At my booth at the Hilo Bridal Fair in 2003.

In 1988, on Maui, I opened a home business coordinating custom weddings for tourists. Before I sold the company in 1999, it (that is, a bunch of employees and I) had put together about 3000 of them. Before you award me a medal for courage, I should say that more than half of them involved only a couple, a minister, maybe a photographer, and a beach at sunset.

I preside at the wedding of Kevin Schlueter and Sandi Yang.

Even after I sold the company and moved to Hawaii Island, I put together another half dozen weddings, which I enjoyed all the more because they were few and far between. Producing twenty or more weddings per month is not exactly a recipe for optimal physical and mental well-being.

I made this bouquet from flowers growing in my botanical garden near Hilo.

The joy that kept me doing it so long was the volume of creative output—I made thousands of bouquets, sang thousands of songs (some to accompany hula dancers), brainstormed with clients to create unique ceremonies, rewrote and redesigned my ads, website and brochures yearly, designed outdoor wedding equipment to withstand the Maui winds, designed the overall look of the more elaborate weddings, and constantly researched new locations, performers, costumes, equipment, floral resources, and ideas to make my weddings fabulous.

Reception set-up on the porch of my garden home near Hilo

It worked. When Good Morning America presented a week on weddings in March 1994, they filmed one of our weddings. When Nancy Davis, an editor at Modern Bride magazine, published a coffee table book, she included four exotic weddings we produced. When wedding consumer advocates Alan and Denise Field created a book on destination weddings, they recommended my company.

I sing at a wedding near Kalani Honua Oceanside Retreat

What closed that chapter was my muse. Even though my creative output was prodigious, it wasn’t about my unique voice as an artist, writer and musician. Managing an office full of employees, client files, inventory, office and wedding equipment, communication systems and monetary decisions required over forty hours per week of intensely focussed attention, on top of which the creative wedding projects that gave me joy took another twenty to forty hours per week. I certainly did not want to give up the part of the business that gave me joy. There simply was no time to make another book, song, film, or performance. Sometimes there was hardly time to eat and sleep! So, when I sold A Wedding Made in Paradise, it was with a profound sense of relief.

Surrounded by tropical flowers and trees, a couple weds in my garden.

Nonetheless, I am looking forward to presiding and singing at the wedding of my website godparents Kim Cooper and Richard Schave in June 2006.

Why I Blog

I like to write, take and edit photographs and post stuff online.
Anything done daily gets done better and better.
I like the spontaneity of blogging. I do it when I like, about whatever I like.
My voice, not often available in corporate media, is available online.
I want to help raise political awareness; it’s going to take a lot of us participating vigorously to save democracy in the USA.
I want to recognize publicly the works and celebrations people are creating to promote sustainability, peace and social justice.
I’d like more people to know about my artist friends and their works.
I’m hoping to contribute to the physical health of my readers with recipes and health-related information.
I love the way my blogposts are finding their way around the ‘net.
I’m amazed at how many people are visiting my website. Today (March 28) the counter says nearly 28,000 readers have visited since the new site went up on January 15.

How much fun are you having with your house?

Stephanie Farago’s legendary artist house in West Hollywood has vanished (she sold it and moved to the tropics), but I was lucky enough to visit while she was still living in the midst of her ongoing creation. She painted the elaborate wall decor herself, collected the abstruse and mysterious furnishings during her travels, upholstered some of the furniture, and arranged everything like a set designer. Stephanie paints wonderful oil paintings, created two coffee table books, one on collecting pre-World War II boudoir dolls, and an upcoming book on the life and work of artist Steven Arnold, and once made a video of Carnivale in Venice.

Here is a mini-tour of Stephanie’s creation:

Stephanie Farago in the Bali-Tibet room:

The Rudolph Valentino room:

The Carmen Miranda breakfast nook:

The Chinese salon:

A side room of the Chinese salon:

Stephanie’s livable art was her creative mind projected in 3-D. I wonder what her new place is like?

January 8, 2005, Phoenix, Arizona. Six of us women artists gathered to craft visionary altars at Tracy Dove’s house. Tracy Dove and Kathy Cano-Murillo provided boxes of printed images, old greeting cards, glitter, beads, glass jewels, tile, scrabble letters, miscellaneous small objects and glue. One of Tracy’s friends brought over a stack of cigar boxes to decorate. Shari Elf and I drove in from California for the festivities.

My altar is about a transformation into high gear art manifestation. Summer 2005 I spontaneously began making my blues/jazz CD What Living’s All About, my most exciting project to date.

Shari Elf made a mosaic of a man’s face with scrabble letters saying Nice Man. Last summer she met and began dating her favorite man so far.

Kathy Cano-Murillo’s altar says “Frisky Love” and contains images from Mexican pornographic comic books (“you get them at the carneceria, but you have to ask the butcher” she told us.) No report on the enlivening of her love life, but Tracy says Kathy has been inundated with book and TV deals lately, and looking especially beautiful. She’s been happily married for many years.

Tracy’s choice of image was a mermaid, and her year has been an intense voyage into the oceanic realm of the subconscious, totally transforming her life in ways she never dreamed possible. (That’s one of her paintings behind her.)

Tracy’s niece April’s beautiful altar features a three dimensional snake. Her life, in the past year, has taken many twists and turns through subterranean spaces.

