OUr family had the unique opportunity to be featured in an articel in teh Salt Lake Tribune today. It was a crazy, but fun expereince.
The great benefits of gratitude for children
By Ben Fulton
The Salt Lake TribuneFirst published Nov 17 2011 01:01AMUpdated Nov 17, 2011 11:54AM
Whenever David Meikle thinks about the difficulties of the ongoing Great Recession, he thinks back to the words of his grandfather, who lived through the Great Depression.
"One time I said to him that times back then couldn’t have been so bad if people could still sell apples for a living," said Meikle, 42, a noted painter living in Salt Lake City. "He let me know in no uncertain terms just how bad things were in the 1930s, because he lost everything, then started all over again."
When Lacy Egbert, Meikle’s wife, gave birth prematurely to the couple’s third child in 2006, she remembers being envious of the woman in the hospital bed next to her. She was able to hold and nurse her baby, while Egbert’s was away in an intensive-care unit. When Egbert learned later that the woman’s child was born with far more complications than her own, she felt somewhat ashamed.
"I was the woman who should have been grateful," Egbert said. "It was a moment that really changed my outlook."
Combined with her husband’s recollection of his grandfather’s perseverance, it was also a moment that changed their family. After Sam, now 5, made it out of ICU and back into Egbert’s arms, the couple decided to make fostering a grateful attitude in their four children a priority.
Visit their household today, and you’ll see a "Grateful List" written in colored crayon on all their bedroom doors. The list of reasons to be grateful range from life’s necessities — "bed" and "family" come up for frequent mention — to the exotic — Daniel, 8, is partial to Pokémon. They even fall into the political realm, with 7-year-old Amelia grateful for President Barack Obama.
"[Being grateful] means being happy and loving for all that you have, and knowing that there’s nothing else you need," Amelia said.
Skeptics will no doubt scoff. The wisdom of a child, however, is backed by numerous studies linking better sleep and stress management, stronger relationships, less depression and fewer health problems to those who maintain an attitude of gratitude. And habits fostered early in life extend into adulthood.
A leading expert in the field known as "positive psychology," University of California Davis psychology professor Robert Emmons penned an entire book on the subject in 2007, titled Thanks! How the New Science of Gratitude Can Make You Happier.
Rene J. Valles, a child psychiatrist with Valley Mental Health, said the link between gratitude and good overall health is solid.
"Just having a positive attitude in itself can improve not only children’s mental health, but also physical health," Valles said.
But don’t be too hard on yourself as a parent if your toddler or child doesn’t take to that sentiment right away. A self-centered orientation is a normal part of development, with abstract concepts such as thankfulness acquired in time as children age, Valles said. Starting early helps.
Being a role model is crucial. Saying "thank you" to your friends in conversation, showing appreciation for a meal, whether in prayer or compliments to the chef, and marveling at the beauty of a sunset are all behaviors your children will learn gratitude from far better than if you merely instruct or tell them. The old saw about spoiling your child applies, too.
"If children see parents who are materialistic, who must have the latest car or electronic equipment, that sends a mixed message of entitlement," Valles said. "There’s a tendency to undervalue objects when you have a lot of them."
A gratitude journal — similar to the bedroom-door lists of Egbert and Meikle’s children — goes a long way. So does talking about what happened during your child’s day.
"We go over everything that happened during their day," said Egbert, who works part time in marketing at the University of Utah. "From the good to the bad. But we always try to come back to the good so they can focus on a positive note."
These simple behaviors teach children to be grateful not only for what they have by sheer chance — being born inside the borders of a stable, modern and prosperous country that affords opportunity — but also for what others do for them.
Douglas Goldsmith, executive director of The Children’s Center and licensed child psychologist, urges parents to preface as many sentences as possible with the words, "How wonderful it is that ..." Fill in the blank, Goldsmith said, and you give a child a valuable perspective on life’s myriad gifts and wonders.
