humanity
For better or for worse, relationships reveal the core of the human condition.
Creating Comfort
What do you get when you combine over 200 people, 3 sites, 8 hours, 540 yards of fleece, and 30 pairs of Fiskar Scissors over two years? You get a community event that brings together people from all walks of life with one goal – to bring comfort to new donor families.
By Cathy Warren5 years ago in Humans
Still Putting The Pieces Together
We're fighting again. I hate to argue. I rather stay silent and let the other person rant rather than engage in squabble. If I feel passionate enough about the subject I will participate, but I am so focused on making this collage that I am hardly listening to any of his points. Something about the dog? My silence can be intimidating as the other person has no clue my thoughts and my body language becomes silent too. I want to roll my eyes, but I don't. Leave me be to finish this please, I keep thinking. I'm also thinking why am I bothering to even make this. I'm moving out soon, he just doesn't know it yet. I can't take all this bickering all the time. And the dogs? I love animals, but to have dogs without a yard is difficult to maintain especially when you have a full time job. I'm not ready for children and I do not want to care for dogs, he wants both. I'll just readjust some of these pics and cut him out. This collage will be my first independent piece towards starting over.
By Christina DeFeo5 years ago in Humans
Happiness as a good deed
"There comes a time when you roll up your sleeves and put yourself at the top of the commitment list." These words, stated by the children's rights activist Marian Wright Edelman, apply tangentially to the mask-making efforts I volunteered for back in March of 2020 during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic amid a Personal Protection shortage in the healthcare industry.
By JoAnne Scalf5 years ago in Humans
Best Work Yet
Story of Alta’s Altered Book My friend Alta was an amazing, and compassionate person. This is a story of what I made for Alta out of my passion of creating unique pieces of art and my gratefulness for her love and acceptance of me. To me, she was a substitute grandmother who always cared about what was going on in my life. She had a very full life and touched many people. She made quilts for babies, volunteered at a museum and participated in a prison ministry along with playing the organ and piano at church, cooking church meals and raising one boy and two girls. The only thing that stopped as she grew older well into her 90s was her loss of hearing and failing sight. She passed away the day after Christmas 2020 at the age of 99. I had met her at church when I was about three years old. She and her husband were in their late forties which seemed old to me.
By Cheryl Hurst5 years ago in Humans
Ted the Toyman, Mad Jack and the Fairy Goddess Mudder
Debbie grew up taking care of herself. Well, that and everybody else around her. Her talent for being in charge was recognized and depended on from a very early age (the womb, perhaps?). She was born with a gift for actualizing not only her own dreams and visions but those of others. It was almost as if she could grant a wish with the wave of her hand. She became known as the Fairy Goddess Mudder because those wish-granting hands were often covered with the mud she used to sculpt clay goddesses. And mermaids and centaurs and all manner of myth, both faith and fancy.
By Deborah Lodge-Mcintosh5 years ago in Humans
(A)lready (D)oing (H)er (D)ardnest
Focus isn’t really my strong suite. Or perhaps it is exactly that. Having too much or too little is a delicate balance. This is a story of rediscovery and mental health. Through this rediscovery was the birth of my passion with a much deeper meaning. Growing up I have always like I was on the outside, alone, without much understanding of who I was or where I fit. It was only until this year that I feel like I have found myself, my talents, and truly begun to understand myself as an artist and most importantly have the courage to use my voice.
By Hope Elder5 years ago in Humans
*cue mission impossible theme song*
Aw shucks Thanks for clicking (*≧∀≦*) So, once upon a time. . .two days ago, I was scrollin' through the nethermost trappings of instagram. This might only relate to me specifically, but that algorithm knows me! The FBI agent watching (who I've subconsciously named Oliver by the way) just knows who I am and my deepest desires and that makes it sO difficult to scroll past ads. Like. . .OF COURSE I want to purchase a rug that looks like flat Tom from Tom & Jerry (true story: picture for reference)
By LovePeaches4305 years ago in Humans
Plant the Peony
When I am digging in my yard, I have lots of conversations with myself. I like talking to myself, because she is the only person who can follow a conversation with me anyway. So, today, I am cleaning all of the winter’s mess out of my flower beds. There is something truly surreal about venturing out on that first spring day… the familiar feel of my old worn garden gloves and squeaky rubber boots.. the shiny, sharp scissors cutting through the dried stalks of last year’s flowers, to make room for new ones…. The smells and sounds and feels that are both new, and older than time itself. The task is a bit harder this year, because late last summer, a terrible Derecho storm made a big ol’ massive mess in my yard, and pretty much everywhere else in Iowa. I decided when it happened, that since it was almost autumn anyway, to just let the limbs and leaves lay as mulch over the beds til spring because, well, it just made sense. So anyway, I am out there uncovering giant flappy tulip leaves, and pointy, bossy, little iris poking up everywhere, and lily buds that are both holy and vaginal, a sight to make Georgia O’Keefe moist. You see, I have planted hundreds, probably thousands, of perennials into a big cottage garden all around the front of my house, a riotous symphony of plants that open and close, bloom and wither all season long. And as I am working at uncovering it all today, I found one of my most prized plants has finally decided to peek through the soil... my peonies.
By amy irene white5 years ago in Humans
