being human

Love wins, kitchen leprechauns and Irish poetry

A Creative Life, Artist interviews and profiles, artistic inspirations, creative thinking, fine art, kitchen art, poetry, recipe illustration, sketchbook, small things, whimsical art

A local brewery was targeted because Drag Brunch is held there. Adults dressing as they like and eating a meal with other adults is offensive, it seems, to a hate group who busted windows and doors at the brewery claiming drag brunch to “justify” their violence. Here’s a recent newspaper article about this topic. https://www.columbian.com/news/2023/mar/11/heathen-brewing-feral-public-house-vandalized-saturday/ So in support of Heathen Brewing and our community my wife and I went with our Fairy Goddaughter to happy hour!

There was a line inside and almost every seat filled!! We had beer, nachos and sweet potato fries. We talked with people in line. We talked with people at the tables next to us. We petted dogs. We laughed! And we all had a grand time! Love is definitely winning!! The Go-fund-me page shows they’ve gotten more than 3000 dollars ABOVE their goal! Yea! Love wins again!!!

The current outpourings of love in response to hate reminds me of the late 1980’s gay rights activism in Oklahoma where I participated. We did what we called “Love Ins”. Wherever hate had happened or was happening many of us, LGBTQ and allies, would fill the floor space with our bodies. We would sit and spread out on the floor playing cards, coloring in color books, building things with toy blocks and we would sing or read poetry outloud. Sometimes a drag queen would read a story aloud. We had printed signs addressing the specific issue at hand. (The basic human right to access healthcare, the right to equal employment, the right to fairness in housing, the right to marry the person we love… to name only a few issues.) We also had general signs saying things like “We’re here, we’re queer get used to it”. But we did NOT verbally shout back at the people shouting hateful things at us. We played our games on the floor and ignored the haters. People had to step over and around us. Whenever a hater purposefully kicked one of us – the person who had been kicked said to another person on the floor “Ouch! Did you see that?” to which many of the floor sitters would loudly respond “I saw that! Are you okay? We love you!” and various other phrases in support of the person who’d been hurt. The perp, the kicker, was deliberately, overtly, ignored because we were focused on creating the loving world we wanted to inhabit. Often the shouting and kicking from the anti-gay side stopped in the absence of reciprocal violent exchanges – or if not completely stopping the violence failed to escalate – it seemed hard, for most, to keep yelling and kicking at people who were just playing cards and loving everyone even if some of the card players were wearing sequins.

And the LGBTQ community did, slowly, gain basic human rights – including the right to marry – even in Oklahoma. Love totally wins!

While thinking about all of this I created a sketchbook page and shared it on my email newsletter… it’s another description of why I do the kind of artwork I do.

Yes, it was so good to see love winning again more recently at the local brewery! Life, love and good things are for ALL of us! That’s what the ideals of equality and democracy are reaching for, however imperfectly, and it’s a worthy goal. It’s a goal for all of us by all of us!

What if our innovations, our future advancements, rely on how well we’re able to care for and about ourselves, people and plants? What if life, the future and everything is really all about love and how well we can do that loving of ourselves, each other and the natural world? (Rebecca Solnit writes a wonderful essay here about the real potential of this!)

Anyway, as I forcasted in my last blog post Amie McGraham at Cook &Tell interviewed me about my kitchen sketchbook and what was on my St Patrick’s Day menu! There are photos and sketchbook pages and recipes – https://amiemcg.substack.com/p/shot-in-the-kitchen-sue-clancy

Here’s a leprechaun, aka me, in the kitchen. 👇

Below is a quick look at my St Patrick’s recipes and what they looked like when served… more details on Cook & Tell.

Here’s one of the Irish poems I enjoyed with my Irish Coffee. It’s by Andrew Cherry. I find it both fun and encouraging.

This is the book the poem came from. 👇

Here’s some green plants in a recent painting I did titled “White Elephant” which I had also mentioned in my email newsletter.

Ah the hardiness of plants like those mentioned in the poem by Cherry! Love and luck to thrive anywhere and everywhere like clover! 🤔😊 Such an inspiration for humans don’t you think?

We’re in this life together. See you next Mondayish.

more bourbon please less bull

A Creative Life, artistic inspirations, books, mental health, still life

I’ve been thinking lately about the various ways that language is used and how that usage relates to being human.

For example: it helps human relationships if people are sincere, honest and as clear in their verbal communications as possible.  Deliberate efforts to use language so as to mislead others to one’s own advantage is the opposite of helpful human relating.

Being a language-using human means to try to make mental connections between ideas/concepts and that includes trying to connect with other humans. Human existence and experience are about making connections and evaluating the qualities of those on-going connections, selecting the helpful and meaningful ones, expanding the number of “good relationships”.  We create the world together.

Bullshitting is an effort to avoid making meaningful connections.  To bullshit is to manipulate language so as to avoid relating directly with people in fact-based, rational, practical ways.

To share a drink (whether alcoholic beverages or not), to share food and to share books is an expression of a strong desire to meaningfully connect with someone. Sharing drinks, food, books, sports and many other collaborative/cooperative activities are ways we develop relationships and nurture on-going connections.

I’ve recently re-read “Bullshit” by Harry G. Frankfurt, mused on it’s contents so much (see the above verbiage) that I’ve included the book in a painting.  And yes I really did use lots of sticky-notes in my copy of Frankfurt’s book, my effort to make connections between the concepts I found there.

Now that we’ve discussed “Bullshit” –  what beverages do you like to drink?

NeedMoreBourbon72

“Need More Bourbon” by Clancy – 8 x 10 inches – acrylic and gouache on board.