Celebrating Student Art in Our Neighborhood

This evening, Tim and I headed up to the Ringling College of Art and Design, which is at the north end of our neighborhood, to check out the senior student projects.  As I walked around the campus (for the first time ever), my mind was filled with ideas about how we might further develop the unique potential that relates to having an art college in our own neighborhood.   

In addition to the students who were exhibiting their work, there were many of the students’ friends, family and community members there to tour the exhibits and to celebrate the students’ accomplishments.  

Wouldn’t it be neat if we, as neighbors, were to similarly attend end-of-year exhibits and celebrations at the elementary, middle and high schools that our neighborkids attend?  And the reverse, too – for classmates, school teachers and staff to come celebrate students’ accomplishments here in the neighborhood.

Here are some pics of Tim checking out some of the exhibits.

 

  

Wouldn’t it be neat to connect with some of the talented illustrators, animators, and graphic designers who are part of our neighborhood (by virtue of their being Ringling students/faculty/staff), so that we might together bring to life some of the innovative ideas that our neighborkids have been generating? 

And here is a Ringling student whose last name is “Jones,” just like Amorie.  She created a self-promotional graphic design election sticker that says, “Jonesing for [name].”  When we told her that one of our neighbors, Amorie, also has the last name of “Jones,” she made this election sticker for him.  Can you see what it says?  “Jonesing for Amorie Jones.” 

 So does this now mean there’s only one degree of separation between the neighborkids and the Ringling folks?  Probably not quite yet, but it seems worth paying attention to all the ways in which this weak tie might become strengthened…especially given the artistic talent among both groups of students...

  

Gardening Season is Upon Us

The season is upon us once again – gardening season, that is!  Neighbor Miss Joanna is a favorite among the neighborkids, as she’s always got a gardening project underway in her yard, and kids are welcome to help out and make a contribution.  The kids told me that in exchange, she secret-surprises them with special trips about town, like to get their nails painted, or to get ice cream, or…

 Here is a pic of Holly and Dareeona helping Miss Joanna to plant a palm tree.  It’s no wonder Miss Joanna has become a regularly invited neighbor when it comes to the monthly Neighborkid Dinners!  

Now THAT'S Neighborly

This has been a crazily stressful week for me.  At the start of the week, I received the news that the home I still own (and was renting out) in Tampa burned down when the tenants left cigarettes unattended. 

Later in the week, I received even more devastating news, which I’d rather keep to myself.  Needless to say, this was not the time to have overlooked paying my electric bill, but that’s exactly what I did, and today the electric company turned off my electricity. 

So…it meant a lot to me when I got a call in the late morning while I was working up in Tampa – it was the D’s mom, my neighbor Donna, letting me know that FP&L had turned off my electricity, and there was a pink notice on the door.  She said she wanted to let me know so there’d be time for me to pay the bill and get the power restored before I got home from work at the end of the day. 

Now THAT’S neighborly. 

When I got home, Donna’s son Da’Sean met me at the door, curious about the pink notice.  “What’s this?” he asked, and then proceeded to read the announcement aloud, which gave me a chance to tell Da’Sean the story of how his neighborly mom had helped me out early in the day.

Because of my neighbors, it feels more and more like home around here.  Thanks.  

A Mailbox Balloon for Amorie

Today was neighborkid Amorie’s birthday.   Since we recently found our neighborhood birthday calendar (after it went M.I.A. in the sunroom for a few months), we finally resumed our neighborhood tradition of surprising neighbors on their birthdays by tying a balloon to their mailbox, along with delivering a card signed by all of us as neighbors.  Not only is it fun to get a balloon and card on your own birthday, it’s fun to keep up with who is celebrating every week / month, and to get in on the celebratory vibes.  Here’s a picture of Amorie (holding a slice of his birthday cake), with his little sister Naya, next to Amorie’s balloon.

