Peace, Tolerance, The Boston Marathon and Healing

Bruce Edwin, editor of the Hollywood Sentinel, gave my friend Guadalesa permission to let me reprint his piece about her efforts on behalf of peace with her efforts.  I believe that lack of tolerance (acceptance) is at the root of most if not all of the world's problems including the lost lives and health of so many of our troops and others killed in war and it's one of the reasons for this blog.

Guadulesa is a former staff member of the art gallery and gift store chain my husband and I founded and owned for nearly a decade and still lives near me in Southern California. She is an artist with heart. She was then and is now. I felt I wanted to honor her in some small way for her efforts to promote peace with her art. (I keyed that section in red to help you find it.) Please take time to scroll down to see a sample of her work and to see the section in Edwin's article on peace.

Award Winning Artist Guadulesa Pays Tribute to Boston Marathon Victims

By The Hollywood Sentinel  

While people are still dying as a result of the Boston Marathon Bombing; news sources reported yesterday that the FBI shot a witness who they state attacked them during questioning- some are not only trying to help put the pieces back together, but they are doing much more, including fundraising for the survivors of the bombing.

Boston Marathon Victims Get Tribute Unveiled by Award Winning Artist Guadulesa
One such big hearted Bostonian- Guadulesa, is a rising new leader of American female abstract artists, who spends her time between Southern California, and her hometown. The award winning fine artist from Boston; Guadulesa has made a tribute to the victims with her latest work of art. Guadulesa has become known for abstract or loosely figurative works of art, which reflect spontaneity, strong rhythm, texture and color blends. Images may be seen on her website at:
www.guadulesa.biz

The Boston Marathon Bombing
As it did many, the Boston bombing greatly affected Guadulesa. On April 15th, 2013, at 2:49pm Eastern, two pressure cooker bombs were detonated approximately 13 seconds apart, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Three people died, with a reported 264 persons injured. Guadulesa, states, "I was actually in the hospital visiting with my daughter-in-law, so I was a little worried about her. when news of the bombing aired, we were all so shocked."

Remembering the Victims who Died
The new art work created by Guadulesa abstractly represents the three victims, with respect to the memory of them. The three victims who died in the Boston Marathon Bombing were all spectators of the marathon. They were;
-Lu Lingzi
-Krystle Marie Campbell, and
-Martin William Richard
Lu Lingzi was a 23 year old Boston University graduate student from Shenyang, Liaoning, China. She was killed by the first bomb.
Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, was a restaurant manager from Medford, Massachusetts, she was also killed by the first bomb.
Martin William Richard, an 8 year old boy from Boston, had his life ended by the second bomb seconds after the first explosion.

Remembering the Victims who Lost Arms and Legs
While a little boy, and two young women died, and 14 people had to have their arms or legs cut off due to massive injury from the bombings, some individuals revoltingly have actually expressed more compassion and love for the two perpetrators- one dead, than the real victims. And yet, many still suffer to this day, with painful, physical recovery, as well as the psychological pain of trying to begin a new life without arms or legs, and the traumatic stress of feeling their life still in danger-and they still need our help.

Guadulesa Creates Tribute to Boston Bombing Victims
Artist Guadulesa, being from Boston, decided to do something about it to try help. She states, "I just could not believe that anyone would choose such an event, which people regard as international, to inflict such misery onto families and multi-national athletes. It made me remember 9 / 11 and the effect that had on us, because one of the flights had flown out of Boston's Logan International Airport. I urgently wanted to do something to help."

The Painting; Boston Survivors' Tribute
With that in mind, the artist went to work on the creation of a new art work, titled 'Boston Survivors' Tribute' pictured here. She intends to find a donor to purchase the work, and donate it to the Boston Medical Center, where many of the Boston bombing victims are being treated. Further, 10% of the funds donated will also be given to the One Fund Boston organization, which is the City of Boston's official non profit funding organization -partly established by the Mayor of Boston, to help victims of the bombing.

The Hollywood Sentinel sat down to discuss with Guadulesa a bit about her background, as well as the nature of the art work dedicated to the Boston Marathon Bombing victims. An excerpt of that exclusive interview is as follows:

