Merry Christmas Everyone! Or whichever winter holiday you prefer! All the best and a giant thank you to all the customers and merchants who've supported my art practice this season.
Favourite things...
1. Christmas Carols, especially "O Little Town of Bethlehem". The lyrics for this carol in particular (which I spent an afternoon playing on piano last week) made me see Christmas in a whole new way. Especially the lines "above thy deep and dreamless sleep" and "yet in the dark streets shineth the ever lasting light" and "in this world of sin, where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in." Anyhow to me the whole song seems to me to be about Christmas being a time where everyone realizes humans have the capacity to live in Christ consciousness and experience heaven on earth. It's a nice idea. I was raised Catholic but as a kid, and as with most Western religions, I think my understanding of God was more dualistic than that.
2. A sign I saw in Bridgewater advertising a community Christmas Carol sing along that said something about "putting the Christ back in Christmas" which, with respect to point #1, and some other Christmas Carols I've been enjoying, sounds like a fine idea.
3. This one is more fascinating than favourite, but Elf on a Shelf and the book that came with the elves' Reindeer Pet. Wow. I'd never heard of Elf on a Shelf before this year and will say that I think the practice of people creating creative vignettes with the Elf to share on Social Media seems to be a fun, entertaining use of the internet, and from what I've heard kids seem to enjoy having the Elf around as part of a Christmas Tradition. But there's something a bit slick and commercial about marketing Elf accessories and pets, and the storybook that comes with the reindeer seems to make Christmas all about getting presents (rather than receiving Christ consciousness). Plus there are a couple interesting articles around about how the elf may in fact be grooming children to accept an untouchable, surveillance-presence in their life, though members of the pro-elf camp may dismiss those claims as hum-buggery. Still, as marketing and branding to kids - wow, fascinating, and in a way, inspiring. It also reminds me of the simplicity and spirited message of "The Grinch Who Stole Christmas", merchandise for which became marketable after the fact because the book was so great, not the other way around; with a book written to sell merchandise.
4. Further to #3: All the writings of Dr. Suess.
5. Further to 'merchandise' the whole Jonathan Adler brand and story. I didn't know anything about Jonathan Adler other than I see Jenny Jib sells some items by the brand, but the story is super fascinating: a potter in NYC who expanding his business dramatically by use of fair trade shops in Peru. The whole backstory can be found on the Jonathan Adler website. It has made me consider changing identities from "Artist" to "Designer", even if I only make a few of whatever I designed, something about the word "Designer" strikes me as having more... cachet... while the word "Artist" can unfortunately evoke images of an impoverished mentally ill Dutch painter who just lopped off an ear or similarly broke and downtrodden people. Something to think about, in any case.
6. War is Over (If you want it)... Happy Christmas from John and Yoko. This is a link to a10 minute youtube documentary about John Lennon and Yoko Ono, their interest in peace, and ending with a music video for their Christmas song from 1971, War is Over.
7. Portland Street shopping in Dartmouth. Cool! I heard about Kept Shop and The Dart Gallery but finally made it in for the first time during this week. Both are really great shops full of awesome local work, plus there seems to be more going on in the downtown Dartmouth area in terms of restaurants and other shops. If I didn't live so far from town I'd be a more frequent frequenter for sure.
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