 Amorie wanted a quick pic of himself with his auntie’s baby Trinity, too – one of his favorite babies these days…

Maybe Trinity will become a C-C Neighborhood Scavenger Hunter soon too :)

Neighborkid Holly's Art Review of Florence Putterman's Painting

Today I went on a tour of homes that are of the Sarasota School of Architecture.  I was curious about the ways in which these relatively small, modern homes cultivate a quality of enchantment, and how they might contribute to a spirit of not only homeyness but also neighborliness wherever they are built. 

One of the homes we visited was that of Florence Putterman, who is a local artist.  She was present during the tour and was handing out books with prints of her paintings, and I was lucky enough to get a copy.    

When I got home, neighborkid Holly was on my front stoop, ready to surprise me with a chalk note she had written for me on the front walk. 

I told Holly about the architecture tour and showed her the book of paintings by fellow Sarasotan Florence Putterman.  Holly was interested in the paintings, so I asked her if she could show me which one was her favorite, and then tell a story about it. 

 Here’s the story she told:

It’s think it’s about Indian stuff, where, I see some Indian stuff right there.  There’s trees and there’s persons in it and they’re in the forest with a whole bunch of animals.

[Who are the people in the forest with a whole bunch of animals?]

That one would be Florence.  That would be some guy, that’s a guy and that’s a girl, and that’s a guy.  I don’t know what that is…

[So what are they doing in the forest with the animals?]

They’re trying to hide their selves ‘cause they think they don’t have no pants and stuff on. 

[Oh, that’s kind of like Adam and Eve in the Bible, huh?  And then what happens?]

And then when they get out of the forest they’re going to pick a leaf and hide their…you know…

[Hide themselves, sort of cover themselves up with those leaves?]

Yep.

[OK.  Anything else about that story?]

No.

[Anything else you want to say about the paintings in this book?]

Oh, I like the paintings.

[What do you like most about them?]

I like the animals and the people in them.  And the decorations. 

[I like that too.]

Later in the day, I read the introduction to the Putterman collection of paintings that was written by David Cleveland, who was introduced as “an art writer, independent curator, and novelist who regularly reviews for ArtNews.”  Here’s how he described Florence Putterman’s art:

“Florence Putterman’s free-spirited art is a bewitching brew of fantastic imagery…floating forms of animals and humans…from…Indian petrography.  … Everything about the work speaks of joy’s discovery…a phantasmagoria of playful beings, both human and animal, though given the free interaction in what seems like some Edenic setting, their roles are interchangeable.” 

Seems 8-year-old Holly was right on.  Wow.  

Discovering our Neighborhood Poet Laureate

This afternoon, Gus and I needed to get out of the house for a while so we headed ten blocks down Central Avenue to a coffee shop in the Rosemary District – a place with outdoor tables, where I can write while we both enjoy the sun and breeze. 

When we got there we ran into John, a fellow neighbor, who lives at Renaissance Manor on the other side of Mary Dean Park.  He has stopped by the house a few times to chat, but this was the first time we had a chance to talk for a while at the coffee shop.

It turns out John is a great storyteller with a quick sense of humor, and he’s had some amazing life experiences.  He has two grand-daughters named MacKenzie and Lyric.  Lyric was born 2 days before the birthday of his wife, Carol, who died some years ago.  He says he notices many of Carol’s features in little Lyric – “she got Carol’s eyes, and her hair too.”  

Although John took classes in social work, what he really loves doing is writing poetry.  He suggested that since he loves kids and also loves writing poetry, he’d love to teach the kids in our neighborhood how to rhyme and write poems.  I can’t wait to find out from our neighborkids whether this is something they’d get into – it seems like it could add a special, artistic dimension to our summertime neighborhood scavenger hunts (which will start up again in just over a month!)

While we were at the coffee shop, John followed through on a promise he made to us earlier.  When he bought a “detention Bible” at our recent yard sale, he told us he would write a poem about it.  Sure enough, before Gus and I left the coffee shop, we had received that poem, signed with the pseudonym “Arthur Unknown.”  