Exclusive Interview with Boston Artist Guadulesa
The Hollywood Sentinel: You have lived in Boston, do you have friends or family near where this tragic event of the bombing occurred?
Guadulesa: Yes, I do - many friends, in fact. I used to live about four miles from the site of the bombing.
The Boston Marathon- Crime Scene
The Hollywood Sentinel: Wow. When was the last time you ever walked in this specific area?
Guadulesa: I was there a year ago. Thank goodness my ninety five year old Godmother has moved to the suburbs. I would have been extremely upset. Recently, I arrived in Boston for my art exhibition there, ten days after the bombing. While I was there I was tempted to go the site, but something stopped me. I felt that it was still a crime scene, and it was dreadful to think of what happened there. I stayed away.
Boston Marathon Bombing- Conspiracy Theories
The Hollywood Sentinel: Some have talked about conspiracy theories regarding the bombing. Do you give credence to any of these or do you believe that what the mainstream news has reported is what it is?
Guadulesa: As life goes, mainstream news can report only what they are given. We can always speculate, but sometimes it takes many years for the truth to be unearthed. Some group sent around an e-mail, which denied a lot of the evidence, and I just deleted it right away. It was such an insult to those who were injured and to families who lost their loved ones. The human mind can be very devious.
Boston- The Reputation
The Hollywood Sentinel: In my view, I think of Boston as being known as a tough, but smart city. I think of Cambridge and MIT for example. Tell me about this perception please; the toughness and the scholarly view of the city and what that means to you.
Guadulesa: I always tell people that Boston has a reputation for being an academic city, but it's very much a blue-collar town. Native Bostonians have a grit to their manner, no matter the socio-economic class. We're a small city, so we rub shoulders with each other along the way. You develop strong survival instincts. I do a lot of walking in Boston. In certain neighborhoods, I automatically put on my street persona, on guard- not afraid, just aware. Bostonians are ready to be friendly and warm, or cold and distant, depending on the situation. We know how to judge (circumstances).
The Boston Art Scene
The Hollywood Sentinel: That's interesting. What is the art scene like in Boston, how is it now, and what area of the city is it focused in?
Guadulesa: Boston used to be very conservative, but I think collectors have broadened their interests. The art scene used to be centered in Back Bay - Newbury Street - and Beacon Hill. Then it spread to the South End, as galleries were priced out of those areas. I used to live in the South End at the Piano Factory, Boston's oldest artist residence. Since the '90's, Mayor Menino has promoted the Arts and Artists for the contribution they make to the city's image and economy. I was a member of the Mayor's Boston Cultural Council from 1997 to 2003. There are Open Studio events in many neighborhoods now. Middle class Bostonians have become strong collectors and add to the vibrancy of the arts.
The Hollywood Sentinel: What message do you have to tell the survivors and the victims' families who have lost loved ones?
Time Heals
Guadulesa: I know that the memories will last for a long time, and they may never be erased. I hope that Bostonians, as we have done in the past, will pull together and lend emotional support to the victims. The survivors are, of course, victims also. Why them, why our city, why that time and place? Answers can never be sufficient for those most deeply affected. As we are told, time heals. I would tell them to allow that healing - physical and emotional - to take place, no matter how long it takes. We all need to feel whole.
Artists Bringing Peace
The Hollywood Sentinel: Exactly. In your view, how can artists help bring peace?
Guadulesa: Already, a close artist friend of mine participated in a Cambridge Peace March. People are reaching out to offer comfort. There are concerts and other special events, which are raising money for the survivors. I believe that the contributions will help survivors realize that we want to help to ease their pain. Knowing that strangers are reaching out to help has to bring some peace of mind. We really want to ease their hearts. Artists can work together to generate love and peace. The strong intention of love can bring peace to those who open their hearts to it. That may seem esoteric, but we have seen it work.
Messages Within the Painting; Boston Survivors' Tribute
The Hollywood Sentinel: Sure. What is this art work you have created about exactly, and what do you want viewers to take away from it after viewing it?
Guadulesa: I am an abstract artist, so the painting re-creates the energy experienced during the bombing, without being too literal. Sometimes I work with collage to directly refer to a particular event, but this time, I chose not to include too many details. I feel that the survivors will hold those details for too long as it is. They don't need to be reminded. I have included a skyline, three focal points in honor of those who lost their lives, a running shoe, and a broken finish line. I want the viewers to feel the shock of being in the midst of that terrible moment.
How to Support the Work; Boston Survivors' Tribute
For more information on Guadulesa, visit her website at:
www.guadulesa.biz
To inquire about being a donor for 'Boston Survivors' Tribute' pictured here, or for commission works or other purchases of existing inventory, contact the studio of the artist at the above website, or e-mail: guadulesa222@yahoo.com
You may make a donation directly to the One Fund Boston at https://secure.onefundboston.org/
The contents of this article are copyright (c).2013, The Hollywood Sentinel, All rights reserved. Rights are granted for partial or complete re-print by established newspapers, magazines, and online publications or blogs. The office of Bruce Edwin and affiliates, and Guadulesa do not endorse any advertising that may appear on or in connection with this story.

