The art of the Broward County Humane Society's Walk for the Animals 2013 is finished. This year the art will be used not only for the advertisements but also on the T-shirts. With the added T-shirts the art had some specifics:

1. All dogs must wear collars and be smiling.

2. Fort Lauderdale city buildings and palm trees to be included.

3. A sun in the sky.

4. The official Walk for the Animals logo included.

5. Only the colors from the WFTA logo allowed.

6. No gradients or transparencies allowed. Halftones okay.

So this is what I created and the Humane Society approved:

I believe there is power and presence in a name. Diane, a derivative of Diana, was a Roman goddess of the moon, hunting, forests and childbirth, but also has a root meaning “heavenly, divine.” I’ve been told that Sammet means someone who sells velvet.  Other people, my parents and my husband gave these two names to me.  When I thought about putting my art and other projects on the Internet I wanted a name that reflected my heart and soul, a name that I picked out.

Creations, was the first word chosen and easiest to select. It represents what I do, like surnames from the past often represented one’s trade or profession. I draw and I also sculpt. I write and I construct. I make things, tangible and intangible. I build ideas. I create.

In my world, joy, is the fourth divine attribute of a fully realized person. The other three are hope, peace and love. In my innately sequential thinking I started looking at these four attributes, hope, peace, love and joy. It seemed logical to me that hope was needed before there could be the other three.  To paraphrase Proverbs 29:18, “Without hope the people perish.”   Hope and faith are first cousins, similar yet not exactly the same. A discussion I could have later.  I’m not clear if peace comes before love, or love before peace. I’m not even sure if it matters which attribute comes first. I do believe that in order to feel true deep joy that does not depend upon outside circumstances, that both love and peace must have taken over our thoughts. For me, it was love that came first; pure compassionate, forgiving, non-judgmental, patient, accepting love of myself, my close relationships and distant others (friends and foe alike).  That love led me right into peace and that is where I found joy.

Emerging, like a butterfly from the cocoon and the flower from its seed, joy grows in degrees. Each day, each moment is new. Each breath must be consciously filled with hope, love and peace, the ingredients to joy.  Some days, when the symbolic sun shines and life runs smooth, it is easy to give joy a quick thank-you note. The awesomeness comes on those other days, when the symbolic thunderstorm dumps situations for choice. That is the emerging part. With each second of life I choose to see hope, give love, feel peace and experience the emergence of joy. The awesomeness (translate “miracle”) is that the more I choose hope, love and peace, the fewer thunderstorms ruin my day.

http://www.iamthedoc.com/

I just watched the the documentary called I AM. At first the title sort of sounds deeply spiritual, but in reality the film (by Tom Shadyac) asks two questions:

1. What is wrong with the world?

2. What can we do about it?

They look into science and observe the natural order of living things and discover that we humans may have gotten the idea of survival all wrong. Parts of Darwin's evolution theory were not made popular. The conclusion seems to be that in order to survive, democracy and cooperation trump competitiveness. I think everyone (especially those in Congress) need to see this movie.

http://www.iamthedoc.com/