Here’s the poem:

The Book of Detention

by Arthur Unknown

When it came to my attention

In a house of retention

Where redemption lay heavy on our souls

Where the guards they were hardened

For their lives they were a hard one

And some seemed to find it easier to harangue and cuss us

Than to offer to extend a hand a trust us

Friend, I’ve painted you a picture

To help you see the mixture

Of the hate and some of the trouble

That often burst like a bubble

And found many a poor boy in lock-up

Where we often stayed to sun-up

Chained like a dog who was never given affection

Which brought on dejection

And times best forgotten.

But there in that house of Hell

God looked down and with a little hand

He did the deed

That old House of Detention shook

And today as I look

Back I wonder when we all might heal

Without the book

That set us straight

Released us from

Our common fate,

And with a little book

The House of Detention took

Us to the other side

So now you know how we discovered our neighborhood poet laureate.

Neighborkid Wisdom Revealed through Results-Based Accountability

Tonight when I got home from work I was greeted by a bunch of neighborkids who were on an accountability mission.  They remembered that I’d promised to share a chocolate Easter bunny with them, and they were ready for me to follow through on that commitment.

After everybody came inside and we’d divvied up / gobbled up the chocolate rabbit and washed it down with ice water, I asked the kids, “Will you guys help me out with my homework tonight?”  I wanted to see if we, as fellow neighbors, could try out an exercise I recently learned that is associated with a community change framework called “Results-Based Accountability.” 

The kids said okay, so I asked them to help me answer the following questions:

If all the kids in our neighborhood were        
                                                                        … happy…            

                                                                        …healthy…           

                                                                        …learning…

                                                                        …loved…

                                                                        …contributing…

                                                                        …loving…
                                                                                                      how could we tell?

Here’s what the kids (ages 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 & 10) had to say:

1.     If all the kids in our neighborhood were HAPPY we would notice:

·      Kids jumping on the bed and in trees

·      Every kid would have a nice monkey …or pets…or puppies

·      Kids drawing pictures with chalk

·      Kids having fun with Miss Allison

·      There would never be storms

·      The whole world would have superpowers

·      No kicking nobody

·      No fighting

·      No punching

2.     If all the kids in our neighborhood were HEALTHY we would notice:

·      More fruit

·      Growing up bigger and bigger

·      Lose weight / don’t be fat

·      Don’t be skinny

·      Have more superpowers

·      Gus (Miss Allison’s puppy) would be bigger

3.     If all the kids in our neighborhood were LEARNING we would notice:

·      Thinking in your brain

·      Go to school every day

·      Learn about everything

·      Don’t be bad – be good

·      Listen to the teacher

·      Follow the rules

·      They’re going to be outside all the time

·      Do all your homework

·      Don’t stand around on the sidewalk

4.     If all the kids in our neighborhood were LOVED we would notice:

·      People saying, “I love you” more

·      They would love dogs

·      They would love school

·      They’d go to somebody’s house every day and they’d let them in and they’d stay for like an hour

·      Ask them and they would say, “I am loved”

·      I love our neighbor Joanna

·      They would say “I love you” really much

5.     If all the kids in our neighborhood were CONTRIBUTING (doing things for our neighborhood and for the world, like grown-ups do), we would notice:

·      Kids helping their moms

·      Helping their dads

·      Helping their parents

·      Doing what your parents say

·      Drawing pictures on the road

·      Washing cars with grown-ups

·      They would have a shirt on about what they were doing

6.     If all the kids in our neighborhood were LOVING we would notice:

·      Kids loving their parents

·      Kids loving their grandmothers and grandfathers

·      Kids loving their cousins

·      Kids loving their pets

[What would that look like?  How could we tell?]

·      They would be happy

·      Well, say they were crying – someone outside, they came and talked to them and then they really weren’t crying because they were loved. 

I have to say, I am pretty impressed by how capable these neighborkids are when it comes to identifying what community planners and social service providers refer to as “population outcomes.”  Sure, there were a couple of “strategies” in the mix (like “every kid having a nice monkey” to be happy and “more fruit” to be healthy), but overall these were legitimate examples of community-wide well-being!

