Love is a Radical Act Project

Some friends of mine, Sam and Kelly, have started a wonderful project called Love is a Radical Act.  Here's some of what Sam said about the project. You can read the whole introduction to the project here.

..I do not understand or subscribe to romance. I think it often belittles the true love that motivates small daily gestures. It too often clouds the reality of a relationship – the lack of solid foundation, the acts of cruelty, the lack of common goals and interests...

..I am fighting for recognition and respect for all types of families – blended families, queer families, multi-racial families, adoptive families, families of choice, childless and child-free families, single people, and many more. I am fighting for the right to marry my partner so that we will enjoy the same protections that other couples take for granted. Heck, if someone can come up with a better system that will allow for greater flexibility and protection for all types of families, then I will fight for that too...

In honor of all kinds of love and as part of the fight for marriage equality Sam and Kelly have a few ways that you can participate. 

1. They're selling ceramic hearts that you can then leave places or take images of. 
2. They are doing he(art) bombings where one or many people go and hang the ceramic hearts in public places  
3. They're asking for your stories of all kinds of families and love. You can find out more how to get involved here. Check out the website for some he(art) bombings that have already taken place.

Last weekend I went to the beach with a family of mine that would not be recognized or valued by many people in America. It was a lovely simple weekend. A nice end to the summer. I so enjoyed taking images of the Love is a Radical Act hearts in this setting knowing that I was living exactly what this project is about.

My partner of nine years was with me. He is a true and trusted partner. He's my best friend. I so relate to what Sam wrote above about how the romance that most people think is so important is actually just an illusion. That idea actually belittles the true real love of everyday kindness and partnership. That is what I have with my partner.

We don't live together, we aren't married, but we have a strong equal partnership and his love and friendship has changed my life so much for the better.  Some people have and will dismiss our relationship, but it is strong and just as valid as any other couple or family who love and care for each other every day.

Family is where you find the people who most care for you, who want the best for you, who accept you as you are. This can come in many different forms. One is no better than the other. The fact that love can be divided as good or bad or right or wrong is absurd.

I hope you'll take part in this fun, positive and important project.

surprises

Today has been somewhat rainy and windy. Fall is now here and as usual I am happy to see it. However, I was not happy to have such early fall-like weather last weekend when the mister and I went to the coast. I was hoping for a little blast of last minute summer. I had visions of laying on the warm sand during the day and staring at the stars at night. Instead I got a grey sky that almost exactly matched the grey ocean and rain all weekend long.  You couldn't even sit on the porch without getting wet.

It was still a nice weekend, though. There was lots of relaxing and one day we went into town, walked around in the rain and had some ice cream.

We also stopped by the smoked fish shop. I've driven by a few times and never could stop. We got the most amazingly good and still warm smoked tuna, salmon and black cod. I will stop there now everytime.

Karla's Smokehouse

We stayed in a kooky old run down house that hadn't been redone since the early 80's and is still filled with the owners things. The owners still come and stay there part of the year.

Down in their dark garage there's a little hallway to get to the washer and dryer area (everything else is behind plywood walls and covered in tarps). In this hallway I found a wall covered with clippings and old calendars and posters. I love finding walls like this. This one was especially exciting because the owner had a pin-up calendar from 1981 on Duane Bryers' chubby pin-up creation, Hilda. I have only ever seen these images on the internet. It was cool to see some in real life. 

Everyone seems to be pretty excited about fall being here. I am already looking forward to some things. But, I'm gonna try and keep my preconceived ideas to a minimum about my plans. You never know what you'll really get.

kid's drawings

One of my favorite things to buy at zine symposiums or comic shows is drawings that little kids are selling. There's usually at least one kid who's with someone selling and they have a pile of drawings or comics of their own to sell. 

Last month at the Portland Zine Sympoisum there was an organization raising money for kids art classes by selling some drawings. I bought this for 2 or 3 dollars.

 

Here are some other drawings I got in the past, most likely from either the zine symposium or Stumptown Comicsfest. I've been meaning to post some of these for years.

This one above was a full comic series. I bought three issues, all full length and stapled in the corner. This was from at least 5 years ago at PZS.

 

This one above is my favorite. It looks like this on the page. The drawing takes up about 1/6 of the blank page. Here is a close up below:

Not only is this just a great picture of some kid that I am guessing has some serious braces. But, it always makes me hear a song in my head from a long ago Oakland band called Eskimo that I saw a lot in the late 80's.. They ended a song called Clark's Monkey calling out the name Clark, Clark?

These last two I think I got at Stumptown.

I'm betting I have more around. If I find them I'll post them. When you go to shows like this look for the little kids who has a mess of drawings on a small part of the table. You'll get some cool stuff.

welcome spring

When was a bout 6 or so, a man who worked with my father making educational films gave me two books, A Child's Garden of Verses and A Child's Book of Poems. Both were illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa.

These books had a big impact on me, although I didn't notice it till many years later. The illustrations were so beautiful. Many of the poems dealt with seasonal things. There were lots of winter poems about the joys of skating and snow and cold and coming in from the cold. The images with them were so enchanting and charming.

But, they confused me a bit and made it clear to me that I was missing out on a lot of neat stuff living in Southern California. January didn't mean snowmen to me. I never needed to bundle up to do anything. And except for a few vacations, I wore my scarves and gloves mainly to go to the ice skating parties at the indoor rinks.

I also noted that there was supposed to be lots of rain in April, winds in March and other people had lots of leaves to rake up and burn in fall. The whole seasons thing captivated me and that has never really gone away.

I think these illustrations were the first thing that really affected my desire to move North and have more weather. I love that in Portland we have true seasons without it getting too out of control.



Gyo Fujikawa was a American born Japanese woman. She was born in Berkeley, California and she did some work for Disney in the early years. She was one of the first illustrators to get royalties from books instead of just a flat fee.

She was interned with her family during World War II where she continued to do advertising layouts. She never married or had children. She died at 90 in 1998.

A lot of the prettiest pages in the books I have are on both pages. I scanned these two to share with you in honor of yesterday being the first day of spring. Click through to the flickr page to see the bigger size.

contribute to a mix tape tribute

King Bingaman-Burt is a busy Portland artist who draws things. She draws the stuff she buys on a regular basis, putting out a monthly zine called What Did you Buy Today. A book is due out soon based on these zines. She also has her illustrations published regularly and is shown in galleries.

Right now she wants to draw your treasured mix tapes. Take a pic and send it to her or upload it to her flickr page. I have a few I want to submit. More info here.

everything you want

I recently got back in touch with an old DJ friend, Steve Lambert. We were DJ's at KZSU over ten years ago. Steve had seen me in the zine documentary and contacted me. He was about 20 the last time I saw him and since then has been very busy making art and making headlines - literally.

He was a co-creator of the fake NY Times paper that came out around election time last year. You can still see it online here.

His most recent show, Everything You Want, Right Now! is currently in L.A. and you have another couple of weeks to see it. If you are in the area I hope you will go.

It has been nice to reconnect to Steve and so very cool to see all the great stuff he has been up to. Please visit his website to see more, to find out about his show and to learn more about his artwork. I find this kind of art really inspiring. Here are a couple of my favorite images:

shadow project by Color Me Katie

Do you follow the blog Color Me Katie? It is one of my new favorite blogs. Katie is an artist and photographer living in Brooklyn and she does some of the best projects. Stuff that looks simple, but really isn't as simple as it seems and all of it never fails to put a smile on your face.

Her most recent project is making shadows for people from paper and then taking photos as people pass by them at the right time, so that they are lined up to be their shadows.

Perfection. I wish I lived in Brooklyn so I could run into these around town. More here.