Creating A Vibrant Life

The magic and importance of personal expression.

Dear Friends,

Jumping right into this week’s Little Black Book of hot off the press, favorite finds plus tried and true, time tested treasures…

1. I received an opportunity to try out Goop Beauty’s 3x Retinol a minute before it was available to all. One thing I love about Goop’s skincare products is that GP is really committed to not only using ingredients that are clean but that also really produce a positive and noticeable anti-aging difference. For these reasons, I swear by a few of them that have done wonders for my skin. And so far I am really impressed with how my skin is responding to this 3x Retinol serum! Many retinols I have tried in the past, like Vitamin C, have been too irritating. Not this one.

2. The Tassel Sconce by London based Apparatus is edited and refined in its design. Subtle yet powerful beauty in brass and glass, this may find a place in our future music room.

3. I have three books, that just hit shelves last week, that I am thrilled to read. Abortion: Our Bodies, Their Lies, and the Truths We Use to Win by Jessica Valenti is critical reading as far as I am concerned. You can also find so much more on this topic on Jessica‘s excellent Substack

   Abortion, Every Day. Revenge of the Tipping Point by Malcolm Gladwell is the long awaited sequel to his best selling book The Tipping Point. And How to Live an Extraordinary Life by

   Anthony Pompliano
   , a collection of 63 letters he wrote to his children on living a good life, is an excellent book of which I have already finished and highly recommend regardless of whether you have children. The insights are succinct, truly wise, and valuable for us all to consider in architecting our own life. I have shared so many of his lessons with my children and I feel certain Anthony’s insights will continue to influenced my thinking and actions. I hope you will pick up a copy!

CREATING A VIBRANT LIFE: The magic and importance of personal expression.

My daughter and I have carved out the ritual of taking a weeklong mother-daughter trip, twice each year. So far we have chosen to go to Manhattan the last few times and are in NYC for another weeklong excursion right now. We plan to visit The Morgan Library, take a jaunt to the Hamptons to visit dear friends, enjoy the beautiful autumn foliage, see Suffs, the Tony Award winning Broadway musical about the women of the suffragist movement, and walk the streets popping into book stores, visiting playgrounds, and searching for new treasures.

We love the life of the city and all the exciting sights, tastes, and adventures it has to offer, as seen below in snaps from our spring trip earlier this year.

One of the absolute highlights of our last visit this past May was a trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But not just any ol’ trip to the museum. Rather…My daughter and I had the rare and special opportunity to have a private tour of the historic Met while it was closed to the public. Just the three of us! My daughter, our lovely art historian/Met aficionado, and me. It was insanely bananas. An experience I will honestly treasure forever!

Walking the storied halls of the museum, empty save for us, was an immense honor. Being in solitude with such extraordinary works, allowed me to not only enjoy the importance of what was before us, but to really pause and contemplate the artist behind the artwork. I began searching each piece looking to glean what could have been in the artist’s mind, or perhaps more importantly, in their heart? What life experience and circumstance, longing and fantasy, pain and suffering was this piece born from? What was unique to them, that resulted in this true expression that only they could create? Who are you, the artist, who conceived or channeled this?

I found myself in awe, time and again, at the marvelous wonder and tangible extension of another human. Us and them having all shared so many of the same life experiences regardless of the time period or geographic location. Love and heartache, triumph and despair, life and death. Yet each of our interpretations so specific to our own lens.

My mother is an artist. An acclaimed artist in her specialty within the art world. Her exquisite work has garnered not only appreciation, but also awards, a book deal, and a motion picture credit for her work featured in the Steven Spielberg film, How To Make An American Quilt. Her art has hung on the walls of domestic and international museums. Her father, my grandfather, Dudley Fox, also had beautiful artistic talent. So the love, and perhaps DNA, for artist talent has a bloodline in my family, of which I believe my daughter also has a touch of.

I, on the other hand, never considered myself to have inherited any of these capabilities. Actually, taking it one step further, I determined long ago that in fact, I was not creatively talented. Instead I found that I had a penchant for business. Of logistics, organization, risk tolerance, management, human capital development, and entrepreneurship. Not talented in the arts, whatsoever.

Once I started consistently honing my writing craft, I began to consider that perhaps storytelling is, in fact, a creative art.

There are so many ways that may not be as obvious as painting or sculpting in which we create, express ourselves, and give our gifts. Cooking, interior and architectural design, handwriting, floral arranging, photography, planting a garden, entrepreneurship, table setting, gift wrapping, problem solving. The list is endless and while what we create may not hang on a wall, garner awards, or be displayed in a museum, it is important and valuable that we create.

The significance of what we can create with our art, we may never really know. Yet, the act of creating changes us for the better, and it also has the power to change others and the world. To that end, I believe deeply that we need a creative outlet in order to thrive and fully express what it means to be human and to be living.

For those of us, like me, who have thought we are not creative or don’t have what it takes — whatever that even means — I’d like to share these insights from two highly respected and celebrated creators.

Fred Rogers, in 1979 at the age of 51, and in his 11th year of bringing the wildly successful show, Mr Rogers’ Neighborhood, to the world, he wrote the following in his journal:

Over the course of three decades, Fred Rogers created over 900 episodes of the beloved show. Yet even Fred was not immune to doubt. The antidote, in his own words, being to just “get to it.”

Then there is Peter Drucker, known as the “father of modern management,” who shaped the way organizations, especially in business, approach management, leadership, and decision making. Drucker’s work was so pioneering that when asked to be interviewed by Mihali Csikszentmihalyi for his seminal book, Creativity, Peter responded with this note:

“I am greatly honored and flattered by your kind letter of February 14th—for I have admired you and your work for many years, and I have learned much from it. But, my dear Professor Csikszentmihalyi, I am afraid I have to disappoint you. I could not possibly answer your questions. I am told I am creative—I don't know what that means. ... I just keep on plodding. ...”

I love that these two creators’ gifts to the world covered such very different realms — T.V. and business management — both outside what we often consider “art.” But what they both share in common is the fuel for their creativity being the commitment, discipline, and ultimately the desire to engage in the activity of doing, building, writing, thinking, and expressing their authentic selves.

It is only over the last few years that my husband and I started visiting museums with our children, now that they are a bit older, and they have become more interested and less cranky about the whole thing. Over which time, I’ve come to love roaming the halls, being deeply changed, inspired, and educated by what each artist had the courage to bring to life.

Below I have included a snippet of our photo journal taken with my trusty iPhone. I hope you can feel at least a tiny bit of the magic captured from our private time within the Met.

We visited the museum two days after the Met Gala. This year the annual event celebrated the Costume Institute’s new exhibition “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion,” in which the theme was “The Garden of Time.”

The interior of the entrance hall of the Met was transformed to create an explosion of florals of which we captured a moment of the team breaking down the event while we were there…

My daughter and I loved spending time with The Little Fourteen-Year-Old Dancer by French artist, Edgar Degas…

Gustav Klimt, Claude Monet, and Auguste Renoir need no introduction…

The Harlem Renaissance Exhibit was incredible. A cultural movement, plus a social and political statement, challenged racist ideologies and aimed to foster a new identity for African Americans. Centered in the Harlem neighborhood of New York City during the 1920s and early ‘30s, the pride, exuberant life, confidence, and depiction of the intellectual and artistic achievements of that time period was palpable…

With half of our family being Persian, the Islamic Art exhibit was a special stop for us…

The Asian Art exhibit was so serene…

And here are a few final photos of “this and that” from our time at the Met…

Until next time, I hope you share your art with the world. We need your authentic expression in all the varied ways that it takes shape.

With love,