I can't believe it's been a year since we did our first Gallery show up at Bell Arts in Ventura last year. Time flies!
Now we're in Long Beach, preparing for our second toy/art supply/book/clothing give away. The first one was for NOLA, after Hurricane Katrina...these things aren't easy. So many items! We have three hundred kids at the shelters in LBC and I hope that we can have something for each one, and something for children who just show up or are visiting. This is going to tax my organizational skills, but I know we can do it.
The Holidays are the best, most awesome time of year, people can give and not be ashamed. Love and not be ashamed. Be loved and not be ashamed. I guess that's why it was one of mom's favorite holidays too, she definitely passed the gene to me and Chris, that's for sure.
We're working with LBCreative! to do a big winter wonderland on the campus at Cabrillo Villages. Cabrillo houses over 5 family shelters, it's where our children's garden is and our afterschool program. The children just finished planting this week and they were thrilled. I want to get copies of my Strawberry Shortcake book, the one I was fortunate enough to write and have published on the subject of the "Butterfly Garden."
I wrote that right after I'd completed a real butterfly garden with my students in Harlem years ago. It's like a time capsule of all the great work we put into the garden. I want to get some copies of that book and give to all the little gardeners at the shelter...we have about 25 in all. They're a good bunch. Magical...Wish me luck on the toy drive :-)K
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
June gloom and still the sun shines through!
June Gloom is in full effect ya'll...can't stop the sun from shining through though and a great hope and love for the future.
This just in!
Living Love Foundation will be walking on over to Long Beach within the year...moving headquarters...living and growing in a culturally diverse, very aware and pretty hip part of Southern California.
Long Beach, its government organizations, grassroots communities and children have shown Living Love Foundation and it's programs, especially Home is Where The Art Is, our program for homeless children and their families, alot of love. We're gonna follow that and head out as soon as we find a home for our great and lovely organization.
Change is the wind...yes indeed. New people, new places, new port...:-)
I guess that means we'll be doing classes in San Diego soon since it's so close...I have to remember to think big, but manageable...San Diego's not that far right?
Ciao Ya'll
This just in!
Living Love Foundation will be walking on over to Long Beach within the year...moving headquarters...living and growing in a culturally diverse, very aware and pretty hip part of Southern California.
Long Beach, its government organizations, grassroots communities and children have shown Living Love Foundation and it's programs, especially Home is Where The Art Is, our program for homeless children and their families, alot of love. We're gonna follow that and head out as soon as we find a home for our great and lovely organization.
Change is the wind...yes indeed. New people, new places, new port...:-)
I guess that means we'll be doing classes in San Diego soon since it's so close...I have to remember to think big, but manageable...San Diego's not that far right?
Ciao Ya'll
Friday, February 13, 2009
Happy Birthday Betty Ann!
My mother was born on Friday the thirteenth, February 1948. It was the day before Valentine’s; in a leap year; during the height of America’s baby-boom.
For me, growing up it was always weird because as we were preparing for her birthday, mom was preparing for Valentine’s Day. And as we were giving mom birthday gifts, she was busy making valentine’s baskets for us for the next day. Chocolates, fruit, stuffed fluffy hearts…sweet loving things.
Somewhere, at some point in my maturation as a kid, I wondered what mom got out of it all. Didn’t it steal Betty Ann’s thunder…a holiday like that being right on top of her birthday?
I got my answer today when made a Valentine’s Party for the kids at our Port Hueneme school. The kids there named the little school house Kingdom of Art and Talent, which for some reason makes me chuckle every time I say it.
The chocolate kisses and tres leche cake and chips and salsa were part of the excitement, but the thrill of sharing a celebration of positivity and goodness, the fact that the world even makes a day for that felt like the balm in Gilead. No joke.
I watched the kids pour in from the street after school, laughing and playing, painting and recycling and brainstorming their valentines cards (my favorite said I LOVE HIM! in bright red and yellow) and sweat me for when the food was gonna be done. I cut up one of those whole rotisserie chickens and one of the Kingdom of Art and Talent School House Living Love students sliced the bread really small and we made these tasty, tiny sandwiches.
I thought back to mom preparing her baskets and readying the house for Valentine’s day and thinking to myself “doesn’t that steal her thunder,” today for the first time ever I realized that mom was celebrating love…for love’s sake…
It was about real love. Just good old, pure love.
The love the kids showed us when they came into the Kingdom of Art and Talent Living Love School House and saw that Tamas and Gloria and Maribel and I had been cleaning and moving things around for days and days to get ready to have a real bonafide place to learn and teach and do art and continue our mission of inspiring them to love themselves…and they said “wo!!! You guys did all this for us!”
The real love when Gloria and Bill, who run the mobile home park, invited us yesterday to use the Art-Energy Program to teach the kids how to install solar panels on their mobile homes, so they can help the environment, save money for their families and learn that the earth has natural resources that they can tap into without hurting future generations.
The love of our web designer Cindy who has worked late nights all this week to bring us an online store so we can share some more oldies but goodies from Betty’s closet, sell some t-shirts and continue our work AND launch on mom’s birthday, Friday the 13th.
The love of my father who has reached out his hand; put his hand in his pocket; and monitored his temper to mentor and train me, Ms. bratty Kumbaya My Lord, into being someone who can have a real, sustainable impact on the world.
My mother’s sister Kathy, who has gurued me to a livable sanity the last three years and some months since mom passed away and Nicole, my mom’s grand niece who just calls to see how I’m holding up on mom’s special days and anniversaries.
The love of the children…pure love, who ask us “can’t Living Love come every day?!!!” My brother Christopher, the combat veteran who patiently hands out little bowls of water and suggests that they shouldn’t dab again in other people’s colors before they rinse their brushes…
Monica who writes grants for Living Love in her sleep from Inwood in New York City and texts me in the middle of the night about her ideas…my boys in Morocco who are waiting for us to return with art classes and smiles…
My mother who travels dimensions when my spirits are low to shine her good light and keen sense of humor on my path and remind me that with pure love, every dream I have ever dreamed for the children of the world can come to be true.
Little Erik who made the beautiful card you see on the face of the website for his mom and dad and put it under his jacket so it wouldn’t get ruined as he rode his bike back to his mobile home after the party.
Tonight as Maribel and I drove away from The Kingdom of Art and Talent School House, bellies full of tres leche cake, Gloria’s delicious potato enchiladas and Hershey’s kisses chocolate, I understood more what mom was doing. How she saw things. And how natural a stroke across God’s palette to birth a child like her to the world who loved love for love’s sake, the day before valentine’s day…at a time in the year…if even for a moment when people organized to celebrate love…and not just the romantic mushy kind. But the kind that can’t have thunder stolen; because it’s love and real love is busy making thunder of its own.
I think these two should share a line…Happy Birthday Betty Ann and Happy Valentine’s Day to the world!
Love You Always-Kelly
My mother was born on Friday the thirteenth, February 1948. It was the day before Valentine’s; in a leap year; during the height of America’s baby-boom.
For me, growing up it was always weird because as we were preparing for her birthday, mom was preparing for Valentine’s Day. And as we were giving mom birthday gifts, she was busy making valentine’s baskets for us for the next day. Chocolates, fruit, stuffed fluffy hearts…sweet loving things.
Somewhere, at some point in my maturation as a kid, I wondered what mom got out of it all. Didn’t it steal Betty Ann’s thunder…a holiday like that being right on top of her birthday?
I got my answer today when made a Valentine’s Party for the kids at our Port Hueneme school. The kids there named the little school house Kingdom of Art and Talent, which for some reason makes me chuckle every time I say it.
The chocolate kisses and tres leche cake and chips and salsa were part of the excitement, but the thrill of sharing a celebration of positivity and goodness, the fact that the world even makes a day for that felt like the balm in Gilead. No joke.
I watched the kids pour in from the street after school, laughing and playing, painting and recycling and brainstorming their valentines cards (my favorite said I LOVE HIM! in bright red and yellow) and sweat me for when the food was gonna be done. I cut up one of those whole rotisserie chickens and one of the Kingdom of Art and Talent School House Living Love students sliced the bread really small and we made these tasty, tiny sandwiches.
I thought back to mom preparing her baskets and readying the house for Valentine’s day and thinking to myself “doesn’t that steal her thunder,” today for the first time ever I realized that mom was celebrating love…for love’s sake…
It was about real love. Just good old, pure love.
The love the kids showed us when they came into the Kingdom of Art and Talent Living Love School House and saw that Tamas and Gloria and Maribel and I had been cleaning and moving things around for days and days to get ready to have a real bonafide place to learn and teach and do art and continue our mission of inspiring them to love themselves…and they said “wo!!! You guys did all this for us!”
The real love when Gloria and Bill, who run the mobile home park, invited us yesterday to use the Art-Energy Program to teach the kids how to install solar panels on their mobile homes, so they can help the environment, save money for their families and learn that the earth has natural resources that they can tap into without hurting future generations.
The love of our web designer Cindy who has worked late nights all this week to bring us an online store so we can share some more oldies but goodies from Betty’s closet, sell some t-shirts and continue our work AND launch on mom’s birthday, Friday the 13th.
The love of my father who has reached out his hand; put his hand in his pocket; and monitored his temper to mentor and train me, Ms. bratty Kumbaya My Lord, into being someone who can have a real, sustainable impact on the world.
My mother’s sister Kathy, who has gurued me to a livable sanity the last three years and some months since mom passed away and Nicole, my mom’s grand niece who just calls to see how I’m holding up on mom’s special days and anniversaries.
The love of the children…pure love, who ask us “can’t Living Love come every day?!!!” My brother Christopher, the combat veteran who patiently hands out little bowls of water and suggests that they shouldn’t dab again in other people’s colors before they rinse their brushes…
Monica who writes grants for Living Love in her sleep from Inwood in New York City and texts me in the middle of the night about her ideas…my boys in Morocco who are waiting for us to return with art classes and smiles…
My mother who travels dimensions when my spirits are low to shine her good light and keen sense of humor on my path and remind me that with pure love, every dream I have ever dreamed for the children of the world can come to be true.
Little Erik who made the beautiful card you see on the face of the website for his mom and dad and put it under his jacket so it wouldn’t get ruined as he rode his bike back to his mobile home after the party.
Tonight as Maribel and I drove away from The Kingdom of Art and Talent School House, bellies full of tres leche cake, Gloria’s delicious potato enchiladas and Hershey’s kisses chocolate, I understood more what mom was doing. How she saw things. And how natural a stroke across God’s palette to birth a child like her to the world who loved love for love’s sake, the day before valentine’s day…at a time in the year…if even for a moment when people organized to celebrate love…and not just the romantic mushy kind. But the kind that can’t have thunder stolen; because it’s love and real love is busy making thunder of its own.
I think these two should share a line…Happy Birthday Betty Ann and Happy Valentine’s Day to the world!
Love You Always-Kelly
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