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Ten Tips on How to Be Green

Friends, Fans, and Supporters of Frau Kolb and The Talkinggrid,

Thank you for reading.

Awareness of the reality of climate change and the necessity of looking at our lives, levels of consumption, and habits of destruction, which we’d all love to deny, motivated me to change the way I lived to fit the world that is evolving.  In other words, I did not emerge from the womb ready to give up plastic bags and straws.  It has taken a lifetime of learning and effort to become the woman I am, today.  Despite so much being said, written, and debated around the touchy green topic there are still many questions on the how and why to be Green.  Well, I wasn’t always aware of the importance of mindful living.  It is one of the gifts experience has given me.  I understand that everything we take time to do in a loving, thoughtful, and respectful manner is better, more rewarding, and more likely to lead to a reality worth living.

Having a life that you want to live takes work.  The decision to live a quality life is greatly enhanced by being careful about how you spend your time and money, as both influence not only your wellbeing but global trends, since we are all interconnected.

Here are a few ways I reduce waste in my life.

1.Take cloth or reusable bags with you, have a bag in your bag.  So, that you can never forget.

(The French, make knit bags which expand and fit a lot of groceries, easily.)

2. Limit yourself.  Buy what you can carry home.  Of course, this doesn’t work with frozen foods or heavy cans upon cans of food.  But, do you really want to eat unhealthy convenience foods, which are not as nourishing as fresh foods?  The best part is that carrying one’s food home is a great work out.  I live a mile away from the nearest shopping center.  I routinely forgo the car and allow myself the privilege of movement.  My body says thank you because I’m giving it the exercise it needs.  My wallet is also happy because this puts a pause to impulse shopping.  Who is going to buy something, “seen on tv,” when they have to carry it home?

3. Mend it.  Think twice before you throw that dress away.  Fabric waste, from a hyperactive clothing industry, is yet another environmental issue for us to face.  Buying polyester/plastic clothing with designer labels is not an environmentally sound choice.  Sorry.  These clothes go out of fashion faster than you can fix.  They don’t invite repairs.  They were not made with the idea that you might want to keep garments for a lifetime.  Avoid the flood of cheap imitation clothes, the antithesis of real or quality clothes, and buy clothing made of natural materials, when you decide to fork the money over you want quality, not quantity in your wardrobe and life.

4. Buy it used.  It already exists.  It is either old/antique/vintage.  You can take an, “old,” thing and make it new with a little creativity.  Express yourself with your patchwork.  People routinely buy distressed, torn, and shabby chic attire.  No one will know where your treasures were secured.  No one cares.  If you fear that used or thrift clothing are dirty or worn, well new clothes come loaded with chemicals which are bad for you and the environment.  So… think twice.  Second-hand goods can be just the solution you are looking for, often at a considerable discount in price.

5. Solar panels are a way to save money on heating costs, propel your car, and earn a tax deduction (maybe).  You question the logic of solar panels if you live in a cold climate.  Well, look to Germany for understanding of the use of solar power as a viable alternative to fossil fuels.

6. Recycle as much and as passionately as you can.  Please, pay attention to where your trash goes.  It has to go somewhere.  Just as in our private lives, we are responsible for our debris.

7. Devote time to beach clean-ups and river rescue.  There are many organizations aiming to preserve and protect our natural resources.  Join a team of volunteer street sweepers, and sweep away classist tendencies, and embrace a cleaner world.  Become one that makes time for the Pacific Trash Patch, aware that the litter of today is the Marine life poison of tomorrow.

8. Love nature.  Don’t forget to get out and experience the beauty, first hand.  Our national parks, city parks, river ways, lakes, and costal treasures deserve more attention than Poké Man Go.  Get out and no, you don’t have to post pictures, every few steps. Step into the magnificence of the ocean.  Allow the waves to lick away spiritual/emotional wounds.  Cleanse yourself.  Allow yourself to flower.  You are a splendid example of marvelous, nature.  Love yourself.

9. Garden.  A little patch of dirt goes a long way, if only to make you more mindful of what it takes to grow food.  How it works.  Why it works.  It is calming and therefore healthful to massage the soil and pluck a cherry tomato from the vine on one’s window box.  Herbs, so small and tasty, can be easy to grow and add so much to our meals.