With thanks to Bruce Edwin, editor of The Hollywood Sentinel and President of Starpower Management, the celebrity model and talent firm. Contact Bruce at TheHollywoodSentinel.com.
-----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson wrote the foreword for Eric Dinyer's book of patriotic quotations, Support Our Troops, published by Andrews McMeel. Part of the proceeds for the book benefit Fisher House. Her chapbook of poetry won the Military Writers Society of America's award of excellence. Find it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599240173/. Her novel, collection of creative nonfiction and much of her poetry is informed by interest in leading the world toward acceptance of one another. Find her web page dedicated to tolerance at http://www.carolynhowardjohnson.redenginepress.com/tolerence_and_utah_links.htm. If your Twitter followers would be interested, please pass this on to them using this widget:

Memorial Day: Remembering My Own Who Served

I bought my veteran husband a stars-and-stripe pinwheel at the 99 cent store to thank him for the time he put into the reserves and on call up for the Berlin crisis—the crisis that didn't turn into war. There are many vets like him who were willing to fight and their willingness was the reason we had no war. Our family has very few vets—it's a family of mostly women who lived before women were equals in the war efforts (though I know many were, in fact, very equal!). So today I'm remembering my uncle Jim Heatly, Navy, deceased; Douglas Howard, now in his 90s, Army, Pacific Theater; Robert W. McElroy, Air Force, a pilot who volunteered for WWII before conscription, deceased; my grandson @Travis Lamoureaux, father of one and one on the way, who served in the all volunteer Army in Iraq--twice; and, of course, @Lance Johnson, my dear husband who volunteered again right after 9/11 and was turned away because only young soldiers were needed or wanted—a big mistake in my opinion.

---
Carolyn Howard-Johnson wrote the foreword for Eric Dinyer's book of patriotic quotations, Support Our Troops, published by Andrews McMeel. Part of the proceeds for the book benefit Fisher House. Her chapbook of poetry won the Military Writers Society of America's award of excellence. Find it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599240173/. Her novel, collection of creative nonfiction and much of her poetry is informed by interest in leading the world toward acceptance of one another. Find her web page dedicated to tolerance at http://www.carolynhowardjohnson.redenginepress.com/tolerence_and_utah_links.htm. If your Twitter followers would be interested, please pass this on to them using this widget:

Pride and Service to Country on this Day for Veterans

I apologize for my inactivity on this blog of late. My grandson is home again--safe--and has given us a new great grandchild. Life has been busy. But today, in celebration of this day, I thought I'd drop by with a guest post from Lance Johnson, author of What Foreigners Need To Know About America from A To Z. He is a real patriot of the kind that should get more attention. Not the kind who think there is something unpatriotic about any criticism of the US, but the kind who values that everyone can be critical and, in fact, are sometimes critical because we love this country so much.  Here is his offering to celebrate the day.

Pride and Service to Country

By Lance Johnson, author of What Foreigners Need To Know About America From A to Z


     I am most proud of the thirty years I spent as a private and an officer in the National Guard, Army Reserves, and on active duty. Today, those serving in the armed forces are viewed by most as heroes, unlike five decades ago when, as a young 2nd Lt. just out of graduate school, my life was disrupted when I was called to active duty during Kennedy’s Berlin Activation. Assigned to a combat engineer unit in Vernal, Utah, before we were transferred to Ft. Lewis, Washington, I was walking outside the Vernal armory in my uniform and was made fun of by two ten year olds. It hurt, because I was giving up a year of my life for my country for them. But that was part of the culture back then, and it only intensified a few years later when the Vietnam War tore America apart and changed the face of Veteran’s Holiday, resulting in fewer military parades and ceremonies. Even ROTC programs were dropped from many colleges in the ensuing years. But recent wars have brought back the holiday’s popularity as a tribute to those serving and those who have fallen. It took three decades for the ’Nam pain to subside and a Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be built in D.C. with the names of 58,000 Americans killed in that senseless war.

      My recent book “What Foreigners Need To Know About America From A To Z” talks about the futility of the war. Here’s a quote: “Vietnam War – There is not a better example of the tragic consequences of cultural misconceptions than the Vietnam War in the late 1960s and early 70s that bitterly divided Americans. The American movie, The Fog of War (2003), won an Academy Award for Best Documentary. In the film, Robert McNamara, the U.S. Secretary of Defense during the war and the architect of its buildup, meets with his North Vietnamese counterpart and they admit they misinterpreted each other’s motives. They concluded that the U.S. mistakenly viewed the North’s invasion of South Vietnam as a communist move to conquer all of Southeast Asia. We called this the Domino Theory in which country after country would fall like tumbling dominoes to the communists. His counterpart said it was nothing but a civil war, something the U.S. had gone through a hundred years prior. The war is yet another painful reminder of the consequences of not understanding each other’s culture. Perhaps your country has reminders of its misunderstandings, too.”
I visited Vietnam 12 years ago and was overwhelmed seeing hoards of people missing limbs and living and working in bullet ridden hovels, troubling reminders of the war. 40,000 had been killed by land mines since the war ended. However, they were most friendly toward Americans. As they simply explained it, the war was over. It finally is in America, too. Peace, and a big thank you to those in uniform today, especially young 2nd Lieutenants embarking on life’s journey who might be derided for serving their country.