Other visonary art parties I’ve attended: making crowns or tiaras, creating “treasure maps” (flat montages of visionary images), and decorating masks or blown eggs with paint and decoupage. I’ve saved most of what I’ve made at these events; they feel powerful to me.

No fees, uniforms or equipment required.
Any time of day, and almost any location is suitable.
It can be done alone or in any size group.
One can walk to portable music or the local soundscape.
It lends itself to observing nature, people, and architecture.
It can be part of making a living or protesting injustice.
One can walk and focus on breathing at the same time.
Walking is a great time to stretch and align one’s body.
The rhythmic crosscrawl movement soothes the nerves.
Saves on gasoline.
Walking alone inspires creativity.
Fine time for a cell phone call, too.
I’ve even attended 12 step meetings by cell phone while walking.
To think outside the box, I get out of the house.
Doesn’t jar my joints or my breasts like jogging does.
Happy muscles, happy lungs, happy heart.

Today I joined tens of thousands of other Los Angeles residents marching in protest of the US invasion of Iraq and against the numerous incursions against the planet and her children by bloodthirsty corporate greedheads.

The march and rally, organized by International ANSWER, began at noon at the corner of Hollywood Boulevard and Vine Street. The police were present, but not intrusive. I saw marchers of all ages and genders, and of varied viewpoints, but united in serious intent.

Of the speakers at the rally following the march in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, Representative Maxine Waters drew the greatest applause when she said, “A member of the press just asked me if I had really said that the president had lied. I am saying it again so that everyone can hear. The president of the United States, George W. Bush, has lied to us. He should be impeached.”

One group wrapped US flags over a dozen coffin-shaped cardboard boxes to create a flotilla of perished military, and carried them the length of the march.

Signs I hadn’t seen before:
Dear US Taxpayers, thanks for all the money. Sorry about your children. Love, Halliburton.
The only Bush I trust is my own.
Jail to the chief.
(Photo of a hand flipping the bird) Wiretap this!
Support Our Troops—Drive a Hybrid
Mission Failed
South Central Farmers—Feeding Families (a community gardening and food distribution project in the poorest section of Los Angeles endangered by a real estate development project)
Rich Man’s War, Poor Man’s Fight
Fire the Liar
Money for Education, not for Occupation
What Noble Cause?

Back from the 1960’s, and carried by women not even born then, was the sign with the daisy and handlettering that says “War is not healthy for children and other living things.”

The vast, unecologically monocropped fields of the midwest USA are filling with genetically modified grains and soybeans that enrich Monsanto (now Bayer) at the expense of the health of people and animals who eat these harvests. Small scale diversified agriculture that refreshes soil, plant and animal bio-diversity (permaculture) creates a greater yield in less space. However, there are some large scale crops that are environmentally enthralling.

Oil-bearing crops including hemp, soy, sunflower, peanuts and canola provide a sustainable alternative to petroleum. The earliest diesel engine, displayed at the World’s Fair in St. Louis in 1900, ran on peanut oil. Today’s biodiesel is often made from spent frying oil from restaurants, giving it the environmental beauty of recycling, the political beauty of being readily available without import, the aesthetic beauty of smelling like popcorn, and the sustainable beauty of being significantly less polluting and greenhouse gas-producing than petroleum.

My friend Ano Tarletz runs his farm truck on homemade bio-diesel. He says it takes one restaurant to support one truck. Since the restaurant pays Ano to take away their spent frying oil, his diesel fuel costs him “minus twenty cents per gallon.” Artist Shari Elf does not make her own bio-diesel—a neighbor who does delivers a 55 gallon drum to her house, from which she gasses up her new diesel Volkswagen Jetta. She pays $3.50 per gallon for it, but says it’s worth it.

Another large scale crop that makes my heart sing is kenaf, a relative of cotton and okra, grown as a tree-free paper, fabric and industrial fiber. It grows up to eighteen feet in five months, uses no harmful chemicals in processing, and is fully recyclable. Kenaf paper saves forests. We need to support this industry! I look for kenaf products when I buy cards and stationery.

Which plastics pose health hazards as containers for food or drink?

This information is from the Green Guide:

Look on the bottom of the plastic container for the recycling logo (a triangle of three arrows) with a number inside it. Sometimes, on very small containers, the number appears without a logo.

The plastics that pose no known health hazards:

1. Polyethylene Terephthalate (PET or PETE)

2. High Density Polyethylene (HDPE)

4. Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE)

5. Polypropylene (PP)

Plastics with potential health hazards:

3. Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC or vinyl)
Some research has shown that the phthalates in PVC food wraps and vinyl flooring are endocrine disruptors linked to various health problems. Water and vegetable oils sometimes are bottled in PVC, and many toys and baby teethers contain PVC.

6. Polystyrene (PS or Styrofoam)
Styrene is a possible carcinogen and endocrine disruptor. Avoid consuming hot liquids, fatty foods or alcoholic drinks from styrofoam containers, as these leach out styrene. Some opaque plastic cutlery is PS as well.

7. Other resins, including polycarbonate (PC):
Bisphenol-A (BPA), a main building block for PC products, is an endocrine disruptor. Most clear baby bottles and five gallon water bottles, as well as Lexan (Nalgene) water bottles and plastic-lined food cans, are made of PC.