For the children in Connecticut. For the shoppers in Oregon. For everyone everywhere. December 14, 2012
Posted by Samuel Snoek-Brown in Art, Smiley.Tags: Art, Compassion, Smiley
3 comments
“Smile in prayer.” My own drawing, in Sharpie.
It is hard to smile when, in the space of a week, we’ve seen two mass shootings, one just a dozen miles from my house here in Oregon and the other, today, in kindergarten classrooms in Connecticut. People got out of those situations alive, and that’s worth smiling about. But people died — children died — and that makes smiling, for any reason, very, very difficult.
But we need to smile for each other. It isn’t a happy smile. It’s a soft, sad smile, but it’s a smile nonetheless. It’s our reassurance to each other that we are better than this, that we will be there for each other in times of need. And it’s a promise that we will overcome the violence in our lives through love and mutual happiness.
In the meantime, here’s a sad, heartbroken but hopefully heartmeanding smile, and a hug, to everyone, everywhere.
BONUS: the smile is so much more than an emoticon September 26, 2012
Posted by Samuel Snoek-Brown in Smiley, Web smileys.Tags: Compassion, Joy, Smiley, Web smileys
add a comment
This photo is making the rounds on Facebook today; it arrived to Facebook via Reddit:
The photo is of a young Sikh woman, Balpreet Kaur. The person who posted the photo to Reddit seemed confused by the sight of facial hair on a young woman and posted the photo under Reddit’s “Funny” section with the comment, “I’m not sure what to conclude from this.”
Somewhere among all the crass jokes and ignorant jabs about gender roles and body image, Balpreet Kaur herself chimed in to explain in beautiful rhetoric and with deep compassion (she never once expresses anger or embarrassment) why she has facial hair and why she’s proud of it.
Go visit the Reddit post and do a “find” for balpreetkaur, which is the handle under which she posted her comment, so you can read her full comments for yourself. But I wanted to share this photo because of two specific statements she makes:
Early in her reply, she writes that she didn’t know about the photograph until a friend brought it to her attention — she wasn’t aware the OP (original photographer) was taking her picture. “If the OP wanted a picture,” she writes, “they could have just asked and I could have smiled.” 🙂
She goes on to explain her Sikh faith, how it addresses the body and body image, and why she’s proud to look the way she does. It’s a beautiful statement of faith, at the end of which she writes, “When I die, no one is going to remember what I looked like, heck, my kids will forget my voice, and slowly, all physical memory will fade away. However, my impact and legacy will remain: and, by not focusing on the physical beauty, I have time to cultivate those inner virtues and hopefully, focus my life on creating change and progress for this world in any way I can. So, to me, my face isn’t important but the smile and the happiness that lie behind the face are.” (emphasis mine)
This is what’s so wonderful about this post, happy readers: the smiley face as we love and share it here on the blog is almost always an artistic expression, a simple combination of basic colors and clean lines, a symbol. But it is a symbol for a human expression, and that human expression — of happiness, of joy and compassion — is so much more important than any stylized pictograph we could make of it.
This photo and the story Balpreet Kaur tells about it made me smile. And that’s worth a thousand emoticons.
Smile in prayer September 11, 2011
Posted by Samuel Snoek-Brown in Art, Smiley.Tags: 9-11, Art, Compassion, Smiley
2 comments
"Smile in prayer." My own drawing, in Sharpie.
This blog project is supposed to be about injecting a little happiness into the world. We do it because the world could always use a little more happiness, a few more reasons to smile.
Days like today — the 10th anniversary of truly horrifying terrorist attacks in the US — make it hard to smile, but they also remind us how important smiling can be.
Today, I offer only the simplest of smiley faces, a quiet, meditative sketch, a smile of the spirit.
But you have plenty more smiles to find:
Look to a friend or a loved one and find your smile there.
Remember the people you’ve lost, but remember them smiling.
Find your nearest emergency service person — a police officer, a fire fighter, a paramedic — and thank them, and see them smile in return.
Find others who serve and help us: clergy, doctors, librarians, military personnel, postal workers, teachers, and so on. Thank them, too.
Go outside and offer others your own smile.
Today is for remembering a lot of things, but we should never be forced to remember hatred or to dwell in sorrow. And we should always remember the importance of spreading joy.
A change of heart August 29, 2011
Posted by Samuel Snoek-Brown in Public art, signs, & graffiti, Smiley.Tags: Compassion, Graffiti, Smiley
2 comments
Sometimes graffiti can be mean:
But sometimes, someone will come along and make it beautiful:
And when I see that happen, it always makes me smile:
Graffiti with smiley, Northeast Portland, OR. Photos taken August 2001.
Smile in prayer September 11, 2010
Posted by Samuel Snoek-Brown in Art, Smiley.Tags: 9-11, Art, Compassion, Smiley
add a comment
"Smile in prayer." My own drawing, in Sharpie.
This blog project is supposed to be about injecting a little happiness into the world. We do it because the world could always use a little more happiness, a few more reasons to smile.
Days like today–the 9th anniversary of truly horrifying terrorist attacks in the US–make it hard to smile, but they also remind us how important smiling can be.
Today, I offer only the simplest of smiley faces, a quiet, meditative sketch, a smile of the spirit.
But you have plenty more smiles to find:
Look to a friend or a loved one and find your smile there.
Remember the people you’ve lost, but remember them smiling.
Find your nearest emergency service person–a police officer, a fire fighter, a paramedic–and thank them, and see them smile in return.
Find others who serve and help us: clergy, doctors, librarians, military personnel, postal workers, teachers, and so on. Thank them, too.
Go outside and offer others your own smile.
Today is for remembering a lot of things, but we should never be forced to remember hatred or to dwell in sorrow. And we should always remember the importance of spreading joy.
Smile! 