10. Teach.  This is not all about you.  Children, adults, friends, and foes deserve to be educated in the commitment required to create of the world we all must share, one which can sustain life.  You have a responsibility to remind others that the environment matters and sometimes you have to take matters in your own hands by demonstrating your ability to always take a bag with you, recycle religiously, and live a worthwhile/fulfilling life, day in and day out.

 

 

 

 

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The New Muse: Kathy Goodell in San Deigo!

Gently, a day is taking shape.  This visit is chiseled from the veined marble of long understanding.  Kathy Goodell and Frau Kolb are friends with a connection that spans decades in this life and the infinite in some other plain of existence, past lives playing a prominent role. Yet, this is our first time spending an entire week under one roof.  Will we get along?

Photo © Kathy Goodell, 1 Dec. 2014
Photo © Kathy Goodell, 1 Dec. 2014

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Hartmuth Kolb is pleased to visit Point Loma in San Diego, California

Frau experiences refreshed awareness that life is phenomenological blooming of energy, fleeting blooms on the edge of time, the wind of ideas stirs reflection, when in the company of this refined Contemporary Art Muse. Thus, OPEN to talks on closing acts and end game strategy, we embrace a day of deep talks, woven into the breezy fabric of classic San Diego sight seeing.

We wake up early, as usual.  The morning zips past.  At noon we were at San Diego International Airport, picking up our friend, a soul sister and personal Art Muse of Talkinggrid, Kathy Goodell, a human flowering of loveliness and edgy intelligence has arrived!  She is easy to spot, looking fashionable, in her HUGE sunglasses and “Op Art,” silk blouse.  She is a powerful Muse. We rush to greet her.  She embraces us with the warmth. BIG HUGS!  Flowing kisses.  “Hello! Hello!” All around, our day is off to a rip roaring good start!

Kathy Goodell looking lovely with BIG SUN GLASSES in San Diego with Frau Kolb and The Family
Kathy Goodell looking lovely with BIG SUN GLASSES in San Diego with Frau Kolb and The Family

On the way to lunch in Little Italy, in San Diego, The Art Muse of Talkinggrid, Kathy Goodell’s winning  personality is like a shawl, comforting.  In my world, Goodell is famous not just for her expansive and intellectually daring sculptures and art installations, but also for being a person whose personality is at crossroads of glass and metal, transparent grace, fragile, yet of enduring strength and lasting fortitude.  Her artistic oeuvre touches on the accidental, dreamy and quasi scientific in scope.  Her art work moves me.  She is a venerated teacher of art, mentor to many, with a following that spans generations, continents.  She graciously speaks to my little children about the recent Henri Matisse, exhibition, up now in New York City, now, connecting with them immediately, tending to that sacred spark, an interest in art, which we hold dear.

Muse Goodell is loving the organic food market, Jimbo's in San Diego!
Muse Goodell is loving the organic food market, Jimbo’s in San Diego!
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Always creating, Kathy Goodell, takes in San Diego
I painted this portrait of our amusing guest in a burst of inspiration, joy.
I painted this portrait of our amusing guest in a burst of inspiration, joy.
Snapping a Selfie!
Snapping a Selfie!
Goodell's good looks inspire artists, young and old.
Goodell’s good looks inspire artists, young and old.
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Annabella, age 8, makes a nice drawing of Kathy Goodell.
My Kid finds Goodell a worthy subject for a portrait.
My Kid finds Goodell a worthy subject for a portrait.

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The Muse Departs
The Muse Departs

Goodell, simply, oozes neon talent.  She is one of those beings that lives and breaths the mystical condition of being a “True Artist,” a multi-faceted creature, adventure ready.  She thrills me with her floating free generosity of spirit, her cool fashion sense, and her quick mind.  She is a favorite of the lively Contemporary ART MUSES, a female goddess of great creativity and wit, a source of artistic inspiration to many a young and an old artist, both inspiring to art legends and generations of students.  Goodell is friend who has earned the extra attention not just from Frau Kolb but from all her army of adoring students, all grateful for her indefatigable encouragement and support.

