peace-making

Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller

R. Buckminster Fuller (July 12, 1895 – July 1, 1983) has been one of my heroes since I first learned of him when he designed the US exhibit for the 1967 World Expo in Montreal. I was twelve and I read several articles by him and about him. I learned about ephemeralism and synergism and the dymaxion globe and geodesic domes. Most importantly I learned to question authority. All the major and minor powers were and are squandering the resources of the world on war-making. If they would just wake up, they could realize if they spent all those resources on housing, feeding and caring for people, there would be abundance enough to share, and no need to go to war for anything. If we put our minds to “living lightly” on the earth, instead of bleeding her dry, there is plenty to go around for everyone.

Bucky Fuller was trained as an architect. He was known as an author, a systems engineer, an inventor, a philosopher, a scientist, a genius. He didn’t like being called an inventor, though he held dozens of patents. He felt he merely uncovered what was always there, or rearranged existing basic machines. This didn’t seem like a big deal to him, even if he were the first to do it in a certain way to solve a certain problem. He was always working to solve problems. He developed a discipline to rapidly get to REM sleep so he only required two 1 hour naps every day, allowing him 22 waking hours to work.

I painted this based on a photo of Buckminster as a young man, because it was at age 28, when his 4 year-old daughter died of complications of polio that he went through a crisis of depression. He came out of it with a commitment to search for ways to make the world a better place, with an emphasis on affordable housing. He felt his daughter’s death was partly to blame on the poor, damp apartment they were living in.

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the old model obsolete.”

“When I’m working on a problem, I never think about beauty.
But when I’ve finished, if the solution isn’t beautiful, I know it’s wrong.”

“Man knows so much and does so little.”

“The minute you begin to do what you really want to do,
it’s really a different kind of life.”

“Either war is obsolete or men are.”

R. Buckminster Fuller

The painting is acrylic on 12″ x 12″ stretched canvas.

Price: $80 plus postage.

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The Mahatma

The Mahatma

Mohandas K. Gandhi (Oct. 2, 1869 – Jan.30, 1948) became known as the Mahatma or the “Great Soul” due to his wisdom in leading the people of India in non-violent resistance against British colonial rule in the 1930s and 40s. Gandhi was a great teacher. He wrote many books to train the people for the inner discipline necessary for non-violent civil disobedience. He drew on the teachings of Hinduism, Buddhism, Jesus Christ, and Mohammed. He was regarded as deeply spiritual, yet he professed faith in no deity or particular religion, saying: “My uniform experience has informed me that there is no other God than Truth.”

Many claim that his path of non-violent civil disobedience ultimately failed to liberate India, since they resorted to violent revolution. The truth of the matter, however, is that it is unlikely they would have had the cohesion and discipline to do that as a unified people had he not trained them in civil disobedience first. His teachings were instrumental in instructing MartinLuther King, Jr., Simone Weil, and Dietrich Bonhoffer, thus, he impacted US civil rights, and the French and German resistance.

It was through Gandhi’s correspondence with two different actors in the resistance to Hitler that I first connected with him; that was Dietrich Bonhoeffer in Germany and Simone Weil in France. This led me to read his biography and most of his works. I had to learn a fair amount of Hindi to understand them. I came to truly revere the man and fully embrace his philosophy of non-violent civil disobedience.

“I object to violence because, when it appears to do good, it is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.”

Painting is acrylic on 16″ x 20″ stretched canvas.

Price: $200

This was a gift to my friend Ray Acker on the occasion of his ordination to the priesthood in the Antiochian Orthodox Church, as Fr. Herman. I wrote the words of Gandhi, above, on the back of the canvas frame:

“My uniform experience has informed me that there is no other God than Truth.”