Sharika Roland

I was the weirdest kid to have been raised by normal parents. You’d have thought I was raised by gypsies or actors or at least hippies but I was not. When I was six, I decided to have shows and I would get neighbor kids to “perform “ acts. We would have no starting idea. We would just start acting. Singing , Dancing and telling jokes. Like a variety show. I was 6 and unfortunately for my younger siblings and neighborhood kids they had to play too whether they wanted to or not.
We would sell tickets for a nickle for this fabulous show. Oh yes.
I remember my Parents would come to the shows and the neighborhood parents and unfortunate children who thought this would be fun.
I was 6 . But it got worse than that because I also acted like that when I was 18. I went to the Paramount in Seattle and marched in and talked to some guy who was there and informed him that I was going to do Absurd Ballet in America. I did not know what that was but I thought I would create it as I went. I put an ad in the newspaper looking for dancers who wanted to create something new. I got a few responses from people that I probably shouldn’t be hanging around with.
it seemed to me that if you just get an idea you should do it. Like the idea was directional and you should obey it.
Now , looking back it is amazing that I did not get into all kinds of trouble but somehow nothing bad happened to me .
This brings up the question about which ideas are good and which are flat out bad because sometimes a seemingly at first glance stupid idea can lead to something miraculous .
As a creative my job is create and that can be a messy and sometimes silly thing.
When I was in California I went to college at a community college in Oakland. I had a free career counselor . He asked me what I wanted to major in. I said poetry. Haha he said why don’t you go into acting because you are pretty. So I took an acting class. Yuk all the people were so crazy( as if I was totally normal) and that’s when I started being a painter. See how that worked. Totally rational . Here is the thing I’m glad I did every weirdo thing just to see what would happen and now that I’m old I think I should up the anti and just see what happens . You never know something good might happen .

After working for 6 months on the inside of the garage turned studio we are done .
and everything is different that our first plan.
I had a couch recovered to go into my new wild studio and after I got it back it didn’t work in the new space

I don’t know how any interior designer actually does a story board. Yes here’s one idea but then along the way better ideas evolved , that must happen all the time to designers. Those tv shows make it look so easy , but it’s a process.
With the studio done it is minimalist and clean and it will want to different paintings. A completely different style ,

I will give the studio what it wants. I will do what I need to do .
And it is scary and I don’t know why .
is the caterpillar afraid to go into a cocoon for fear of what comes out. No he just does it because of compulsion.
Oddly as it sounds I’m doing the same thing .
but here is the reality. If it was somebody else I’d be cheering them on but I’m aware of me so that’s something to get over.
it’s been my experience that feeling scared us not self preservation but the fear of pain.
what possible pain could there be in painting something new, fear of rejection ?

That should be so low on the reasons you don’t do something.. That should be the lowest rung on the ladder.
But sometimes that’s the hardest to overcome .
you just have to do it .

Last night at the New Years Eve Party, I met a woman who talked deeply with me. She just got to the point and we discussed how people don’t listen to each other anymore. We stop listening when we find out if the other person is on our side or not. If they are on our side, well wonderful and magical and all walls come down, but if they are in the other camp, forget it. We waste our lives doing that . People in the other camp are just as valid and interesting as we are but we never find that out when put the brakes on immediately .

All you have to do is listen , ask how they got to that a point of view and listen to their story. They have different experiences than we do and why not find out more about that. Maybe they have something valuable to share and we are being idiots for not hearing a different perspective.

I think the news media puts us into camps and we fall into the trap of going along with it, a fight makes good copy, but it ruins the world. If we could be curious and listen to each other without camping out, it would be life changing.

It was a great conversation for a New Years Party and one I hope to practice.

When we first moved here to a town of about 8 thousand , we were thrilled with how different it was . All the concerns about being bored because of lack of culture etc. fell by the wayside. There were new things to learn to even driving around through the orchards was a feast for our souls. The lack of great restaurants and variety of kinds of food that is in larger cities , was replaced with cooking at home with friends. Friends become paramount in a small town. We need each other for stimulation way way more than you do in a large city.

But what I want to talk about here is what happens when to your body when you don’t have traffic, or noise, and crime is not a constant concern. You relax on a molecular level that directly affects your thinking. You also develop a taste for more of that. The trade off for living in a small town with few amenities is an extremely low price to pay. Thats why towns like Wilson Creek that has 300 people in it and no grocery store close or anything close by is full of people that adore it.

There is something human being need that you get in a small town that a big town kills.

You cannot know this unless you actually move to a small town. You can’t just vacation there to know.

Your roots can grow here planted directly in the earth instead of a pot. They can grow and grow and become strong.