Waning Crescent Moon over Walt Whitman

Dear friend,

I have finally closed this painting I started in 2011 while I was cat and house sitting for my traveling friends in Center City One, Philadelphia.

Center City One, by the way, made into one of the news in the United Kingdom. The water pipe on the top of the building burst, and flooded the flats below. It was a very costly Oops.

Waning Crescent Moon

Walt Whitman Bridge

Oil on panel, 10 * 12 inches

She said, Yeah, go on. Call me a ‘socialist’.

Okay, you socialist 😉

There is nothing to be ashamed of if you were called a socialist because you stepped in to help another human being where the profitable capitalist, who paid fewer taxes than its stingily paid laborers, has failed. But at the end of the day, this is really all about kindness and compassion, which should be the cornerstone of any social and economic system, belief system, and lifestyle.

Laborers are the consumers that spend on the products they helped make. When there are concerns about the market not doing well, it is because of declining consumer spending due to factors; such as the stingy and profitable company that is given generous government tax breaks and then writing out bonuses and generous paychecks to themselves while at the same time writing out stingy paychecks to their laborers, and executing layoffs.

New York, NY

There is a synergy between market performance and the stingily paid taxpaying consumers who spend most of their paychecks on the ever-increasing cost of food, clothing, and shelter. They cannot afford to be consumers. Their paychecks cannot sustain the image advertisers promote. Not even with credit cards!

There is nothing unethical about making profits and wealth, but there are a whole lot of wrongs if they were made at the expense of other humans and the environment. We need to eradicate greed and inject kindness and compassion into our economic system and our lives or humanity will burn itself out of existence.

Greed has never been sustainable. Humankind and the environment are paying the price for the greed of a few powerful humans. No one wins in this game of greed.

Capitalists and Socialists, Unite! Capitalism needs Socialism. We cannot have one without the other. It is a necessary synergy that is ignored or refused.

Everyone (including companies) has hopes and dreams — to be treated kindly, to be safe, comfortable, sheltered, fed, clothed, and profitable.

What are your hopes and dreams?

My hopes and dreams? I choose kindness because the laws of the Universe dictate that everything good will follow after kindness.

In a world where you can be anything, be kind.

Coloring by Calvin Mann, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania

The Power of One

Dear Friend,

I have told this story a few times before, and my eyes will always tear up.

Some years ago, while I was painting outside, a young woman, maybe in her teens, quickly walked by me with her infant child embraced in her arms. She was sobbing. I watched her rush off to somewhere and then out of my sight.

She was out of sight but I could not wipe that heart breaking moment out of my mind. What could I do? I helplessly asked myself. Nothing, I thought, so I lifted her in my thoughts for the Universe to send help to her and others like her. Months later, I learned that Young Moms had moved into Kennett Square. I gave whatever little bit that I could offer to them.

Maybe at least a year later, I saw some pictures of some of the young moms they had helped, and one of the pictures of the mothers looked like the young mom with her infant child on that day when she walked by me while I was painting! She and her child, no longer an infant, looked healthy and happy.

I think we often think to ourselves, I am just one person so what difference could I make. Amazingly, you will be surprised how much a difference you could make. Drop a pebble into a body of water and watch the ripples spread across its surface. That is the power of One.

It is the littlest thing we do that could make a mountain of a difference.

In a world where you can be anything, be kind.

Please visit Young Moms to learn more of their services and contributions to the community. Maybe you could be one of the army of One.

This painting is part of Young Mom’s fundraising silent auction on Saturday, March 11, 2023, from 10:30am-1pm at Willowdale Chapel - Kennett Square.

$1.99 vase (Daisy in $1.99 vase)

Oil on stretched cotton canvas

16 * 10 inches (1 inch deep)

Gifted