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Welcome to The Sea Pearl, a collection of curiosities, essays, and guiding principles that inspire my life and everything in it. My mission is to explore what matters in the universe — and then to embrace the best.

Art Subjects

If you are interested in art subjects, please check out Art Chowder magazine, a Northwest regional publication which my husband, Melville Holmes, writes for (with help from moi). This month (Nov. 2020) we have an article on page 30, “The Contrasting Worlds of Tsarist Russia in Natural Color.” It was the inspiration for my feature article on The Sea Pearl this month: “Prokudin-Gorsky’s Images of Early 20th-Century Russia.” I included it here because the photography is so exquisite and because many of the photos give us a glimpse into a time when people lived closer to the natural rhythms of life, doing physical labor that produced a finer level of workmanship than much of what is currently produced by machines and robotics. For those who miss arts-and-crafts refinements, this is a great inspiration. Personally, I find life too busy to completely abandon modernity, but I try to incorporate works with a “soul” into my world as I am able.

Joe Turner’s Come and Gone: what we can learn from playwright August Wilson

I ran across an incredible play some years back that wouldn’t let me go. Although it highlights the “Black experience,” there are treasures here that have universal application, and that can move a work from the category of “good” to that of “great.” I always wanted to share it with someone, but it was like taking an octopus by the arm: which one do I grab? — for there are so many wonderful jumping off points. I considered this amazing playwright, August Wilson (now deceased), and the framework in which he focused the human spirit in his play Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, set in 1911.  This short documentary trailer is quite a few years old, but well worth it for understanding where Wilson was coming from and what he wanted to achieve. He was a unique figure in theatrical literature who should go down in history, not as just a great “Black” playwright, but as a great “American” playwright standing alongside every other great American playwright.  I hope to address my findings in two upcoming videos — the first videos I have ever employed for the purpose.

Survivor Bias: When it Looks like Everyone But You Has it Made

If you have ever followed all the formulas offered by “success” motivators telling you how to get ahead in life and found that the advice either didn’t work, required some tool or opportunity that simply wasn’t available to you, or met with the unexpected disasters of “time and chance” that set you back indefinitely, then you are really going to love this. At long last here is a coach who can show you how to pick up the scattered pieces your way and make something meaningful out of them. I promise you will feel 100 times better after viewing this, for you will see why you’ve been wrong in thinking everyone but yourself has it made. He gets into the real meat of the discussion at about 2:24.

Carving out a New Career After Early Onset Dementia

My dear friend of some many years now, Tim Price, is republishing a 400-year-old classic, The Labyrinth of the World and The Paradise of the Heart by Jan Comenius. Tim informed me of this plan some months ago after losing his job because of early onset dementia. He has been writing and publishing materials for a lot of years and decided to publish The Labyrinth as a way to augment his family income. I think it will be a beautiful book with slightly updated language and delightful illustrations. However, I am asking for help on his behalf to get this thing rolling. Wade Burleson, another friend of Tim’s, explains more about the historical merits of the book and this new enterprise in a video. I am honored to know Tim and to have worked with him on a number of his other publishing endeavors.

— Updates —

I decided to put plans for interactive media on hold until after the New Year. Gone, too, is the separate “Memos” page that required clicking on the paperclips icon. Memos will appear in entirety here from now on in order to simplify the layout.

You may notice a new item in the header menu: “Way Finding.” For now it is holding a place for projects I’ve worked on that don’t quite belong under “Articles.” I am brainstorming how to reduce the number of blogsites I currently have after realizing that most of my interests have a common thread–if I can just figure out what the thread is. The largest body of this contains information on personal style and image (with implications for branding), which drew me like a moth to the flame, for I dearly love colors and all things beautiful. The other “way finding” projects will trickle out in time . . .

Since writing the above, I now have a bare bones to this website going on, and I just announced to my husband that I am happily (and scarily) dreaming up products I’m hoping to offer one day based on my very, very, very favoritest aesthetics of all time! I’m sure he thought, “What the . . . ?” but fortunately he was too busy to try and stop me! Nevertheless, we have been discussing the merits of cottage industry for about ten years. It’s time for me to “Fish or get off the pot!” (as only I would say…)