Photo © Kathy Goodell, 1 Dec. 2014
Photo © Kathy Goodell, 1 Dec. 2014

Imagine being a real Contemporary Artist, an art professor, paid for your expertise in art, a Guggenheim Grant recipient, Best Friend to Frau Kolb, Star of Talkinggrid, and international MUSE!  A respected person known for knowing about ART!  Think of that… Imagine being known as an Contemporary Artist and being a woman respected for her solid creativity and staggering productivity? Now, go Google yourself.  What does Google say about you?  Google Kathy Goodell, you will discover a woman at the crossroads of American History, a person of singular interest, and tremendous charisma. Be impressed.  I am.

We drive to the Historical and Natural Preserve of Point Loma, gladly paying $5.00 per vehicle entrance fee.  We look about and then decide to visit the Light House.  “I Love LENS!!!” Goodell purrs. Up into the little hill we go, which like so many such relics from a time past, seems tiny, a little precious jewel of a home, which once housed the keeper of the lonely lighthouse and his family.  The rooms, spick and span, chamber pots under the beds, pitcher and bowl for washing one’s face, a little guitar in the corner, hand made quilts… the usual American frontier artifacts of a time just recently past, idealized as formerly simpler.

Point Loma is a lovely vista point from which you can see all of downtown San Diego, Bay and Harbor.
Point Loma is a lovely vista point from which you can see all of downtown San Diego, Bay and Harbor.

The Point Loma lens are so beautiful.  Old glass, it captures the room around it, the light, the rainbows, upside down and inside out, the play of here and there is OTHERWORLDLY.  One could image that these objects might somehow be portals to different dimensions.  Doorways into space.  The infinite.

Excellent iphone image of the LENS at Point Loma in San Diego.
Excellent iphone image of the LENS at Point Loma in San Diego by Talkinggrid Muse, Contemporary Artist, Kathy Goodell.

In Goodell’s company I find myself thinking about the perpetual.  What is FOREVER?  Our friendship is a lasting one, the seed of which was a casual comment Goodell made as the young Frau Kolb… I wasn’t Frau Kolb then… I was a very young woman working in an Italian Restaurant in Soho, when Kathy came in to dine.  I waited on her.  She saw something in me.  That we became like family is a testament to her OPEN heart and generosity of spirit.  Her friendship is an unwavering source of good in my life and I hope to be forever that in hers.  All this LOVING makes me think of DEATH.  Death.

The finality of it… really, each of us only has a few close friends in this world.  Goodell is one of mine.  Thus, with her I discuss the grand plan, my vision(s).  We share the minutia of our days and compare notes about people that admire us, her, and/or me.  We know a number of the same people, being that we are both California/New Yorkers: girls who wear the robes of Muses, forming a Muse Team, inspiriting each other to new heights.

Actually, when I die, I’d like for my tombstone to say: “Artist, Mother, Friend!”  I’ve always enjoyed imagining my own funeral.  I like the idea that ALL MY X Boyfriends might come together to mourn me.  A handful of handsome men in tuxedos, of course.  They would drink whiskey, or ambrosia, make toasts, boasts, and talk about what a pain in the ass I was.  Hartmuth, my husband, would defend my memory!  I would attend the event, as a sexily clad ghost, wearing a gigantic black hat bedecked in veils.  The men, steadily drinking might glimpse me here, there.  However, I vow, not to linger… wouldn’t want to get stuck as a wandering spirit, on this side of the river Styx.

I ask Kathy Goodell:

What three words would you chose for your tombstone?

“OH MY GAWD!”  She answers.

Who do you imagine might most weep when that moment of dropping a handful of dirt on the casket arrives?

“Besides YOU, Frau?”  She asks, hazel eyes twinkling.  (Of course, Goodell, did not really say that… but I can dream.  If I really asked her this question, I think she would say her niece would be there, eyes a flood.)

What achievement(s), as a public person, artist are you most proud of?

“As a public person… I have to think about it for a minute… That my art might infect some with a sense of the eternal.” She answered, really.

How do you expect to be remembered?