The neighborkids’ brainstorm has got me thinking again:  What as-of-yet-undiscovered potential might be revealed if we all were to orient in earnest around the wisdom of children?

Da'Sean's Birthday Party on the Block

This weekend while my sister Ellen and niece Maddie were visiting for the first time from Paulsbo, Washington (near Seattle), and we were lucky enough to be invited to neighborkid Da’Sean’s birthday party!  It was held at the end of our block, at Mary Dean Park.  Here are some pictures from the celebration.  Da’Sean’s dad Oscar came up with the idea of bobbing for apples…in ice water!  Dareeona wound up being the most courageous, dunking her head in the freezing cold water time and again until she got an apple.  Yikes!  

    

Pin the Tail on the Donkey - on the jungle gym - was another big hit.  

And of course, the swings are ALWAYS fun.

Glad my family was able to get a true sense of our neighborhood spirit - thanks, and happy birthday, Da'Sean!

Spiritual Aristocracy in the Neighborhood

Today I was reading an essay titled, “The World of Science and the World of Value,” in which the great systems thinker Ludwig Von Bertalanffy said, “status symbols…must in some way be replaced by recognition of worthiness, of spiritual aristocracy, wherever it is found.”

This Easter, I attended church at Payne Chapel AME Church in our Central-Cocoanut neighborhood of Newtown in Sarasota, where the youngest members of the congregation – the children – led us in a reenactment of the Passion story.  While I have participated in many Easter services over the past 40 years – mostly in churches of the Episcopal denomination – I was especially moved by the experience this year.  The children’s account was more honest, and more earnest, than any I’ve participated in before. The adult members of the congregation were active contributors too – as narrators, musicians, and ushers – but it was most certainly the children who were leading us all in the worship experience.  The Reverend Clarence Honor affirmed the significance for himself as well, noting afterward that sometimes it is better to witness a sermon than to preach a sermon.

As I read Von Bertalanffy’s essay today, I realized that this Easter I discovered “spiritual aristocracy” in my own neighborhood, in the children.

It reminded me, too, of how often I am noticing this same quality among my fellow neighbors -- especially the neighborkids -- as we venture about to discover and invent ways of connecting, and a sense of belonging, in the patch of Sarasota that we call home.

This truly is a special place to be living.

Thanks. 

Impromptu Yard Sale

I decided today that I need to get busy with some serious spring cleaning, so I figured it was time for an impromptu yard sale!  After dragging a folding table out to the front yard, I put a few books, toys, and household goods on the table with a sign:  "YARD SALE.  Contribute what you think is fair; all $ goes to the Central-Cocoanut Neighborhood Scavenger Hunters."

Before I knew it, people were coming over not only to check out the goods, but to contribute items too!  Tim brought over some furniture.  15-year-old Hope brought some books, stuffed animals, and posters.  One person from outside our neighborhood who stopped by and bought a few things even said she'd come back later with a bag of clothes to contribute!   

The neighborkids started getting into it, and wanted to take turns "staffing" the table, so we got the Scavenger Hunters "cashbox" out of the cabinet to deposit the earnings.  Kids started putting items on "lay-away" and then running home to get their money.  Kids who didn't have money started raking leaves for 50 cents a bag, and then using their earnings to make yard sale purchases.  

After several hours, when it seemed that we weren’t likely to get any more visitors, and everybody present had selected all of their purchases, we decided to count up the money and call it a day.  It turns out we made over $80 at the impromptu yard sale! 

As we were cleaning up, our neighbor John, who lives on the other side of the park at Renaissance Manor, stopped by and made a "prize find" among the items that were left over.  He discovered what he described as a “Detention Bible.”  It was a bible with a stamp in the front that indicated it was given to someone as part of a juvenile detention ministry.  John said it would be great inspiration for a poem, and told us he’d show us the poem someday, once he wrote it.

Amazing how something like an impromptu yard sale can wind up drawing people together to contribute and exchange resources with one another, ultimately generating more enthusiasm, creativity, and even dollars than we expected at the start.