It’s no easy goal. In a consumer-driven world where even so-called adults have grown skeptical and angry over what they want or don’t have, it may even seem impossible. Those facts alone, Goldsmith said, make striving for gratitude all the more worthwhile.
"As soon as we say the word ‘gratitude,’ people roll their eyes," he said. "We should ask them what they’re rolling their eyes for. That we cannot remember why we should be grateful is probably how we’ve become so disappointed and disenfranchised as a society."
Egbert admits she struggles to be satisfied with all she has herself sometimes. She sometimes longs for the latest Apple product, and there are of course times when her children act up.
"I tell them, ‘You may not feel grateful now, but you will one day,’ " she said. "It never hurts to keep reminding them."
Showing posts with label Dave. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dave. Show all posts
Rock of Ages
Rock of ages
Call it rock steady. The solitary and statuesque black monolith looming over the Great Salt Lake shore near Interstate-80 stood for decades as a traditional test of a Utah painter’s skills.
Utah painters of the late 1890s and early 1900s flocked to the ancient volcanic remnant. Alfred Lambourne tackled it. JT Harwood, John Hafen, Richard Tallant assayed it as well. So did Paul Fjellboe, a painter so eccentric he loaned his numerous works to Salt Lake City medical and dental offices for a nominal deposit, then seldom reclaimed them.
Back in time when nearby Saltair Resort was the ideal spot for a family outing or first date, Salt Lake City denizens knew its silent stare from the waters of what was then called Black Rock Beach. Stories were passed from generation to generation about diving from the rock’s top-most point, or even selling hot dogs near the monument.
Thomas Alder, managing partner at Williams Fine Art, noticed that images of the rock turned up repeatedly during research for a forthcoming book on northern Utah he will co-author.
“I never figured out why,” he said. “But that beach was certainly an area lots of people flocked to.”
Today the remains of a volcanic “plug” formed when the flume stopped spewing lava sits still mostly for the odd graffiti artist. All the more reason, Alder thought, to bring an old tradition into the present time. The gallery sent an e-mail invitation in May asking current Utah painters to tackle the formation, and for a new exhibit of Black Rock paintings.
“Several of them didn’t even know what I was talking about,” Alder said. “One wrote back, ‘Oh yeah, that thing I see out the car window with graffiti and brine flies?’ But then they got out there to paint it themselves, and really had an experience.”
The resulting new paintings run the gamut, Alder said, ranging from stark depictions of the rock’s harsh beauty to the whimsy of childhood memories the site evokes.
David Meikle, a Utah landscape painter who recently saw his mammoth painting of Mount Olympus unveiled at the new City Creek Center downtown, was one of the chosen. The 40-year-old artist had no idea what to expect driving out to the shoreline to set up his easel.
“The old paintings of Black Rock strike you as very romanticized,” Meikle said. “When I went out there I was struck by the location’s vast openness, and swarms of brine and dragon flies. It was a bit hostile, really.”
But it made for a fascinating encounter with intense contrasts in light, he said. And the challenge of painting an unfamiliar object was an opportunity he couldn’t turn down.
Dennis Smith, another painter in the exhibit, remembers Black Rock with more clarity. Now 68 years old, Smith was a child in the 1940s and ’50s, during the Saltair Resort’s last hurrah before a fire shut it down and ended the shoreline’s festive era.
Smith launched into the Williams Gallery’s assignment with relish, painting four works spanning various times. One shows him as a younger man, floating in the salty water near the geological formation. Another finds the rock draped in the glow of a sunset. A third depicts the rock, and Kennecott’s smokestack, in the distance with a Saltair roller coaster in the foreground. Smith’s most intriguing rendering, however, finds members of the fated Donner Party passing the Black Rock on their way into winter in California’s Sierra Nevada mountains.
Smith said the giant rock is for him both a location on Utah’s map and a point in historical consciousness.
“It’s a pivot point — a marker that tells you where you were in relation to home,” Smith said. “Black Rock is a landmark in time and awareness, and all that time somehow melds together when you have a physical marker such as the one we have at the Great Salt Lake.”
