Nick Offerman Recites a Poem

One of my paintings was used for the City of Jacksonville’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Breakfast. It’s a great morning of friendship and tribute. I highly recommend attending.

The Greatest Love of All | Don't Miss A Beat All-Stars | TEDxJacksonville

I really missed being with my TEDxJax tribe this year for FearLess. After being part of the startup and working with the team for more than four years, I had to step away. We had far too much going on at work. These kids share what this country needs so much more of.

What to know what's going on next weekend for #UFvsUGA? Here's the Weekend Guide. It is also one of the reasons that you haven't seen much of me recently.

Butterflies are monsters.

Butterflies are monsters. I first heard that in a line from 'Giant Ant' from the The Handsome Family's first album "Odessa". I had no idea what Renni is going on about here so I googled it and found a few interesting tidbits. First one is about the Pope. He is definitely not afraid of calling a spade a spade and has labelled certain priests 'Butterfly-Priests". When responding to a question he repleied“...What is the place of Jesus Christ in my priestly life? Is it a living relationship, from the disciple to the Master, or is it a somewhat artificial relationship... that does not come from the heart?....We are anointed by the Spirit, and when a priest is far from Jesus Christ he can lose this unction.... Those who put their strength in artificial things, in vanity, in an attitude... in a cutesy language... ‘This is a butterfly-priest,’ because they are always vain.” Food for thought. I was brought up Catholic but am at odds with some of the teachings of the Church and more specifically how some of the priests handle the responsibilities of the power of their position. I read into this butterfly-priest concept as validation that we must not blindly accept what a priest or minister tells us. Blind allegiance to anything can lead to trouble.

The second post that caught my attention, Butterflies are Monsters Who Drink the Tears of Turtles was the from The Mary Sue. It is a quick and interesting read but better than the real reason, it would be a great prompt for writers.

And that leads me to the drawing above. It is for this week's Illustration Friday prompt, Stomach. Most of us tend to get butterflies in our stomach when we think about starting something important to us. Whatever that is, the more difficult the task, the more anxiety we face. I've been struggling with finding time in my life for a few projects. I have come to realize that starting is not the difficult part. Finishing is but we cannot finish something if we don't start. So we all need to make the time necessary to start and finish the things that are important to us.

TEETH

First of all, I am NOT a Gator, but I do have to do creative work for them every now and then. I used to be a regular contributor to Illustration Friday. It has been quite some time since I last participated. I do hope this signals a change. This is an illustration created for the annual Florida-Georgia Game in Jacksonville. I also painted a Dawg. It also has teeth but the Gator has many more.

And for all those Gator fans who might find this… Go NOLES!!!

The Next Step for Jacksonville

I'll say this again, Jacksonville needs and deserves to have a spectacular and iconic building on our beautiful river. The opportunities are there. We have the redesign of the Jacksonville Landing in the heart of our downtown riverfront, the Shipyards, a new convention center, the District and the old Courthouse/City Hall property currently sinking into the river. When we start the design process, let's not pay too much homage to the automobile. Much of Jacksonville has been designed to make it easy to get through places as quickly as possible. One of the recent ill-fated redesigns of the Landing placed a street along the riverfront between the river and the green-space that they were showcasing.

The American Institute of Architects has an ad campaign in which they say, "We look up because we know the world is counting on us to look ahead." Leaders and people of Jacksonville, we too, must look up to look ahead. Great cities are not known for their sprawling, stuccoed, suburbs. They are known for their cultural treasures—their art, their museums, their music and the buildings that house them. Think of a great destination place for a vacation. If it isn't the natural beauty of a place like the Everglades or Yosemite, it is what makes up its cultural heart. New York? Broadway, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, MoMA, the Met, the great high rises. Chicago? The Navy Pier, Millennium Park, the ART Institute. Paris? The Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Notre Dame. London? Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, The Eye. Jacksonville? the Main Street Bridge? EverBank Field? We can and must use this pivotal point in our history to look forward.

We deserve better.

One of Those Days

Tuesday was one of those days…one of those days where you are slammed at work but you get things done and you feel good about it…one of those days where you run into or have lunch with old friends from MOCA Jacksonville…one of those days where you meet up with kindred souls and plot out how you plan on changing at least one little piece of the world…one of those days when your MOCA friends just keep turning up and you realize how incredible everyone was (and still is)…one of those days when you get home exhausted, you have an amazing life partner there for you who loves you and supports you though all of those days…one of those days when you get a late dinner and your amazing daughter calls from her first year of college and you realize that she's on speaker phone at her regular seat at the table and while she is away, she's not gone. Tuesday was one of those days where you can't believe how fortunate you are. Thank you to all of those people who made Tuesday one of those days.

The Art of Asking

Almost six months ago I responded to a tweet from someone that I really didn't know—someone, as it turns out, was half a world away. Ramon de la Fuente (@f_u_e_n_t_e) got Amanda Palmer's book The Art of Asking as a gift and was so moved that he felt that he had to share it. Fittingly, he gave it away on Twitter and asked me to pass it along when I was through with it. It took me a little longer than I had planned to read it but I, too, read the book and couldn't help myself. It's my turn to share and all you have to do is ask. The thing is, if you are the lucky one, I hope that you will do as Ramon and I have and add a little something to the book before you pass it along. I added a small sketch. It was something that I originally did for my wife for an Illustration Friday topic. One day, I will get back to that.

If you aren't yet familiar with Amanda Palmer, do yourself a favor and listen to her music. From her stint in the Dresden Dolls to her solo efforts, she is, if nothing else very memorable. I have always been somewhat partial to Coin-Operated Boy. I couldn't say exactly why but it got under my skin when I first heard it. From her music, move on to her TED talk. Powerful stuff that. To say that I am partial to TED Talks would be somewhat of an understatement. I am one of the founding members of TEDxJacksonville. We are going on our 4th year. Someday, I would hope that we might coax her to come and tell us a story, here in Jacksonville. Read her blog. I remember the shit storm that she endured after a poem she wrote and posted to that blog. You can Google it or you can read about it in her book. Follow her on Twitter. She might say hello even though she has well over a million followers.

Even if you aren't the one who gets Ramon's copy of Amanda's book this time, perhaps it will come your way down the road. If you can't wait, go out and buy a copy for yourself. Then, share it with the world. That's all I am asking.