~Johnson's What Foreigners Need To Know About America From A To Z is available on Amazon worldwide and is now also available as an e-book from Kindle.
----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson wrote the foreword for Eric Dinyer's book of patriotic quotations, Support Our Troops, published by Andrews McMeel. Part of the proceeds for the book benefit Fisher House. Her chapbook of poetry won the Military Writers Society of America's award of excellence. Find it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599240173/. Her novel, collection of creative nonfiction and much of her poetry is informed by interest in leading the world toward acceptance of one another. Find her web page dedicated to tolerance at http://www.howtodoitfrugally.com/tolerence_and_utah_links.htm. If your Twitter followers would be interested, please pass this on to them using this widget:

Bobby Darin and His Song of Peace

It's been awhile since I popped in. Thought you might love this from when Bobby Darin looked like a baby. And though I wasn't a baby at that time, I don't remember this song of peace. My writing friend David Reel sent it to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZ1ohsissjE&feature=related

---
Carolyn Howard-Johnson wrote the foreword for Eric Dinyer's book of patriotic quotations, Support Our Troops, published by Andrews McMeel. Part of the proceeds for the book benefit Fisher House. Her chapbook of poetry won the Military Writers Society of America's award of excellence. Find it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599240173/. Her novel, collection of creative nonfiction and much of her poetry is informed by interest in leading the world toward acceptance of one another. Find her web page dedicated to tolerance at http://www.carolynhowardjohnson.redenginepress.com/tolerence_and_utah_links.htm. If your Twitter followers would be interested, please pass this on to them using this widget:

Ruminations on Fathers Fitting for Vets According to Reviewer

This a review of a blog for fathers, many of whom are today's soldiers or vets. I therefore thought it suitable for this blog.

Visit Amazon's Carolyn Howard-

Imagining the Future: Ruminations on Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions

Carolyn Howard-Johnson and Magdalena Ball have woven their Imagining the Future: Ruminations on Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions (Volume 1) on March 22, 2010, together like sisters of the same mind when it comes to the men in their lives. Carolyn begins her medley of childhood memories beginning with “All the sound in the world sucked to a waving wailing note as I perch on my father’s knee.” Later giftedly pondering, “The things I didn’t know about my father, his coming and goings, the fearing he would not return. One day, only a dawn or decade ago, he didn’t.”

“Then, then!” writes Carolyn, “Decades of dread (conflicts?) with names we remember and some we don't. Bosnia, Kosovo, First (!) Gulf War, Korean, Bay of Pigs, Rwanda,

Afghanistan, the Berlin Crisis for god's sake. More than 300 of them, words like the bass beat of drums. Vietnam when those troops who did come home couldn't walk or wouldn't talk. I tell my grandson, then only 12, how we who remember the grunt of that war see it differently from those who marched in the Double W Wars, wars when we wanted to be there.”

Carolyn Howard-Johnson's grandson served two tours in Iraq. Her husband is a retired Army officer who served in the 1960s Berlin call up. I can hear the sober sounds of the National Anthem in the background of all her poetry, with the throat voice of Uncle Sam warning, “I want him. He’s mine. You can’t have him!” All wives and little girls cry.

Magdalena pulls metaphors out of the air with, “You recede a little more. I reach for you over thought waves little girl’s hand hung in the air your absence, finally, matches reality to imagination trying to get truth from pretty metaphors that can’t touch your flesh still young somewhere while the precious science you drank like fine wine grinds your atoms to dust.”

Carolyn Howard Johnson and Magdalena Ball have written a wonderful little memoir celebrating Father’s Day and all their sacrifices as girls and women growing up in the 50’s and together they swam through a remembered past. I recommend this little gem and I give it Five Stars for Amazon. Happy Father’s Day to all…wives, children and our husbands who take care of our very basic needs while we write poetry.

~Reviewed by Joyce White

Sculpting the Heart Book Reviews

Joyce White
Author
Sculpting the Heart with Art Therapy
Read Now - http://bit.ly/d1jGLN
Twitter - @wjoycewhite

----
Carolyn Howard-Johnson wrote the foreword for Eric Dinyer's book of patriotic quotations, Support Our Troops, published by Andrews McMeel. Part of the proceeds for the book benefit Fisher House. Her chapbook of poetry won the Military Writers Society of America's award of excellence. Find it at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1599240173/. Her novel, collection of creative nonfiction and much of her poetry is informed by interest in leading the world toward acceptance of one another. Find her web page dedicated to tolerance at http://www.carolynhowardjohnson.redenginepress.com/tolerence_and_utah_links.htm. If your Twitter followers would be interested, please pass this on to them using this widget: