Archive for the 'photos' Category
Temporary Masterpieces
Mark K June 9th, 2007
What’s the purpose of covering a city street with beautiful, rich pastel chalk paintings, only to scrub the street clean two days later?
This weekend marks the 14th annual Italian street painting festival in my hometown of San Rafael, California and every year I ask myself this question. The tradition, imported from Italy, involves everyone from first-time amateurs to talented professional artists. For a few dollars, you and I can even purchase a square along with a box of colored chalk, and create our temporary masterpiece.
I’m always amazed at the quality of the artwork. Many of the professional artists recreate works by the masters, and to my eye, they look every bit as polished as the original. I always like to stroll down the street on Sunday night when everyone is finished, save a few artists kneeling on pieces of cardboard, covered from head to toe with smudges of chalk.
Then I return on Monday, only to find faint traces of what was there; the street-sweeping machines have already done their job in the middle of the night. I’m always left wondering why, after all of that hard work, the city couldn’t leave the impressive results for the citizens to admire for a week or two.
In his book Immortality, Milan Kundera writes about the difference between a road and a highway. A road is something on which we walk, noticing and enjoying what we pass along the way. A highway is a line connecting two points that we follow in our car in order to reach a destination or a goal. The highway is a metaphor for how we rush to complete goals without taking time to notice our surroundings.
It’s fitting that the chalk artwork is applied to the street - a street that has been closed to traffic so that we can stroll and observe, speak with the artists, and even cover ourselves and our patch of road in chalk, if we so choose.
It’s a great gift that we’ve been given - to forget about the destination, the permanent piece or art, and lose ourselves on the road for a few hours, returning home with a little chalk dust on the soles of our feet.
Why pause?
Mark K May 15th, 2007
Pause for Purpose is a response to a society in which we often rush headlong towards goals without taking the time to determine whether attaining them will truly lead to happiness and fulfillment. It’s about slowing down long enough to notice what’s going on around us, being open to new possibilities, and setting an intention for where to go next. Using my background as a teacher and life coach to guide me, I have been exploring processes and environments which can help a person to be more aware in order to lead a more intentional life. I have walked the labyrinth as a meditation, hiked the ancient pilgrim’s route, the Camino de Santiago in Spain, joined a weekly writing group, created a monthly men’s discussion group, and explored local nature by means of hiking and backpacking. These experiences have helped me to be more conscious about how I spend my time, about my role in my family and with my work, how I express myself, and the connections that I make with others. Above all, it has made me aware of the importance of pausing and living life with purpose. As I continue to pause and explore, I’ll share my discoveries in my monthly newsletter and blog.
Thanksgiving 2006
Mark K November 23rd, 2006
When we moved to our home sixteen years ago, the sycamore trees lining our street were suffering from a disease. They would lose their leaves throughout the summer until the branches were completely bare. Each year since then, the trees have recovered a bit and my daughter and I have made a game of predicting whether all of the leaves on the tree in front of our house would fall by Halloween, or by Thanksgiving. This picture was taken this year on Thanksgiving Day.