“All depends on who is doing the remembering.” She says reminding me that every memory is but a flickering candle in the unceasing wind. Who cares how we are remembered when so much of what is remembered is tarnished in the self serving act of remembering?  We live but for a flashing instance, to be forgotten is inevitable. Yet, by making great art Goodell is among those that will leave an enduring legacy.

I ask Goodell a handful of earthy questions (above) on her second day in San Diego.  Each day here Goodell tells me of at least one beautiful story of her life and her development.  She is a San Francisco native, successful transplant to New York, with an international exhibition record and a following that spans generations.   As a child she was curious about religions, not finding the perfect spiritual fit she designed her own rituals, methods of observance.  Her family, long established in the United States, has historically interesting characters galore.  She is a person whose personal history is fascinating and instructive to the extreme.  I would like to learn more about her and a week in her gracious company, leaves me longing for more of her causal bounty/beauty.

I’d like to share with you, more of Goodell’s Goodies, stories, images and a creative perspective unlike any other.  I am inspired by Goodell’s tenacity, wit, and inner glow.  She represents the mature woman we’d all like to become, a person that owns herself and holds her own in any situation, a woman I admire.  As Goodell prepares to depart we sit next to each other and I relinquish a little control over the image I want to project of her glory.  Her unwavering modesty, overrides, my desire to BANG a DRUM, toot HER HORN, and CELEBRATE like a champion gladiator her enduring brilliance, her remarkable SHINE.

Acrylic on canvas,
Acrylic on canvas,4th of December 2014 © Frau (Caridad) Kolb

 

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Upon Arrival in The Paris of Frau’s Dreams!

On Thursday… I think this is the first day I was here. I arrived early and exhausted, having guzzled entirely too much Champagne on the plane and barfed several times before landing. I even left my hot pink mobil on the plane and had to turn around when I was already on line to customs and the man, my seat mate, travel buddy, who may have kissed me on the lips, after my first few glasses, departed leaving me his telephone number scribbled on his plane ticket.

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Fortunately, I got my phone back, took a taxi, and made it to sleek and immaculate Hotel Pullman, in view of the Eiffel tower. At first the room looked tiny; the balcony, a joke. I began to unpack and put my swollen right foot (which ALMOST caused me not to travel, to chicken out on this seminal voyage… which would have been really terrible) up. In contrast to my expectations, I waited for Hartmuth to arrive before venturing out. As I rested the room grew bigger, unfolding into a lovely well-furnished space to spend a few days. I read one of the many guide books, short stories, and novels I’d hauled cross country and the Atlantic Ocean. I floated off into jet-lagged sleep and when my husband arrived I was dressed and ready to venture out.

Frau Kolb Loves Paris
Frau Kolb is in bliss/shock to arrive in Paris!

Slipping out of the Hotel Pullman, onto the Paris street, “Gustave Eiffel,” we walked like jet-lagged in love zombies, hand-in-hand to the monument. Seeing it up close for the first time is quite the shock. It is so beautiful.  She is perfect.  I love grids and she is the grid going to town. She is divine. She. “La Tour,” they call her because she is undeniably a lady, a lady that loves her visitors, and welcomes all from every corner of the planet to drool over her long and lovely legs. We did not have the strength to climb La Tour immediately. Our bodies demanded nourishment. Thus, we pushed forward a few steps and went to the Cafe Champs de Mars.

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We ordered, “Deux Coupe Champagne,” pate, and escargot. Tears of joy, washed down my face as I took my first sip since barfing on the plane to Paris. I was HOME. I was living the dream, inside the picture, which I’d carried in my head of Paris, made complete by the handsome French waiter, in white dress shirt black vest and neck tie, everyone dresses better in Paris…. even the homeless show so traces of style. My husband squeezed my hand and kissed me. I relaxed and took a sip of sparkling water, feeling blessed to finally be an American in Paris. I’ve dreamed of this very thing, my entire life. So far, there was nothing but bliss in being here. Puking and swollen foot aside… Frau Kolb has arrived.  Paris embraces. Frau melts into a happy pat of Parisian sidewalk joy, nibbling on a chewy (delicious) snail (thank you snail for giving me your LIFE) in butter and herbs.

Merci!