"….We all deserve more Peace and Love

Wow!

Im enjoying my first day home after a whirlwind one week residency at Love On Haight, in San Francisco and as I reflect on the past week, Im flooded with what will be some of my most fond memories, both, with a profound love for my new friends but also in grief in missing them, knowing it may be a while and may not be all together the same the next time, if I am ever able to return. Time will tell, as life has its way of changing the way we live it, in unrealized gains and losses on the daily, giving us new ideas on what we want for ourselves.

We have our ways of growing through and around opportunities that present themselves, nudging us to ease on down the road or to just stop and smell the flowers.

Some find inspiration in a picture they can take and remember, in validation that they were there, or for who they were there with and then some may be as lucky as I was to find it in human connection of the pulse and the heartbeat of a city.

I took very few pictures but the memories of looking straight into the eyes of those people who make this location what it is, who share the hopes and dreams and expressions of love, informs me that this love is real.

We often have a sense of pride in the locations we reside, work and play, and the reasons these locations may give for us to reside there. "Have you seen the bridge, or the ocean or the museums or the nightlife?" are all very common questions of things to take into account while traveling to this city, taking pictures of it all the while.

I admit, I felt a reluctance to not behave like a visitor but also found great hubris in the fact of being quite literally the resident I was asked to be.

A residency is much more intimate than a business trip or a vacation. While sharing these destinations with our friends and family are very well rooted within our culture for honeymoons and anniversaries, special life events or out of pure love for one another, in remembrance or celebrating together in a romantic setting, I felt this trip was me being called back by my long ago home, a short distance from San Francisco, to live and dye for a week and so “live and dye” is what I did. I was able to participate in my very first collaborations with the Lovely souls, Ravan and Hadji and work for a few days in the company of the funnest and most beautiful people I have ever had the privilege to be around.

As a kid, I have seen the nostalgia, i have stood and camped underneath the redwoods, i have crossed the bridges in daily commutes, but I had never met the people nor have I ever been a “resident" of San Francisco, until now and to live in San Francisco and be able to create my art are some of my biggest of dreams, because of the kindness that was shown to me by a cross section and part of the pulse of the heart that is San Francisco, But as quick as it began, I am quickly back in Oklahoma and reminiscing this fortunate opportunity.

The people who live and work in our cities are often why there are attractions like the Jimmy Hendrix House or the 710 Ashbury House in The Haight Ashbury district in San Francisco. Those that lived their daily struggle and later found fame are why we visit these cities.

Those we meet now are "the famous" and “the rockstars” in the making, working their part into tomorrows history. They regularly recite their own dreams or higher ideals of why they came or why they live their lives a certain way. Some people dont have grand plans and are content with the current pace never asking these questions of themselves and then there are those whose dreams are bigger, having ideals and clearer visions of how their life should be and how much they will not settle for less of a life than extraordinary or to set an example to reach for the very highest dreams in our hyperbolic field of night time stars.

This is how tourism destinations are made and all of us are potentially the very first spark of something memorable, someone that no one can ever forget.

These people that work for Love On Haight in San Francisco, are those that tie the bygone era of Hippie culture to the present and the future, in San Francisco. They are a cross section of the heart and soul of this city and couldn’t be more diverse as a team, residing in the Burroughs of their Edwardian and/or Victorian era flats that San Francisco is so well known for.

As a kid, traveling back and forth to the West Coast for Grateful Dead Concerts and on the occasion to visit my family pocketed in the many diverse climates of California, we would often take pictures of ourselves and our friends in front of these dwellings with peace signs extended, mimicking past photos of those we hold in high regard, who lived in the area during the 60’s era of peace and love. Now, from the interior of these Houses I find that those very same Ideals for Peace and Love did not die in the firm grasp of bygone nostalgia.

Peace and Love are thriving today in San Francisco and specifically from those at Love On Haight, so, I did my very best to live and be a resident, not through the visitation of sacred locations but through the commentary of the cities denizens and businesses and those who live and work within the Haight Ashbury district and those who welcome my art and my personality to be a part of theirs.

I was welcomed and honored and I would like to think that it was not all by my artistic talents that I possess, alone, but for also the content of my character and maybe for the way I treat others or how I sell myself to the world as I trade them a rainbow for the life I am so fortunate to be able to live, for whoever may find themselves an interest.

I found it important and pertinent to envelope myself in the underlying ideals of these souls who are pushing for great change, very similar to the forefathers and mothers that paved the way for peace and love in an otherwise cold, drab and systematic lifestyle, similar to all of us in our daily struggle but with the greatest of intentions and the very highest of ideals and dreams for themselves in the most beautiful city in the World, San Francisco.

I have been welcomed to many cities through the creation of one art medium or another, mostly as a collective, but never like this, welcoming me, personally, for a week to be a part of an enterprise completely ran by aspiring young ladies who I see as the pillars and the shining stars of those I saw and met in the Haight.

This was the most concerted effort anyone has ever taken to accommodate me and Im not sure I can fully express the gratitude and how much this has meant to me, as I chase my biggest dreams. The welcome, the hospitality, The love and respect were authentic and I did all that was possible to reciprocate my appreciation as humbly as I know how, by being myself and learning who they are, to the best of my ability.

I only hope every one of you that I have met over the past week can understand that you are now a very special part of me. All of the most amazing human qualities were imbued by Sunshine Powers and her team of Lovers On Haight, but especially my newest favorite people Ravan, Sabina, Elenor, Vanessa and everyone else that is involved that I was so fortunate to meet! You are the future Rock Stars, You are the ones that create the nostalgia of this City by which vacationers flock, specifically, to the Haight. And, you are the souls that are helping me in my endeavors of spreading my rainbows, helping me to create the smiles on the faces who are attracted to “our” products from the greatest collective of tie-dye artists in the World. I am very proud to be a singular part. I love each and every social media post where I get a glimpse of those faces that welcomed me. May your very best and biggest dreams all come true! Thank you, for all of the Love on Haight! I can only hope to get back to see your smiling and welcoming faces, again, ASAP

And, will Someone please water the plants while I am away from home? Thank you, in advance. They like 1-2 of those coffee cups of water a day, collectively and appreciate equal time at the nightstand as it provides the brightest of the days light.