The Other Voice: Jenn Ashton, Artist & Author

What does Pokemon and augmented reality mean for artists?

Just wrote a quickie little article here based on the Pokemon phenomenon.

I wrote you a story - "Compassion and the Pebble"

*When I began searching for a photo to go with my little tale I realized that so many people have written about pebbles in shoes lol - but I'll post this anyway. My version;-)

So let’s say you have a pebble in your shoe.

It’s really painful at first, but soon your foot goes kind of numb and you forget about it.

Time goes on and you’re just use to it being there.

Suddenly somebody runs up to you and yells “OUCH!! I’ve got a pebble in my shoe and the pain is so horrible I can barely breathe!”

At that moment your foot remembers and you are in so much pain, having forgotten about the pebble in your own shoe, and you remember when you got it, how terrible it was, you have empathy for your friend with the new pebble and your foot begins to throb from all the time it’s been stepping on the pebble.

It’s unbearable but after a while your foot gets use to the pebble again and kind of goes numb and you do the best you can.

Until the next time you see somebody else in agony over a pebble and it happens all over again.

So this is what happens when you have some great sadness, grief or pain inside of yourself that you haven’t quite worked out yet, or come to terms with. You just put it away somewhere inside you and forget about it. 

But when something happens like a war or tragedy, maybe close to you or maybe even very far away, it touches on that sore spot inside of you and gives it a shake and wakes it up and you live it all over again.

This is one of the reasons that we have more trolls, more negativity and hate errupting during times of change or emotional hardship. Sometimes people in great pain lash out.

If you add in the fact that the Internet and social media acts as a magnifying glass on world events, sometimes only showing us the horror, then you can maybe understand the suffering that goes on inside of people.

I want to give you some advice to end this and say, if you have a pebble in your shoe, stop, take it out, bring it into the daylight, examine it, smile at it and put it on your favourite bookshelf where you can visit it any time. Then you can remember the pain it caused you, and smile and feel grateful that the worst of the pain has stopped, and even though your foot remembers, it can also wiggle around in your shoe, pain free most of the time.

And the next time somebody yells “OUCH!”, you can say “Oh, I remember that, yes it’s terrible!”, but this time you can have compassion for your friend and maybe show them what you did with your pebble. 

2nd Interview!

What a nice way to begin the weekend!!

Second interview out today! @Papergirl_YVR Hurray!

Please read and share!

Interviews!

I think I have two interviews coming out today wowee!!!

Here is the first by the amazing @ArtistStrong

 http://www.artiststrong.com/creative-spirit-jenn-ashton/ 

Please comment and  share!

From Grade 1

If schools taught kids from day one:

how to read

structural and functional anatomy

what it means to earn and save money

respect and compassion for every living thing

maths and how to code

a few different languages 

how to play an instrument

how to be creative in art

how to meditate

how to take care of things they have

I think the world could be a better place.

Emboss Mag

Hey kids - 6 page spread in the Spring (vol1) issue of @embossmag! Grab a copy here!

http://www.magcloud.com/user/embossmag