liberal arts, flies & honey

I wouldn't say I "chose" to go to a liberal arts college. 

Sure, the college I chose was a liberal arts college, but I didn't choose it for that reason.  It wasn't until I was in my third or fourth year that I began to realize the benefit of all those crazy classes they demanded that I take. 

Like most college kids, I paid no attention to the classes I needed until the week of advising.  This is when you spend about 10 minutes before your advising appointment searching for the course catalog and jotting down what you hope to take as you walk to your advisor's office.  And back in my day these were real print publications that required a sprint to an academic building just to get your hands on one. 

This approach had me signed up for a theater class.  My roommate and I had the same major and by this time we had discovered it was much easier to just take most of the same classes together.  He said we needed theater.  I wrote down theater.  Apparently everyone else wrote down theater too so instead of the lower level course to meet our liberal arts requirement, we ended up getting in a higher level theater course.  This was many years ago so you've forgive me if I can't remember the exact title of the course or the professor's name.  The class was mostly about stage production, lighting and that sort of thing.  The professor had dark hair, a thick mustache and I'm pretty sure he wore a Member's Only jacket all semester.  This was long after Member's Only jackets were cool. 

But this class and this guy taught me something that has served me very well in the years since.  No, it was not about theater.  Lord help me if I ever have to light or produce a play.  No, this guy was one of the older teachers who offered his knowledge and experience but he also sprinkled in his one-liners and words of wisdom.  And by "sprinkled in" I mean this accounted for 90% of the words that came from his mouth.  There were loads of things about Murphy's Law and lots of sayings that were apparently from the world of theater.  My roommate and I would listen mostly just to pick out the goofiest phrase and then make jokes about it until the next class.  I promise I've matured since then.  A little.

One day in class he was at the head of the long table throwing lots of words at us.  I was working on solving some design problems in my sketchbook when something he said disrupted my bliss.  He was telling some kind of story from his theater days and he called some guy a very funny bad name.  I laughed with the class, but before I could get back into my sketchbook world he ended his story by saying "...because you catch more flies with honey.  Remember that."  All the theater people wrote quickly in their notebooks.  My roommate and I were the only non-theater majors in the class and we also may have made jokes about how everyone but us wrote down all the weird things he said. 

The whole phrase is "You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar".  It was such an imagery rich phrase that I just sat there imagining the flies and trying to figure out what the honey would be held in.  As I kept thinking about the phrase I realized this was somehow a very logical and very appropriate universal truth.  I sat in amazement at the realization that this guy was actually very wise and that he may have even used his story to get the attention of two goofball art kids so he could teach them something.  


Of course my parents taught me to be nice to people.  I lived a good portion of my life thinking that this was just good common sense.  People will naturally want to work with you and treat you nice when you treat them nice.  Sometime over the last couple of decades though, this common sense stopped revealing itself to everyone.  There are people who make a lot of noise and try to complain to get their way.  And maybe this works, but the people on the other end of this must be filled with dread at the thought of ever having to deal with them again.  And who wants to go through life being vinegar?  Everyone can smell them from miles away.

Honey has been good to me in my creative endeavors.  I figure a gallery has thousands of artists to choose from and they're all pretty good.  If the decision comes down to which personality they'd rather work with on a project.....they usually go with honey.

My students laugh when I tell them that the things they learn in my classes will help them with relationships, debating and being a good citizen.  But there's a lot of truth in that.

What good is a liberal arts education?  That theater class went a long way in making me a better human being and more successful in the business of art.

when was my last tetanus shot?

Today I made sculpture.

That is to say I sweated a lot, my muscles ache, I'm pretty sure I have a sliver of steel lodged in my left contact..........and I'm very happy.


Sculpting is hard work.  It is mentally and physically exhausting and it's dirty.  The salty sweat mixes with the fine particles of steel and small amounts of rust will actually form on your skin.  The rogue sparks find their way into unprotected areas and sizzle when they make contact with flesh.  It hurts.  Almost as much as my back does after hunching over the workbench all day. 

At times I'll look for reasons to not sculpt.  I'll decide it's a quality time sort of day and I'll load Blue up for an adventure.  Or I'll find myself unable to tolerate the height of the grass and I'll spend the day doing yard work.  Or I'll see the forecast high temperature in the mid 90s and decide that what I really need to do is draw in the air conditioning.

But today I needed to sculpt so I forced myself into the basement shop and worked and sweated all day.  And I loved every minute of it.  As difficult and dirty as it is, I am drawn to it and I enjoy it.  I don't think I can explain the feeling of absolutely knowing that this is exactly what I am supposed to be doing...but I felt that today.



I also felt the 1/4 inch sliver of steel I had to pull out of my big toe while Blue had his swimming lesson at the YMCA tonight.  In fact, I still feel that.   

cats have 9 lives

Dr. Linda Neely at her retirement celebration

This summer has brought many things with it but one thing I'm not thrilled about is the retirement of Dr. Linda Neely.

Dr. Neely has been a fixture at Lander for many years as she has powered through her second life.  I call it her second life because in her first life she was a public school teacher.  In her second life she has been a professor, department chair and dean and now she leaves us as Professor Emeritus.

