may be, he or she should be portrayed with the dignity of being redeemable.  Some ray of hope should penetrate the darkness....

 

I seek to...

 

.....create humane and healthy alternatives that speak deeply to the human condition.

 

Each and every one of us have a purpose in life.  We are created which means we have a Creator with a purpose.  I pray that I strive to live out that purpose everyday.   I have to tell my story.  It is the only one I have and because I am the only Paige there is, it will be told through a new lens - my lens. 

 

"I love to tell the Story,  'twill be my theme in glory. To tell the old, old story of Jesus and His love." 

 

 

 

Objects are magic.

IIn reading The Syntax of Objects by Tim McCreight, I have been brought to tears more than once.  Admitting that seems to prove Tim's thoughts and statements about objects from Chapter 32...

 

"Who thinks objects are magic, raise your hand.  Do you need convincing?"

 

Here is why I raised my hand. Guilty.

 

"Or think of the rediscovered toy.  You hadn't thought of it for years then see it at a flea market.  What is it?  A board game, or a doll, or a cap pistols in tan-colored plastic holsters?  A child-size kitchen, or a rubber sword, or a sheet metal dump truck, or a potholder loom?  You buy it, of course.  It is an artifact of historical dimensions.  It is COMFORT in a changing world, a familiar face seen across a room crowded with strangers, suddenly precious to you.  Of course you bought it, and you cannot explain why."

 

Why Mr. McCreight,  you have nailed it right on the head for me - for most of us I think.  My grandmother did this.  When I was in high school I thought that it was silly.  She would frequently come home from a visit to the antique store with something that one of her grandmothers had when she was a little girl.  Once, it was a set of aluminum measuring cups.  They were dinted in places and had lost their sheen.  She was so excited to show them to me.  She said, "Look what I found! Mammie had these when I was a little girl."  I didn't get it.  "So what? I thought." 

 

Please forgive me, Gran.  I get it now.  Approximately 5 years later, I stumbled across a set of the same aluminum measuring cups at a yard sale and guess what?  I bought them.  25 cents.  You can't beat that with a stick. In the end it doesn't matter how much they cost though.  They are special.  Irreplaceable.  They have a story in them that I know.  My Gran used them and now I know my Mammie, my great-great grandmother who I never met did as well.  WOW!  Well now I use them.  5 generations used the same style measuring cups. Cool.

 

Maybe I got an extra dose of sentiment in my genes, but this just moves me.  It takes me back to a time in life that was so special.  Not that now isn't.  IT IS!  Then was just different.  I don't know how to articulate it yet, but I long for that time back.  I could just cry.  I smell smells of then.  I feel my Grandmommy's sheets on my legs after a long day of work in the yard and a refreshing bath. 

 

HOW DO YOU MAKE THAT?!

 

Can I make my work be about this?  That's what I am striving for.  I want to capture this feeling.  Of course no one gives a rat's tail about my Gran or Mammie that I never met, but you have a Gran and a Mammie and I bet you feel the way about yours just as I do mine.  It's universal you see.  In the end, all I have is my story to articulate this feeling.  I know it best.  Since I do know my story best, I could probably express this feeling in the most powerful and sincere way if I use mine.  So I will...

Maslow's Hierarchy of Human Needs

In doing some research on basic human needs and hierarchies of needs, I found out that there are different ideas and debates on the topic. I will attempt to break a few of the different theories down over a series of posts. 

 

Today, let's discuss Abraham Maslow.  It seems as if his theory is one of the more well known ones. It has been altered some with the addition of a few steps on the pyramid since it's debut in Maslow's 1943 paper, A Theory of Human Motivation, but let's focus on the original theory for now.

 

First, what does Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs say...

 

To lay it down gently, "this hierarchy suggests that people are motivated to fulfill basic needs before moving on to other, more advanced needs."

 

In the diagram below, you can see how Maslow breaks these needs down...

 

 

 

 

Our most basic needs begin at the bottom with Physiological needs.  Physiological needs include the needs that are critical for survival (food, water, air, sleep).  Maslow believed that all other needs are secondary until the physiological needs are met.

 

Safety/Security needs are important for survival but are not as critical as physiological needs.  Examples of these types of needs include desire for steady employment, living in safe neighborhood, and shelter from the environment.

 

Social needs "include needs for belonging, love, and affection. Maslow described these needs as less basic than physiological and security needs. Relationships such as friendships, romantic attachments, and families help fulfill this need for companionship and acceptance, as does involvement in social, community, or religious groups."

 

"After the first three needs have been satisfied, esteem needs becomes increasingly important. These include the need for things that reflect on self-esteem, personal worth, social recognition, and accomplishment."

 

"Self-Actualizing needs are the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Self-actualizing people are self-aware, concerned with personal growth, less concerned with the opinions of others, and interested fulfilling their potential."

 

 



Again, in order to reach the top of the pyramid of needs, the step below it must first be fulfilled.  Sometimes this can be challenging for some to achieve.

 

 

My thoughts.... I am still reading and researching other theories, but I am interested in where this desire that I have for a home fall in this pyramid?  It is there I think in the safety/security needs as well as in social needs.  I guess before I can determine the answer to that, I have to ask...

 

What is home?  Is it a place?  Is it a feeling???  Is it family? Friends? Relationships?  Is it on Earth?

 

I think, I long for a place. A physical place.  That is home, but so are the people and the feelings and the relationships.  I don't think I am the only one who experiences these feelings. 

