“Reflections of Paradise” SOLD
1/2 sheet Watercolour Diptych
Copyright 2009 Jean Burman
Grace is the human quality we all hope to have when life delivers us [inevitably as it will] into circumstances for which we might previously have thought we would be unprepared and unable to cope. It almost always comes as a huge surprise then… when we are given the courage and strength to prevail in spite of it. It is grace which allows us to smile while deep inside our heart is breaking. Grace allows us to endure. Life is not a steady race. Not for any of us. But it is grace which will see us through.
It is grace which has found me
It is grace which will carry me though…
Art sustains me. And writing. Both are steady occupations in an unsteady world. And I am happy with my progress. I am learning to let go of outcomes. To let things be.
I am learning that life is greater than the sum of all it’s many (un)equal parts. It requires us to submit to the big picture. For what is life if not a big picture with many elements?
Composition… perspective…. value… colour… vibrancy. [Eloquence].
Sometimes the words tumble out and the paint flows easily… other times I struggle. Some works will never make it. They were never meant to be. I let them go. But it’s never a wasted effort. For the one great truth in life is that without failure there can be no success. No progress.
And the greatest joy of all will be when the sum of all our failure and success delivers to our easel the masterpiece that [in hindsight] was our life’s best work.
Below is the work of my youngest student yet. Four and a half year old Lilli painted with me for an hour this morning at the Reef House. She was a fast learner and needed only a little bit of help with the basic sketch. She simply “got it”… and even remembered from yesterday me telling another student to turn the brush on it’s side to get the right angle for the striations on the trunk of the palm tree. Amazing! I love to teach.
Cartoon – pen & watercolour 9″ x 12″
artwork & content Copyright 2008 Jean Burman
If you’ve ever been left holding the door for an endless stream of otherwise-occupied people… (in an act of kindness gone madly wrong)…
If you’ve ever stepped aside at the checkout to allow someone with one item to go through first… (only to have the fully laden grocery trolley suddenly materialise from nowhere)
If you’ve ever pulled back in traffic to allow a car to merge into your lane (and four more barge in as well… without so much as a wave of thanks)
(I could go on… 
)
you will have experienced first hand the distressing modern day phenomenon of bad manners.
My father used to say “I’d give anything away… but I don’t like having it taken from me”
It’s not so much that you want them to reciprocate… it’s just that you wish things could be different… and that if they were going to be so downright rude… you’d hope they could be a little more courteous about it! (chuckles)
Good manners.. not to be confused with “etiquette” which is a whole ‘nother kettle of comparatively insignificant fish… is definitely going out of style!
No longer taught in schools… and less valued or encouraged at home… this next generation could be forgiven for not having an ice-cube’s hope in hell of dealing… (with decorum and grace)… with the burgeoning wave of bad manners, inconsideration, disrespect and self-centred boorishness that is fast becoming the norm in modern society. And no… it’s not just the young who are at fault. It seems that we more mature folk (ahem)… who were taught well… have either forgotten our P’s & Q’s… or have choosen to abdicate from our responsibility to pass them on! ~grin~
Fred Astaire
The hardest job kids face today is learning good manners without seeing any.
If you have ever wondered what cyber rage… road rage… supermarket rage (and any other type of rage you’d care to mention) had in common… wonder no more. All forms of modern “rage” from the superficial to the full scale global variety… have their origins in the loss of what we humans used to value highly and used to do rather well. Once upon a time… common courtesy… consideration… tolerance… and good manners were the order of the day. It made things tick. It made us feel good about ourselves and others. It gave us a rudder to steer ourselves by.
That was… until there were too many of us on the planet!
I blame population growth… an increasing anonymity… and the consequential loss of our sense of “community”. Anonymity provides the perfect cover for the rude and ignorant… who espouse the attitude
“No-one knows me… no-one can see me… I can do and say what I like”.
Back in the day when everyone “knew” someone… or at least… knew someone who knew someone else who knew you (if you know what I mean! LOL)… we all had to be accountable for our actions. “Reputation” was everything. Now there are no consequences… and someone’s pulled the pin on the checks and balances!
Confucius
Consideration for others is the basic of a good life, a good society.
These days… what we seem to have is a bunch of anonymous “out of control” people. They look like everyday people but hand them a mobile (cell) phone or a mouse… put them behind the wheel of a car… or in charge of a supermarket trolley (not to mention… in charge of a country! ~grin~) and those who would be war mongers grow horns… cruising the supermarket aisles and roads…. and surfing the superhighways of the planet with “virtual” impunity! Unwilling and unlikely to take responsibility for their words let alone their actions… there appears to be no cure for this run away condition! *wink*
Eric Hoffer
Rudeness is a weak imitation of strength.
Except… of course… for you and me! And what are we going to do about it?
Well I guess we’re going to do what we’ve always done. We’re going to continue to hold the door… defer to others at the supermarket checkout… and pull over to let someone else into our lane!
And why?
No… not because we are stupid… or for some perverse reason we feel the need to go around looking for punishment!
No…. we are going to keep doing it because it’s the right thing to do… and someone’s got to do it! We need people to once again set the example. Besides… if enough of us do it… it might even become trendy and fashionable… and the pendulum may swing (ever so laboriously) back the other way.
Oh… how I wish it would be so… *sigh* (((chuckles))))
Arthur Schopenhauer
Politeness is to human nature what warmth is to wax.