The Billboards are UP!
After two years and much anticipation ALL of the Utah state line billboards are officially up and ready to be viewed. So enjoy your travels this summer and keep your eyes open for Dave's billboards as you cross the state line!
Dave's Show at Pioneer Theater
It runs for the next three weeks and you can check it out for free during the day.
Today's Church News!
Church News
City Creek: development is at 20-mile mark in construction marathon
By Greg HillChurch News staff writer
Published: Tuesday, Feb. 9, 2010
SALT LAKE CITY
Focusing on the first retail portion to open in downtown Salt Lake City's City Creek development, a press conference was held in its food court Tuesday morning, Feb. 9.
Keith Johnson, Deseret News
A view looking south from the roof of the Key Bank building of the new City Creek development in downtown Salt Lake City February 9, 2010.
The food court has actually been open for several months, but it is steadily expanding in a bit of obscurity. With the ongoing construction of the massive City Creek multi-use development dominating two downtown blocks, the food court, currently with five vendors, is accessible only through an entrance on State Street between South Temple and 100 South and from the Eagle Gate and Key Bank office buildings on each side of it. Four more vendors are scheduled to open during the spring.
City Creek has been "a real marathon, and today … we are now passing the 20-mile mark of this marathon," said Mark B. Gibbons, president of City Creek Reserve, Inc., the Church's arm that oversees the development. "We've received our second wind. The end is in sight and we're excited about the things that are coming."
Along with the food court, the remodeled lobby of the KeyBank Tower and parking underneath have been opened. The rest of the project is on schedule, he said.
Keith Johnson, Deseret News
Bill Coker with A Taste of Red Iguana, one of the restaurants in the new City Creek food court in the Key Bank building in downtown Salt Lake City, looks at renderings of the completed City Creek development February 9, 2010.
The major components of City Creek are being built on the block, previously the site of Crossroads Mall, immediately south of Temple Square, and the block, previously the site of the ZCMI Center, immediately south of the Church Administration Building. The Church is developing the property it owns to revitalize and improve the appearance of Salt Lake City's downtown.
Keith Johnson, Deseret News
Utah artist David Meikle unveils his painting of Mount Olympus that's hanging in at the new City Creek food court in the Key Bank building in downtown Salt Lake City February 9, 2010. The food court is now open with 7 different restaurants and will continue to add others as the development progresses.
City Creek is billed as a "walkable, sustainably-designed urban community of residences, offices and retail stores," according to press materials. Brother Gibbons said the first of the residential components — Richard's Court, directly across the street from Temple Square — will open within the next six weeks. The rest of the project is on schedule to be completed with the opening of the retail component in early 2012.
Keith Johnson, Deseret News
A view looking west from the roof of the Key Bank building of the new City Creek development in downtown Salt Lake City February 9, 2010.
The unveiling of a mural at the State Street entrance to the food court was also part of the press conference. The mural by local artist David Meikle titled "Wasatch Grandeur" depicts a spectacular late afternoon view of the mountains southeast of downtown following a spring rainstorm.
Brother Meikle of the Foothill 3rd Ward, Salt Lake Foothill Stake, commissioned to do the large painting, completed it in two and a half months. He said that it was a major construction project of about 80-90 man-hours to put it in place.
© 2010 Deseret News Publishing Company
Utah Museum of Fine Arts: Painter David Meikle creates a big, big picture
Utah Museum of Fine Arts: Painter David Meikle creates a big, big picture
"Views of Zion," by painter David Meikle, will be on exhibit at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts through June 27.
Painter David Meikle's small basement studio is void of any natural light. Eschewing titles about art greats such as Caravaggio or J.M.W. Turner, his bookshelves instead hold volume after volume about aviation and sci-fi movie set illustration.
You won't find a John Coltrane or Mozart CD in his rack, but loads of Peter Gabriel, U2 and Rush. And his paining starts at 9 p.m., once his four children are fast asleep.
