Tuesday, March 15, 2011

A Creative Bent

Joyce Bier, Knotts Berry Farm circ '70s
It was Halloween in the early 70's, I was nine or ten and my best friend Heidi G. invited me to a party. I don't remember when I'd asked permission to go, what I do remember was the day of the party my mom took a pair of white leotards, top and bottoms, and tie-dyed them forest green. She colored and cut leaves from construction paper to affix to the 'stalks' and fashioned a big yellow, tissue paper, flower for my head. By the time my mom was done, I was a sunflower. That's who she was.

I'd love to regale you, dear reader, with warm stories such as this but growing up I felt separate and apart, like Marilyn from the Munsters.  There was a dark side to all of this creativity, and I'm an expert at compartmentalizing. It wasn't until my mom was forty-five, I was twenty-five and a single mother of three children, when that dark side had a name, bipolar disorder.

In the 90's, I moved my family to the bay area, armed myself with my first computer, an eMachine, the internet, and found Patty Duke Austin's book, A Brilliant Madness. I finally began to piece together my personal history.

If you haven't gotten it yet books are my constant companion; they've been my refuge, my safe haven. Even at the point of sitting vigil as my mother lay dying; I allowed myself to be transported from her room at the Brun's House, to a land of furry footed little people, stout and hardy dwarves, elves and their envious oneness with the natural world. My love of reading is just one gift my mother passed on.

I don't know if my mom's creative bent was a byproduct of her illness, what I do know is whether she was; repainting furniture, macraming plant hangers, tie dying clothes, drawing in pastels, stringing sinew over metal hoops to create dreamcatchers, or doing hair, my mom was the epitome of artistic expression.

Maybe my finding the Creative Placemaking whitepaper was kismet. Today, on the eve of my mom's birthday, helping young people express their creative talents feels like the right way to honor her. Maybe by helping others express their potential I can pay tribute to a potential unrealized.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Martinez: A Tale of Two Cities, with apologies to Charles Dickens

It's been two months since the abrupt ending to my happily ever after fairy-tale. The pain is still fresh; I expect it will be for a long time. But causes keep me going and here in Martinez, I don't have to look too hard to find them.

If you haven't heard AOL has a hyper-local on-line presence dedicated to providing topical news top tier news outlets tend to ignore. That's an over-simplification but hey, this is my blog. Here in the City of Martinez you can find them at www.martinez.patch.com, my friend Jim Caroompas is the editor.

Ya I know, I work for the hometown print paper, shouldn't I feel threatened? No, each offers something unique but I digress. On January 30th a member of our community, Pat Keeble, posed this question on Patch, "Why don't we have a dog park in Martinez?" I responded by pointing to an op-ed I'd written for the Martinez News-Gazette August 28, 2008 and saved to my blog.  

One of the comments I captured in my dog park post highlighted a disturbing schism, half our residents don't consider themselves part of Martinez. It was local historian, Harriett Burt, who told me our city has tried to overcome the idea of two Martinez's for decades. Another comment touched on political obstacles residents seemingly face.

Everyone reading this blog (all five of you) know I extol the virtues of social media and the Internet. I imagine the idea of unfettered access to the world's information as the inspiration for the Library of Alexandria. Romantic fancy, maybe, but again this is my blog.

Another author/friend I've made as a result of Twitter, Storm Cunningham may have nailed the generational issues Martinez faces. Storm is part of the TED community; "TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading."



Again maybe it's the romantic in me but the notion of the world's thinkers freely sharing their ideas, best practices, experiences, I imagine how it must have been to sit at the feet of philosophers like Plato, Aristotle.

The answers to healing our schisms and revitalizing our community will not be found in the individual silos (historical society, arts association, chamber of commerce, downtown association, merchant groups) we seem so fond of. Nor will they be found in the one-off (white linen eatery, marina, streetscape, low-income senior housing, cannabis dispensary) projects Martinez is famous for.

The answers to revitalizing the City of Martinez will come when people divorce themselves from their preconceptions and egos. The answers are out there, we just have to be willing to look. In the meantime, I hope you enjoy Storm's talk but more than that I hope you're inspired to take meaningful action like spearheading the creation of a dog park.