A is for Activist

I visited my daughter Robin and my new grand daughter Julia yesterday. Robin has a small house in an area of Toronto known as Little India. It is a wonderful area full of great restaurants, coffee and fabric shops. She has wonderful neighbours and she loves it there. She thinks it is it’s own little town within a big city.  Being born in a small town Robin talks to everyone. She is at home with a homeless person or the coffee barista as the CEO of major companies that she deals with as part of her job. She asked the barista about his life outside the coffee shop. He answered “ I make clowns”. So of course being her she asked if she might see them. Well she bought two for Julia’s room and put them in an old frame. When Robin took Julia to the coffee shop the barista introduced Julia(now 2 months old) to another customer and said “ This is Julia. She collects my work!” What a wonderful way to build on an artist/customer relationship. Start with the youngsters! Just ask Carter!

It may be true that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. I too talk to everyone and say hello to strangers. I also have a house where the eye is never bored as it is full of interesting art works. I am so pleased when I go to visit Robin that her house is so full of things I discover each time I visit. A couple of new paintings in the bathroom. A wall full of “stuff”. A homeless person’s little card saying Will Work for Love and Marilyn in the corner. Marilyn is a cement fondue sculpture I bought some 30 years ago. When Robin would bring her friends into the house she would always run in before her friends and put a t-shirt on Marilyn as she was embarrassed that her Dad had a nude in the living room. I wonder if the little apple Julia will be like her mum? Robin got an ABC book for Julia from one her dear friends. A is for Activist, F is Feminist and Z is for Zappatista. I taught her A was for Apple.

Teillard de Chardin said: "Some day after we have mastered the winds, the waves and gravity, we will harness for God the energies of love; and then for a second time in the history of the world, humans will have discovered fire."