Linda was chair of our department for my first two years at Lander and she took extra time to guide me through all the newness.  She is a walking encyclopedia and she always had time for questions and always gave thoughtful answers.  Ever the humble servant leader, she focused the spotlight of attention on her faculty and students.

Those of you who know Dr. Neely will expect (like me) that instead of finding a comfy spot on a couch, in August she will begin her third life....whatever that might be.

I hope she finds the best of luck as she moves forward.  Thanks for everything!



more summer adventures

As G continues to recover with her bionic robot neck, I've found myself going from having hours of solitude on these summer days to having almost none.  Of course I can't complain about anything since I've had lots of hermit time during the first half of the summer, but I'm having a bit of trouble thinking about creative things lately. 

So we've ditched creative production in favor of adventures...

 Blue and I took in a minor league game in Greenville

 Blue got an inflatable bat...great for hitting sisters in the head.

 And he bonded with the Reedy Frog mascot guy.

 I've been doing a lot of driving to Sparkle City getting Violet to school.  If I take the interstate I have to deal with every single citizen of Tennessee...and if I go through town I see things like the guy in this truck.  I don't follow politics at all but this guy seems to be ticked at the president.  Ticked enough to write a message to him on the back of his truck in permanent marker.  Odd.  If you can't read it, it says "Obama, I will not comply".

 And then there was the Geek Squad guy who pulled his rather distinguished black pipe out and stood for a smoke outside Best Buy.  If you've ever wondered what  it would look like if you mixed C.S. Lewis and a computer geek....there you go.

 In the category of really bad ideas, we went roller skating.  Which in our current situation means...I, a 40 year old man, had to suit up with skates and take a 5 year old on wheels by one hand and a 3 year old on wheels by the other AND try to keep all 3 of us upright.

 Blue on skates was like watching a baby horse stand up for the first time....on ice....covered in marbles.  His feet were in constant motion - never a stable moment.  Violet was a bit more stable because of her skates.  I'm proud to say that I did not fall a single time and not so proud to say that I rolled over both childrens' fingers during the outing.

 I wasn't completely honest about not producing any creative work.  I did finish my drawing series called "The Four".  These are each 24" x 36" ink on wood panel. 

 We are taking care of our neighbors' animals this week.  I'm getting a really good look at where our eggs come from.  It doesn't get much more local than this.  If you've never had the joy of washing off the eggs, I highly recommend it.

 We get to feed Frosty apples and carrots.  The kids love to pet him while they dodge his slobber.

 And he loves to do this right after a good snack.

 Blue and I went hiking again this week.  We tried Jones Gap State Park out this time.  It's a beautiful place.

 I learned that when hiking with a 5 year old it's not always best to chose the shortest trail available.  This trail was quite steep and fairly tough.

 Blue's legs got tired pretty fast and we went through our peanut butter and jellys and waters pretty fast.

 He insisted on crossing this bridge by himself on the way back down.  A streak of independence that we are seeing more and more of as the days go by.

And here's an upside down tree face for the road.

a sculpture caper

Last week I received this ransom note from an unknown source:

Soon after, I started getting threatening photos sent to me showing my kidnapped sculpture in various scenes...

 Drinking

 Playing leap frog

 Riding a pony

 Doing some landscaping

 Relaxing in the shade

 Playing with the dogs

And climbing a tree

Turns out it was Old Man McGillicuddy and he would have gotten away with it if it were not for some meddling kids. 

The sculpture had so much fun he wanted to go back.  I threatened to recycle him and he got back in his bubble wrap and shut up. 

Seriously, this is what happens when you ask someone to pick up your sculpture from a show for you.  Very clever.  Still, it saved me a tank of gas, so thanks.



Blue's Clews

For a while now, Blue has been making "sculpt-chures" using his 3D toys.  At first this meant that we had to leave the "sculpt-chures" out for days at a time before he could be talked into dismantling them and putting them away. 

Then he started giving them titles.

And now he's started suggesting that we buy them from him with pretend money.  Don't worry, I'm not going to tell him that people don't really buy 3D work.

Here's a few that we snagged this week for $5 of pretend money each:

 "Super-Rainbow 3000"

 "Tallest American Flag in the World"

 "The Super-Make Umbrella"

"Super Tallest Rainbow in the World Steps Upside Down Lego"

And for those of you who know how I am....no, I did not critique them. 

Not in front of him anyway.  But check out that balance of color and activation of space.  

fixer-up-ers

A couple of summer projects we're working on:

That was what Georgie's neck looked like a few months ago.  Last week a high tech team of scientists and surgeons gave her a new bionic neck.  I'm trying to stop myself from making the bionic man noise in my head every time she moves.  It's tougher than you think.

Apparently if you are 5 years old and incredibly cute you can look at a woman in a neck brace and call her "robot neck" and even make up a song about her "robot neck" without making her angry. 

If you are 40 and not so cute....this is not a good idea.

Blue and I rescued this old church pew from a junk store a couple of weeks ago.  I made a few adjustments, stripped the old finish off and gave it a fresh coat of stain.  It's a beauty.  It's also very heavy...especially when your wife can't help you carry anything.



...And.....in my quest to remain at least 2 years behind technology, I was recently introduced to Instagram.  I think it's connected to Facebook somehow and since I abhor Facebook, I sorta missed the memo on it.  I still do not have a Facebook and hope I never will, but I am on Instagram now as dougmcabee.