Here are just a couple of the MANY women whose stories have shaped us:

"One of my first theater projects was with a Girl Scout troupe in Phoenix where we had to imagine what it was like to live in a world where women couldn't vote. The girls exploration of this unthinkable reality was very moving to me." -Allison

"I co-created a play many years ago that was an adaptation of "Wilma Unlimited" by Kathleen Krull. I had heard her name before but her story finally hit me...that this disabled black girl from the segregated south overcome every possible odd to win 3 gold medals in 1 Olympics!" -Lynn

We’ll share more women throughout the month.  And we would love to hear from you.

Who are some of the women you admire and why?

Our own happiness as parents influences our children’s happiness in a variety of ways.  Extensive research has established a substantial link between mothers who feel depressed and “negative outcomes” in their children, such as acting out and other behavior problems…Children imitate their parents’ emotions as early as six days old…so if we model happiness – and all the skills that go with it – our kids are likely to imitate what we do.

What do you do just for yourself to make sure that you have the oxygen you need?

This post is part of a series of posts as I read Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps For More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents in preparation of our event with the author, Christine Carter, PhD on March 20.  Click here for more information and to register for the event>>>

Thanks Sean for the Disco Ball. Thanks Kelly for your amazing lighting design. Thanks Shannon for the photo.

Just wanted to let you know that our Move & Groove Family Dance Party was a BIG HIT on Saturday night.  The event was original conceived of as a way of raising some money for our Glitter & Razz Scholarship Fund (which it did, by the way – it raised about $300 which is enough to send an Itty Bitty to camp this summer!).

Between 30-40 folks of all ages were there having the time of their lives.  So, although we thought this was just a one-time event, now we know we have to do it again…just because!  We heard things like:

• “Wow!  How often do you get to have this kind of fun with your kids?”
• “What a good deal this is!  $20 for my whole family and you feed us?!?!”
• “We have a dance party in our house all the time anyway.  It’s more fun to have it with more people.”
• “I loved meeting the other moms.  So cool!”
• “Are you going to have this once a week?”
• “We will definitely be at the next one!”

Even the 2 1/2  year old Milana came up and said to me, “Lynn, this is a really good party.”

We were all getting down! Didn't matter how old we were. Thanks Scott for the photo!

How do we argue with that?  Let’s try again Saturday Night April 17th?  What do you think?  We can celebrate finally getting those taxes done.

By the way, you can still make a contribution to our Scholarship Fund… just visit www/glitterandrazz.com/payment and select “I Want To Help Someone Come to Glitter & Razz Camp.” You can choose to buy $5, $10, $20, or $50 of someone else’s tuition.

Allison and I are so excited to announce our recent membership in Cosmic Cowgirls, a woman and girl powered school based in Healdsburg, CA.  Cosmic Cowgirls is a “member owned tribe that teaches and produces educational multi-media events, books and tools that are designed to promote a vision of wellness, compassion and empowerment for women and girls.”

Our journey with Visionary Artist, Shiloh McCloud, the founder of Cosmic Cowgirls, has been one for legend.  Back in 2005, Allison and I took a road trip up the California Coast that ended in our first trip to the magical Mendocino where we stumbled upon an art gallery there and completely fell in love with the spiritual and empowering images of women in the paintings.  We left feeling as inspired by Shiloh’s art as we felt about the misty shore of the coastline.

About a year later, we walked into an Oakland church to find the same paintings gracing their walls.  “Oh my gosh…here is this Shiloh again!  We must be in the right church.”  This time, we were able to meet Shiloh in person as she, at the time, was sharing more than just her paintings with that community.  She also gave guest sermons and led these amazing groups inspiring women to fully embody our visions in the world.

We couldn’t get enough.  We then, in 2007, signed up for her Heart of the Visionary workshop that took place in Healdsburg (it’s now an online course).  This workshop was exactly what we needed at exactly the right time.  She led us through a creative process of turning our visions into business plans.  And the planning wasn’t done with spreadsheets and bar graphs.  It was done with painting and sharing conversation and chocolate cake with other women.  We took this course just a few months before we opened our Glitter & Razz Dramatic Play Space in Oakland and it was key in giving us the confidence and focus to set out on the path of making our dreams come true.

Now, here we are in 2010, 5 years after the first time we experienced the magic of Shiloh for the first time, and it’s come full circle.  We have become members of this innovative cooperative of women and girls from all over the US and Canada who are working together to empower ourselves and other women everywhere.  And, as our first collaborative project with the Cowgirls, we are bringing a week-long Go Girls! Camp up to Cosmic Cowgirls school in Healdsburg in August.

