Abdul Ghafoor, Another Block on one of the Quilts Commemorating the Children killed by Drones

To participate go to   http://dronesquiltproject.wordpress.com

Basketball's Ballet

The Rebellious Tongue

Because I sympathize with my student dentist, Justin Becerra, trying to work on my teeth while my tongue seems to fight him, I have created this cartoon to give to him:

Dr. Becerra:  "That's right.  Relax."

"Don't stand up!  Relax!"

"No!  No!  You rebellious tongue!"

"Stop it!  How can I work with your tongue in the way!"

"You stick out your tongue at me?!  I'll cut it off!|

CLICK below if you want to enlarge:

The Greatest President

The greatest president that we never elected…because she was a woman…because she was Black…but, even more, because she had common sense and wasn't in politics for ego enhancement.  It will sadden me forever that Shirley Chisholm fought but did not have a chance.  There is a great deal of her on the Internet, including speeches, and there is a documentary about her.   Now she is on a stamp, our greatest president.

Shirley Chisholm Quotes

You don't make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining.

You make progress by implementing ideas.

The emotional, sexual, and psychological stereotyping of females begins when the

doctor says:  It's a girl.

Service is the rent that you pay for room on this earth.

At present, our country needs women's idealism and determination, perhaps more

in politics than anywhere else.

Tremendous amounts of talent are lost to our society just because that talent

wears a skirt.

When morality comes up against profit, it is seldom that profit loses.

There is little place in the political scheme of things for an independent,

creative personality, for a living.  Anyone who takes that role  must pay a price.

Congress seems drugged and inert most of the time…its idea of meeting a

problem is to hold hearings meetings, or, in extreme cases, to appoint

a commission.

Of my two handicaps, being female put many more obstacles in my path

than being Black.

The liberals in the House strongly resemble liberals I have known through the last

two decades in the civil rights  conflict.  When it comes tim to show on which side they will be counted, they excuse themselves.

I don't measure America by its achievement but by its potential.

Muhammad Fayyazm in the Quilt for Children Killed by Dronest

Whether it is adequate or not (I still do not have an embroidery needle), I have sent this block to the Drone Quilt Project, which commemorates the children killed by unmanned drone bombers. You may check it out at http://dronesquiltproject.wordpress.com  My Code Pink sisters who have supported this project so completely would not approve so I will refrain from the mental cartoon I will not execute, contrasting the First Lady's exercise programs for children, while her husband … Make your own cruel cartoon.  Below, how the block must look with enough edge for the block to be sewn into the pieces for one of the quilts….

Syrian Boy

 When asked of his situation, the Syrian boy in Damascus could no longer be stoic, 

and was wiping away the sudden flood of tears.  Many hundreds of  thousand -- millions -- in his situation -- dead meaningless numbers -- He made them all real with his tears.

Licita Fernandez, Painter

I am adding the website of the artist Licita Fernandez to the Friends' Websites on my blog -- Find her work at http://licitafernandezgallery.com/
Her words:

Licita Fernández

San Francisco Bay Area, USA

Mediums:  As a professional artist (one who sells her/his art) I started out primarily with watercolors for about 30 or so years.  I’ve also worked in oils, acrylics, collage, Prismacolor pencil, monotypes and charcoal.  As a watercolor artist, I focused on botanical subject matter, especially cacti and other succulents.  I found in the forms of the plants not only beauty, but humor, rhythm, and sometimes foreboding.  Especially with the cactus paintings, I relish the juxtaposition of thorny and sometimes unattractive shapes that produce exquisite flowers. 

Many of these paintings are realistic, but my favorites are when I used only my imagination in creating a composition.  But the cost of framing and (at the time) the concept that watercolor was just drawing, lesser than a painting in acrylic or oil, turned me to acrylic on canvas.  That’s been my favorite medium for the last several years.  I’ve also made some forays into mosaic, but need a bigger space where I can make a mess.

(Above) My favorite from a series I call "Ain't Misbehavin'...", named after the 1929 Jazz classic by Thomas "Fats" Waller.  This series features objects on shelves; the lyrics to the song go something like this, "Ain't misbehavin', just sittin' on the shelf, savin' all my love for you.

Style:  I would put my watercolors under two categories: Botanical Realism and Whimsical Fantasies.  My acrylics on canvas are very colorful and whimsical in nature; realism is not my primary goal.  So I call my acrylics on canvas Whimsical Fantasies, although a few have realistic objects in them.

Favorite Quotes: “You have nothing to fear but fear itself,” Franklin Delano Roosevelt
“Yesterday was the past, tomorrow is the future, and today is a gift.  That’s why we call it the present,” Eleanor Roosevelt; also by Eleanor Roosevelt, “Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”  

Favorite Books:  I’m a voracious reader, so this is a tough one for me to answer.  I finally gave away most of my books and now get them from the library.  Books that I bought and I’ve kept to reread are Carter Beats the Devil by Glen David Gold, The Book of Air and Shadows by Michael Gruber, Their Eyes Are Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, The Passion Dream Book by Whitney Otto, and Volume 1 (1935-1936) and Volume 2 (1936-1937) of The Komplete Kolor “Krazy Kat” George Herriman edited by Rick Marschall.  I wish I had ALL the volumes.  I’ve read hundreds of library books since I stopped buying books and have too many favorites to mention here.

Favorite Movies:  I love Fellini films and any movie that has Sofia Loren in it.  I especially love her movies Love Italian Style and Divorce Italian Style.  Other all-time favorites are Marx Brothers’ movies, Mae West’s Diamond Lil, and all of Mel Brooks’ films.   For its fantastic stage sets, the 1910 German noir film, “The Somnambulist” has had an impact on my art.  And I can’t forget Betty Boop cartoons, especially Minnie the Moocher.  I guess I’m dating myself here, but I am 67!  Krazy Kat comic strips and Max Fleischer’s Betty Boop have really had an impact on my art.

I’ve been creating art since I can remember.  I’ve always considered myself an artist, and that I would grow up to be a professional artist.  I absorbed the stark, arid landscapes of El Paso, Texas, where I was born and resided briefly before I moved with my family to San Diego.  In San Diego, where the desert meets the beach, I continued my love affair with the desert as can be seen in my earlier art.  I moved to the San Francisco East Bay to finish my education at the University of California at Berkeley. Initially drawing my inspiration from botanical subject matter, especially cactus and other succulents, I found watercolor to be the medium that best enabled me to express myself.  Cacti captured my imagination because of the contrasts of the thorny and oftentimes bizarre forms with the stunning, vulnerable flowers that cacti produce.  I found in nature harmony, rhythm, beauty and contrasts.  I also discovered I could express happiness, joy, panic, fear, power, foreboding—various emotions, moods and states of being through my depiction of botanical landscapes.  

During this realistic period, I depended on my photographs for my subject matter, but I periodically took a vacation from the intense concentration required of realism to paint from my imagination.  These paintings are whimsical, humorous, and fanciful.  Some are abstract.  Also during this period, I created Prismacolor pencil drawings, graphite and ink drawings, often using the same imagery (botanical) but many times diverging into other imagery.  After working in watercolor for decades, I tried my hand at acrylics.  Although having also worked on printmaking (monoprints) and in gouache, acrylics have become my favorite means of conveying my artistic vision.

Some Photographs

Two Accounts of Chelsea

Illustrating a Wallace Stevens poem

CLICK TWICE ON EACH OF THE TWO IMAGES TO ENLARGE AND READ

Person on Bungie Cord, Lake Merritt

More Photos of Clouds in Water

The Surprising Pope Francis

The contemptuous term "Hocus Pocus" began as a put-down of "Hoc est Pacem," mocking the Latin that was once used in the Roman Catholic Mass.  There was a seeming "magic" that had good and bad effects on the imagination of myself as a small child.  While I am a "recovering," ex-Catholic atheist, I recognize that in the vast cafeteria of choices available in that church there have always been a number of great political activists struggling for justice and mercy.  With ongoing resistance to that institution, I must hope that the new pope, Francis, will continue to express very un-Catholic opinions so that I must admit that I was particular struck by the following, quoted in TIME magazine, that made me wonder, "Did the Pope arrive at this with native intelligence, or has he been reading Krishnamurti?"