Several years ago I had the chance to help Nick Calcagno do some repairs to the mural that started the mural craze in downtown Miami, the one on the side of Osborn's Rexall Drug Store. Actually I got to take a student from Miami High School to help him, and it was taking longer than the student was able to stay, so Nick allowed me to climb the ladder and dab the appropriate colors as he directed. I felt like and was working with a master, with the paintbrush and got on the top of the ladder to prove it.
It was an exhilarating experience that I got to share with the student whose name I have lost, but who demonstrated the confidence which showed me how to listen and take the directions just so.
After that when talking to Nick I told him how much I really wanted to learn to work with watercolors. While at his house, he simply took a stack of some of the best how to's ever written and gave them to me. And they have sat for all these years at my house. Until Emily Fansler posted a message on Facebook wondering if anyone would like to take a watercolor class on line with her. I jumped at the chance and this afternoon, we began.
This first one ended up looking like a mass of angry alien insects ascending into the sunset, but like Ron Seat told me once: "If you want to learn to paint with watercolors, do one every day for a year, then you will know how." So my year began today.
Much of our world is wrestling with how to manage within the guidelines of the pandemic, what is needed to be safe, and how to protect the economy while doing that and if that is at all possible.
Years ago a friend of mine Truman Geren, an AIDS Educator spoke at a gathering when we knew so little about HIV/AIDS. He told the facts that were currently known, and then added to the large gathering that "within 3 years you will lose someone to AIDS." I repeated his opinion when talking about AIDS to others, but 3 years later at my high school reunion, at that time, the only reunion I had ever attended, I was so very excited to see the fellow who had become my high school dream boyfriend. No, not to rekindle the relationship, but actually to ask for some money I had loaned him to buy his first car! He hadn't shown up and wasn't on the "dead" list. So I asked a former classmate about him. He wasn't coming, he had committed suicide the week before after being diagnosed with AIDS but the program had already been printed.
You will know people who will die from this virus and many people you will never have the opportunity to meet because of our isolation. This is a deadly disease and we all depend on you understanding it is. Each of us must do our individual efforts to stop the spread.
The LEAD Agency office has been closed for a month of Sundays, (it feels like). But we are still working. This week a woman dropped off some paint chips and I will be able to test them for lead with our XRF. If you are doing home renovations and are wondering if some of that old paint could have lead in it, we would be glad to analyze it for you. Also if you are like me and come across a few antiques that you might want to use for your morning coffee, but wonder if they are safe to use, drop them by and we can test them for you. Just bag them with your contact information and leave them on the back porch. When you get your results, we will include some seeds for your garden since, this year might be a good time for watercolors, but it is definitely the best season for a garden you might ever have had!
We are all going to have a month of Sundays, lets fill each one of them with the good we can offer others and the joy simple pleasures can bring us. Learn something you longed to learn. Mark a thing off your "to do" list, but keep adding to it, we have time.
Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim
It was an exhilarating experience that I got to share with the student whose name I have lost, but who demonstrated the confidence which showed me how to listen and take the directions just so.
After that when talking to Nick I told him how much I really wanted to learn to work with watercolors. While at his house, he simply took a stack of some of the best how to's ever written and gave them to me. And they have sat for all these years at my house. Until Emily Fansler posted a message on Facebook wondering if anyone would like to take a watercolor class on line with her. I jumped at the chance and this afternoon, we began.
This first one ended up looking like a mass of angry alien insects ascending into the sunset, but like Ron Seat told me once: "If you want to learn to paint with watercolors, do one every day for a year, then you will know how." So my year began today.
Much of our world is wrestling with how to manage within the guidelines of the pandemic, what is needed to be safe, and how to protect the economy while doing that and if that is at all possible.
Years ago a friend of mine Truman Geren, an AIDS Educator spoke at a gathering when we knew so little about HIV/AIDS. He told the facts that were currently known, and then added to the large gathering that "within 3 years you will lose someone to AIDS." I repeated his opinion when talking about AIDS to others, but 3 years later at my high school reunion, at that time, the only reunion I had ever attended, I was so very excited to see the fellow who had become my high school dream boyfriend. No, not to rekindle the relationship, but actually to ask for some money I had loaned him to buy his first car! He hadn't shown up and wasn't on the "dead" list. So I asked a former classmate about him. He wasn't coming, he had committed suicide the week before after being diagnosed with AIDS but the program had already been printed.
You will know people who will die from this virus and many people you will never have the opportunity to meet because of our isolation. This is a deadly disease and we all depend on you understanding it is. Each of us must do our individual efforts to stop the spread.
The LEAD Agency office has been closed for a month of Sundays, (it feels like). But we are still working. This week a woman dropped off some paint chips and I will be able to test them for lead with our XRF. If you are doing home renovations and are wondering if some of that old paint could have lead in it, we would be glad to analyze it for you. Also if you are like me and come across a few antiques that you might want to use for your morning coffee, but wonder if they are safe to use, drop them by and we can test them for you. Just bag them with your contact information and leave them on the back porch. When you get your results, we will include some seeds for your garden since, this year might be a good time for watercolors, but it is definitely the best season for a garden you might ever have had!
We are all going to have a month of Sundays, lets fill each one of them with the good we can offer others and the joy simple pleasures can bring us. Learn something you longed to learn. Mark a thing off your "to do" list, but keep adding to it, we have time.
Respectfully Submitted ~ Rebecca Jim
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