And this still feels like just the beginning.  Stay tuned…

Meanwhile, downstairs in the Glitter & Razz Dramatic Play Space, their kids will be working together to create their own original play that explores what a happy childhood means from their perspective.

Christine’s thesis is that “happiness is a skill that we can teach our children.” And this book breaks down all kinds of ways to do just that. I love everything about this because we share this same idea here at Glitter & Razz – that if we provide safe but challenging spaces for kids to learn the social and emotional skills to improve their lives now, it will serve them for life and ultimately improve the planet.

Christine says it best at the end of her introduction – “When we become better parents, our world improves measurably. In our materially rich but spiritually sparse culture, we often forget that this work we do as parents is important, essential. It matters - for our children’s well-being and for the greater good of the world.”

I am reading the book now in preparation for the event.  Get your copy now or at the event from Diesel, A Bookstore right here on College Avenue.  And please read along with me.  I will be posting stuff I find interesting as I read.  I’d love to hear your comments.

Monday is our first Play in a Day Camp in honor of the life and work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  I decided that the theme of the day will be peace and freedom.  We haven’t done this particular theme yet so I am up this morning doing some research.  I, of course, first went to the Teaching Tolerance website.  Their stuff is an amazing resource to teachers and us teaching artists.  They are high quality teaching materials that they provide mostly for free.  Any of you who are exploring issues of diversity with your work will definitely want the get connected to these folks.

So, I am definitely inspired.  Here is an activity I am looking at called Freedom Flag.  What I like about it is that it uses multiple art forms – music, words, and collage.  The purpose of the activity is to engage kids in a discussion of freedom to get to heart of what it actually means.  I was challenged by figuring out how to do this so this is is good start.  However, I will have to adapt the activity…here’s why…

“Using red, white and blue construction paper, create a class “Freedom Flag,” by writing the key words for freedom on strips of red and white paper…”

Using red, white and blue construction paper?!?  How are kids supposed to learn about freedom if we tell them they can only use 3 colors in their flag?  Actually, limiting it to 3 colors is not the problem.  That’s actually a nice parameter.  The problem is that we are telling them which 3 colors they can use.  I understand that these are the colors of the US flag as it currently exists but the purpose of teaching kids art is teaching them how to notice things that exist and comment on it in their own way.

To me, freedom is being able to be and create your true self without anyone else imposing on you what they think that is.  I might say to the group, “we are going to create our own flag that represents our own freedom here in Oakland at Glitter & Razz.  Our flag should have 3 colors.  What 3 colors should we use to create this flag.  What 3 colors would represent us?”  And then take them through a process of voting as a group.  Now, the activity is teaching democracy in action through a creative process.  It is also helping them build their identity as part of a community.  It even provides a fertile ground to discuss dissent (”yuck, I don’t like pink!”) and how important it is to freedom.

I will run it by Martin, our art teacher, and see what he says.  And I will keep researching to figure out how to take this same idea into our creative movement and drama classes.  Either way, I am very excited about this.

Oh, another little criticism about Teaching Tolerance…they do not seem too friendly to those of us who work for ourselves…their free materials go to classroom teachers, administrators, church leaders, and employees of non-profits.  You even need a signature from some boss.  Maybe I will contact them and let them know about us small business artists who are doing important work with kids too.

Maybe we’ll see you Monday.

The work of artist Shara Hannah Finerman

2010 is the year when artists will take over business.  I can feel it.  This article in the New York Times clearly shows that business schools are looking at the current state of the economy as an opportunity to prepare its students with the critical thinking and problem solving skills so necessary to the creative process that artists tend to have these skills by the truck load.  In fact, just the other day, as I was having tea and toast at Pizzaiolo with one of my new favorite teaching artists, Shara Finerman, I told her that we were all in a great position to start and run successful businesses because we have what many business people work so hard to attain – creativity, innovation, flexibility, etc.  Personally, I have found it much easier to enter into my business with these skills and then teach myself Quickbooks later.  You know what I mean?

Anyway…Shara shared with me that it was her desire to teach full-time in a school.  She wanted to have the experience of working with a group of students over a longer period of time – an experience not often associated with being a part-time teaching artist.