 

I have recently reconnected with someone who is becoming a very dear friend to me.  I knew this person from a previous and brief meeting 3 years ago, but didn't really know much else about this person.  Yet, there was something about this person that was comfortable. We hit it off immediately!  I felt like I had known this person for my entire life.  I could be honest and chat.  It felt safe.  This person felt the same way about me.  This person said to me, "it feels like home with you."  The feelings were mutual. I felt the same way, but what a way to put it, "it feels like home with you."

 

Hmmm... that has gotten me to thinking about what home means even more.  I wrote in a previous post, that I found comfort in the objects that dear people in my life had given to me.  Notes. Tins. Pottery. Postcards.  I wrote that those things brought me comfort, because they were the people that were closest to me in my life.  They were like my family.  So I am still asking the question is home a place, friends, family, feelings?  Maybe it is just a combination of all of these things?  I have this feeling and notion that it is something that will never be completely fulfilled here.  Yet, we continue to search for it.... Why and what is that?

 

According to Maslow and other psychologists as I will explore further later, these things we desire are basic human needs.

 

 

Works Cited

 

http://psychology.about.com/od/theoriesofpersonality/a/hierarchyneeds.htm

 

http://www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html

 

http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/conation/maslow.html

 

 





 



 

 

 

 

Success is counted sweetest

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple Host

Who took the Flag today

Can tell the definition

So clear of victory

As he defeated – dying –

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Burst agonized and clear!

 

EMILY DICKINSON

 

 

 

I recall reading this poem in my American Literature class in high school.  I memorized it.  It stuck.  What is Dickinson saying? 

 

The loser understands victory more than the winner? 

 

I am learning that this is true for many other things in life. Notice I said learning. I don't know all the answers. I don't understand everything.  I am seeking for the answers and understanding and only hope that I will continue to do so throughout my life...

 

 In a previous post, I referenced Rybczynski's book, Home: A Short History of an Idea.  Rybcznski spoke about comfort.  How do we know what comfort is if we have not experienced discomfort?  I think this poem illustrates the same concept.  We can receive full understanding of something when we have experienced its opposite. 

 

My thoughts... how does this affect our desire for a home?  Our desire for a place. Is it attainable here? Has anyone experienced it yet?

 

 

 

Comfort and Well-being

In reading some excerpts from the book, Home: A Short History of an Idea by Witold Rybczynski (recommended by a fellow artist, Kate Fisher), I immediately found myself reading the last chapter of the book on "comfort" and "well-being."  Usually, when I think about home, I think about these things so it seemed fitting for me to get down to business and immediately read that chapter.  Well, after I read the foreword and chapter 1 on "Nostalgia."  At any rate, Rybczynski hooked me at the beginning of chapter 10 when he said,

"Domestic well-being is a fundamental human need that is DEEPLY rooted in us, and that must be satisfied."

As an architect, he goes on to explain that we should not confuse the idea of comfort with décor.  Décor does not necessarily make a house comfortable.  Then he breaks down the history of different floor plans and how they have evolved over time to accommodate our comfort and needs and on and on and on...

However, what struck me the most interesting is the idea of measuring comfort.  How do you do that? Rybczynski thinks that maybe the only way we can measure comfort is by measuring discomfort.  Discomfort is much more measureable.  He says, "the simplest response would be that comfort is physiology -- feeling good."

I know when something feels good, right? My pillow sure does feel good when I lay my head on it every night, but would I know that it felt good if I had not experienced what felt bad?  My head did not feel good when it was resting on the dentist's chair for 3 hours on Friday.  That did not feel good at all.  I could definitely measure that much more accurately than I can measure the comfort my pillow gives me. The way Rybczynski sums it up in the end is perfect. He gives the example that most people say,

"I may not know why I like it, but I know what I like."

He continues to say,

"This recognition involves a combination of sensations -- many of them subconscious -- and not only physical, but also emotional as well as intellectual, which makes comfort difficult to explain and impossible to measure."

All of this makes me think of the longing we have for home and place.  We have this stuff.  Pictures.  Cushy pillows and blankets.  Fluffy rugs.  Pottery.  All this stuff that we fill our houses with trying to make it home. Trying to make it comfortable.  We are searching for comfort.  For the past 3 summers, I have lived in Colorado.  My room there is this generic room in a building of other generic rooms. They all look the same. They all have the same furniture. They all have the same stark walls.  I can't stand it.  I want it to be my "home" not just the place that I sleep.  So what do I do? I take photos of FRIENDS and FAMILY and favorite pieces of pottery that remind me of the PEOPLE who made them.  A Nestle chocolate tin can that my FRIEND gave me.  I hang special postcards and notes on the wall by my bed that special PEOPLE in my life wrote to me.  All of the stuff that I take there is related to people and that is what brings me comfort.  They are my friends. My family.  Is this longing that we have for home and comfort really a longing for family?  Is it family that brings you comfort?  Can we measure it accurately if we have not experienced the discomfort of missing parts of a family?  

 

 

Works Cited

 

Rybczynski, Witold. Home: A Short History of an Idea. New York: Penguin Books, 1987. Print.

Sehnsucht

I have found a German word that seems to describe the feeling of longing that we have and that I am referring to perfectly - Sehnsucht.

You may listen to how this word is pronounced here - http://www.pronounceitright.com/pronounce/11402/sehnsucht

According to oxforddictionaries.com, sehnsucht is yearning; wistful longing. However, there is much much more to be said about this word in many psychology journals.  Here http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/dev/43/3/778.html, the Developmental Psychology journal goes in depth about the term.

Additionally, there are plays and movies on the subject. Hope to find some of those and read/watch them.

I am currently reading more about this and plan to contact some psychologists on the subject.

Stay tuned... more to come on Sehnsucht later!