Meikle, a 40-year-old Salt Lake City landscape painter, betrays almost every standard trait the public expects of fine artists.
But there's little argument that Meikle's art work has arrived, thanks to one work currently sharing the same wall space with Maynard Dixon and Edgar Payne at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts, plus his largest commissioned painting, soon to be unveiled at The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' City Creek development under construction downtown.
A career in painting wasn't always part of the plan. For Meikle, it's work that comes first, even when it comes to art. His job as senior graphic designer at the University of Utah's marketing and communication office, a position he's held ever since graduating in 1994 with a degree in graphic design and illustration from the same school, made him comfortable with production budgets, deadlines and schedules.
It was encouragement from his wife, Lacy Egbert, that got him started on the road to an MFA in painting at the U., which he completed in 2006.
Meikle's working style didn't always sit well. One professor derided his palette, an assortment of colors stacked, like a stalagmite in a cave, high enough to topple. "He held it up as an example and told the other students, 'Don't do your palette like this!' " Meikle remembers.
The palette of his finished paintings, though, is another matter.
"He's a brilliant colorist," said Donna Poulton, curator of Utah and Western art at UMFA, who selected Meikle's "View of Zion" for "Continuing Allure," the museum's current exhibit of landscape paintings. "His palette always works. There's nothing off about it."
Poulton also praised Meikle's eye for perspective and what she calls "architectural" approach to achieving a unique vision.
"There's a lot of geometry in [his work] and that, in turn, makes it more modern," she said. "So even though it's representational, his paintings really hit you. Every time I see a David Meikle painting, I recognize it as a David Meikle painting."
His technique, Meikle said, is about homework. Understanding the difference between detail and exact placement of the right color is also key.
He's dedicated to making paintings that don't look "overworked," but have power through how elements are implied. The full effect is apparent in "Visions of Zion," which captures layer upon layer of distance and shadow.
"I love it when I can see distances going back and back and back," he said. "Anytime I can get that in a painting, that's when I get really excited about what I'm doing."
Translating his unique vision to both small and large works proved to be an interesting challenge, and the leap necessary to securing his largest and most public commission ever. His new work, to be unveiled next week, hangs inside the under-construction City Creek Food Court.
The commission was years in the making, dating back to an art sale in 2003. That's when Joshua Stewart, a graduate of the University of Utah's architecture school, bought one of Meikle's small-scale works. Years later, when Stewart moved back to Salt Lake City from Portland, Ore., to work on the City Creek development, he recommended Meikle's work to supervisors interested in commissioning art.
At 10 feet high by 23 feet wide, Meikle's painting required on-site construction of a frame and a panel, constructed of nine sheets of plywood. A traditional framing, instead of adhering the work to a panel, would have left the painting vulnerable to sagging under the pull of gravity. That, as a result, would have led to cracks in the oil paint.
"It's like hanging a small car on a wall or, in this case, a flat-bed trailer," said Travis Tanner, who oversaw the hanging of Meikle's painting.
Tanner was impressed at how adeptly Meikle switched gears to finish the large-scale work, while preserving the qualities of his smaller paintings. "It's a real triumph for him to make that happen," Tanner said.
Some well-known artists were known to be particular about where, and to whom, their work might be shown. Most famously, abstract expressionist painter Mark Rothko was tormented over whether he could complete a highly paid commission for the Four Seasons restaurant in Manhattan's Seagram Building. In the end, he decided against it. For Rothko, the thought of people chewing food beneath his works was too much to bear.
Meikle, by contrast, has no qualms about his most grand work yet sharing the same space with a food-court McDonald's.
"Anyone who knows me will think that fits pretty well, because I like McDonald's a lot," he said. "What was so exciting to me about this is that it's meant for a public space. I don't know if I take myselfso seriously that I wouldn't want my work displayed near a restaurant."
The Mural has been Hung!
I will post more pics on Tuesday when it is unveiled, but let's just say this has been quite the projects and I am grateful it is OVER!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)