Then, I challenged her.  Since Shara and I originally met back in October at TAO’s Mind Your Own Business event for teaching artists, I asked her why she felt the need to be in a school in order to have this experience.  Why couldn’t she go into business for herself?  She could find a small group of students, a group that wants quality art instruction (one they may not be getting in school).  She could find a little studio or they could come to her place.  She could meet with them weekly.  She could help them build their portfolio.

And she could do it all her way.  Build up her own philosophy of art, teaching, and learning.  She does not have to limit herself to the traditional pay scale of a teaching job and, with the money she earns, perhaps even make a bigger impact on the kids and families in the community who do not always have access to quality arts experiences.

We are in the business of creating.   Let’s create strong and sustainable businesses that will support us, our communities, and strengthen our economy as a whole.  For more inspiration about arts entrepreneurship, go where I go…I am really into Rebecca Stees’ creative biz wow and Dennis Baker’s blog.

This learning is key for the creative process.  Did you know that Ancient Greeks and Romans believed that genius had nothing to do with the individual talents or competencies of people?  In fact, geniuses were spirits assigned to us to help us do great work.  In this definition, the spirit provides the inspiration and we do the hard work to make it manifest here, on Earth.  Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love (one of my personal favorites) has an amazing TED Talk about this…

Whether or not you believe in spirits, the fact of the matter is that, this idea that we have been holding that some people are just born very very smart and others are not is not getting us anywhere.  It’s definitely not helping our kids learn any better.  When we start to understand that we may not understand exactly where genius comes from, but we do in fact understand how to work hard, make a bunch of mistakes, and keep working anyway, then we will at least be good partners with genius.  And we can pass that on to our kids.

“Sure,” I said. “But, what did I do?  I just got up.”

She went on to explain that she woke up in a temper tantrum when Rufus, our Yorkie, insisted on being taken out to go potty (the nerve of him)…she also did not have enough sleep.  But then, she remembered the lesson that I taught the kids during our recent Thanksgiving Gratitude Camp and she was able to turn her mood around with the sheer power of focusing on the things that she was grateful for.

This is actually the 2nd time this week that I shared this lesson as 1 of my gifts.  The first was on Tuesday, Day 2 of my challenge, when a good friend and customer was talking to me about a struggle she had had with her daughter who had attended our Thanksgiving Camp.  I spent a good deal of time listening to her and sharing my views of the situation.  Then, I let her know that her daughter really responded well to the idea that focusing on your gratitudes can give you the power to change your situation around.  She accepted this idea freely and enthusiastically and said, “That’s definitely a tool I can use.”

My other gifts this week were:
Day 3 (Wed): I found this beautiful picture of a customer’s son from summer camp and sent it to her
Day 4 (Thursday): I bought lunch for my partner and my friend/office manager
Day 5 (Friday): I tipped the staff at a local bakery that I have never thought to tip before
Day 6 (Yesterday): I began buying materials for Christmas presents for my family yesterday…I am doing all homemade gifts this year.  But wait, I didn’t actually give them anything so…what else did I give yesterday?  Okay…here’s one…my partner and I were cleaning the house together but then she had to go to an appointment.  So, I finished it while she was gone so she could come home to a clean house.

That feels like a gift to me.

Poor Guy

Forgive me for the grossness of the next sentence.

Walking to work today, I saw a guy carrying a pancake-flat squirrel.  He was picking trash up on College Avenue and, after a candy wrapper or 2, he also picked up this squirrel, and threw them all in the garbage can.  I could not believe that this was someone’s job.  Although I hadn’t seen the squished squirrel before the guy picked it up, I have definitely seen my share of road kill and have often had the thought, “who’s the guy who has to pick that up?”  And here I was…walking behind that guy.

I was faced with an amazing opportunity to express gratitude.  And although I did hesitate (what was I supposed to say, exactly), I seized the moment.  “Excuse me.  Thanks so much for getting that squirrel out of the street.”

“No problem,” he said.  Really?

And thus began my 29 Gifts.  I was planning to begin the challenge tomorrow – Dec 1 seemed like the ideal time to begin a challenge like this (giving 1 thing away each day for 29 days).  But, I couldn’t let this opportunity pass me by.  I had to give this man the gift of thanks for doing what could possibly be the grossest job ever.  And, I am already starting to feel pretty good about it.

The best part is that my personal 29 Gift Challenge will culminate in our Glitter & Razz Winter Holiday Camps where we will be exploring the theme of generosity.  I will hopefully have learned a bunch about it by then to pass on to the kids.  And hopefully, all squirrels can keep themselves safe until then.