The Artist Date

“Your only assignment is to replenish the well.”

Sarah Ban Breathnach

The artist date is a basic tool for awakening your creativity, according to Julia Cameron’s classic book, The Artist’s Way. It’s a solitary excursion or play date with your inner artist. Visit an art gallery, take a hike in the mountains, explore a junk store or watch an old movie. The choice of an activity is entirely yours. The purpose is to fill the well of your creative resources.

A couple of weeks ago, I took myself to the Ben Franklin: In Search of a Better World exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. This tercentenary celebration of the birth of one of most beloved founding fathers will leave Denver on May 20 and travel to Atlanta and finish the year and the tour in Paris.

Printer, inventor, diplomat, writer and philanthropist, Ben Franklin accomplished an amazing number of feats in his lifetime. In addition to discovering that lightning contained electricity, signing the declaration of independence, and inventing bifocals, he also:

• Created an early form of swim fins
• Experimented with wind surfing
• Wrote one of the earliest autobigraphies (which, in almost 300 years has never gone out of print
• Established the first franchise
• Served as Postmaster General
• Co-founded the first public hospital and circulating library in the U.S.
• Founded the University of Pennsylvania
• Printed some of the earliest paper money and solved the problem of counterfeiting by including pictures of leaves which could not be duplicated
• Invented a musical instrument, the glass armonica
• Mapped the gulf stream

The scope of his accomplishments is at once astonishing and inspirational. If you can’t make it to the exhibit, check out the website or watch the PBS video of his life.

©2007 Dixie Darr. All rights reserved

A Few of My Favorite Things

“You live and learn. At any rate, you live.”
Douglas Adams

After seeing several lists of all-time favorite books, I thought I’d give it a try. The following lists are works in progress.

Favorite Novels

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin

Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

All My Friends are Going to Be Strangers by Larry McMurtry

The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols

Lamb by Christopher Moore

Angle of Repost by Wallace Stegner

Favorite Nonfiction

Traveling Mercies by Anne Lamott

No High Adobe by Dorothy Pillsbury

Journal of a Solitude by May Sarton

Working by Studs Terkel

A Different Woman by Jane Howard

The Autobiographies of Maya Angelou

Favorite Authors

Barbara Kingsolver

Anne Lamott

Sue Grafton

Tony Hillerman

©2007 Dixie Darr. All rights reserved

Calling Future Rock Stars

"Be your own rock." Prudential slogan

Paul Green wanted to be the best. Since he couldn’t be the world’s best guitarist, he invented something new so he could be best at that. What he invented has grown into more than 40 locations across the country and was the subject of a critically acclaimed documentary in 2005. An after school program in Philadelphia established in 1999, The Paul Green School of Rock Music trains kids aged 7-18 to be rock musicians.

Students receive private lessons on the instrument of their choice and also participate in weekly rehearsals to prepare them for the main event, THE SHOW! Past shows have included tributes to Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, Queen, and the Beatles. The movie details the preparations and performance of shows featuring the music of Black Sabbath and Frank Zappa. The goal is to make the students into amazing musicians.

It looks like they’re succeeding. The movie, Rock School, is a hoot, although the harsh language Paul uses with some of the kids is a bit shocking. Seeing 12-year old prodigy CJ playing Santana’s Black Magic Woman on the guitar is well worth the price of the movie rental.

Green says he’s a natural teacher, who teaches all the time. We all have a gift—something we’re better at than almost anybody else. Finding a way to build our lives around using our gifts is a worthy goal.

©2007 Dixie Darr. All rights reserved

Amen to That

"The conventional view serves to protect us from the painful job of thinking."
- John Kenneth Galbraith

Next week, in honor of Earth Day, my church is celebrating Evolution Sunday. When I told a friend about it, explaining that unlike right-wing fundamentalist churches, we believe in evolution, she looked shocked.

“You think we came from monkeys?” she asked incredulously.

“Well,” I replied, “not exactly.”

My friend Barbara, another member of my church family, said the appropriate response to that question is “Apparently you’ve never spent much time around a two-year old or you would have no doubt that we descended from monkeys.”

The oversimplification that evolution means we came from monkeys is one of those false arguments put forth by the religious right that fosters ignorance and blind obedience. As Pastor Kerry explained during our worship service yesterday when she announced next week’s program, “This is a church where you don’t have to check your brain at the door.” Yes, contrary to what the media would have you believe, you can be both a Christian and a critical thinker.

©2007 Dixie Darr. All rights reserved