This is Karin's friend Jennifer writing for Karin. Awhile back, Karin mentioned to me in passing whether I would write a blog entry for her. Karin thought she would be laid up for a few days between surgery and chemotherapy and did not want to disappoint her online friends by not having any new content.
Armed with her password, I latched onto the opportunity like a mediocre songstress latches on to her chance to be on camera in front of the judges at an American Idol audition. So I take full responsibility for the following content.
When I was in my twenties I worked at an art-to-wear gallery. We sold many brooches by the New Mexican artist, Maria Consuelo Moya. The brooches were ornately crafted reliquary pins emblazoned with the phrase, “ART SAVES LIVES”. Customers would constantly ask me the meaning of the phrase, “ART SAVES LIVES”.
“Did I know the artist’s intention?”
My solution to the redundancy of being asked the same question over and over again was to come up with some pat answer that I thought was suitably philosophical. I truly hadn’t put any thought as to the artist’s intention because I was still a glib twenty-something. I thought I knew everything but in reality I had yet to understand anything. I am now my forties and the last twenty years have been jam-packed with experience.What I was once too naïve to comprehend now carries surprising poignancy. One of the first things that came to my mind when Karin gently told me of her negative mammogram was,” ART SAVES LIVES”. The phrase now has an all too real meaning.
There are many, many, many reasons why Karin will thrive and survive but her ART must live on and flourish along with her. They say art may be viewed as an extension of its creator. It is no surprise that one of the predominant mediums in Karin’s art is glitter. Karin is glitter incarnate. Everywhere she goes she sprinkles goodwill and fun. Her funny and kind comments linger like a piece of stray glitter on your cheek. The shine cast by the tiny specks of reflective glass in Karin’s crowns reminds me of the twinkle Karin gets in her eyes when she is about to say something witty, or as she would put it “snarky”. Whereas I see the world and think of dunce caps; Karin sees the world and envisions crowns. I think she makes crowns because she has the innate ability to see splendor, and regality in everyone she encounters.
“Karin is my friend.” People want to say that after meeting her. Once you’ve basked in the glow of Karin’s winning smile and experienced her easy to laugh nature you feel drawn to her like the proverbial moth to light. We all want her mojo.
Karin’s work is thoughtful and playful in nature, just like her. With Karin I can confess my desire to break a few tenants that any life-coach, etiquette expert, or Oprah and the Dalai Lama would agree to as being a deterrent to achieving my full potential as a fully-actualized and civilized human. For example, I have been known to insert tidbits of Hollywood gossip into our conversations like a former two-pack a day smoker might sneak in a few drags of someone else’s cigarette. I know it’s in poor form for me to do it but I just have to do it and I know Karin won’t nag me about doing it.
I can bandy about references to Bravo reality shows and Karin does not give me a look of disdain when I say that I deleted my son’s episodes of “Power Rangers Jungle Fury” on the DVR to make room for the entire season of “Celebrity Rehab 2”. I have prefaced many a conversation with Karin by saying “I know this is really mean of me to say but I just have to get it out…..” When I end my rant and ask, “Am I a horrible person for thinking that?” Karin just shakes her head and laughs. The best part, she never brings anything you said up again. Rest assured your wacky comments are safe with her. (I think she might toss them out into Cosme’s storage room behind her house along with the assorted collection of stray screws and bicycle parts.)
Karin is tall and impossibly thin. When she stands in front of you, folds her arms, and leans over to you in a conspiratorial tone you know that you are about to hear something delightfully interesting.
Karin makes me laugh. Life is pazza. Crazy, like the Italians say. But hanging with Karin is la dolce vita because she is one of the few people who can crack me up. This is high praise for me because I love to laugh yet it is difficult for anyone to elicit more than a snort, chortle, or gaffaw from me. Karin says things that make me throw my head back in hysteria and clap like a contestant on “The Price Is Right”. God forbid, you are drinking a beverage when she is relating a story because you are lucky if you don’t laugh so hard your mocha latte goes the wrong way and shoots out of your nose. Be prepared to always carry spare napkins around when engaged in conversation with Karin.
Karin and I met and began our friendship in September 2005 while we were both standing, waiting for our first born sons to be dismissed from kindergarten. Our boys began kindergarten in the same class and became fast friends. Their mutual names – Carlos and Carlo, initially drew them together.
My child, as all mothers will say about their children, changed my life in ways that he will never know. I will always be grateful, to Carlo in particular, because without him I would have never met Karin and Carlos. I met my first school mom friend and Carlo made his first buddy at school.
It’s amazing how much news moms learn to cram into short snippets of time. Carlos was still in kindergarten when Karin began pondering ways to jump-start her creativity. It seems that one minute we were standing on the playground with our little five-year olds and the next we are standing with eight-year olds that no longer needed us to walk them to class. In between that span of time Karin went from just thinking about art to creating it in her studio.
When I come to think of it, most of my conversations with Karin have taken place while we have been standing –standing during afternoon pick-up, standing on each others porches while we pick up the boys from each others home, standing at a playground, and so on. I am not going to take “Operation Karin” sitting down. Now is not the time to start sitting with regards to Karin.
I will continue to stand with my friend, along with the rest of us who love and admire her. And there are many of us.
So keep those cards,letters, packs, and parcels of whimsy coming to Karin.
Don’t forget that, “ ART SAVES LIVES”.
Jennifer
P.S. Now don’t tell Karin….
I am going to be a buttinsky by sending out a special culinary request for any of Karin’s fans in other parts of the country. There are no Polish bakeries in San Diego. So if anyone out there is of Polish persuasion, please feel free to send Karin something just like babcia would make.
