MARLON FITZJERALD HALL

From Broken to Beauty

Marlon Hall — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 04:35:41 +0000

Robert is the visionary and culinary creator of Kickin’ Kombucha. He is also the kindest and most dangerous man I have ever known. Robert Lopez broke his leg in several places during a master jiu jitsu competition. This gave him time away to reflect on his life while he dove into a passion he has for Kombucha. We curate his beautiful elixir at The Eat Gallery. At his Eat Gallery artist talk he told us how the healing of his broken leg forged a connection with his true life purpose. What must be broken can connect us with true beauty.

Curator of Human Passion

Marlon Hall — Thu, 15 Sep 2011 03:10:26 +0000

My mission in life is to help folks excavate purpose from their own lives…
I took a sabbatical from my architectural leadership at The Awakenings Movement to shape the culture and management of a historic coffee shop in 3rd Ward, Texas. A local businessman is giving us his 10 year old venture to evolve it as we see fit… After a four month anthro-study in the shop and a two month soft launch, we decided to continue the legacy of G’s and Z’s Coffee by making it a “community well” where we could serve, connect with, and learn the stories of folks we would never see otherwise… We crafted the spot to be a quirky eatery that features the culinary art of seven food artists and friends I deeply believe in. We called it The Eat Gallery because traditional art galleries curate art on walls but this gallery curates culinary art on plates. Right now they don’t have the overhead for their own restaurants so this is an experiment space for them. The Eat Gallery is a conservatory of caring, talented, and creative food artists who live purposefully one serving at a time…Never thought I would be up at 6am to order croissants, almond milk, and avocado in the name of mission excavation… but the tools used to exhume pure passion are never what I expect or imagine… I am called (or crazy) enough to live the sermons most preachers are only willing to talk about…

rift valley

Marlon Hall — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:40:41 +0000

the rift valley is a place of new beginnings.

when we take groups there, they are challenged to reset and embrace new life.

this time (I) was the one challenging (me) to reset.

cant explain it but… God reoriented everything in my view…

the dress

Marlon Hall — Sat, 12 Feb 2011 00:16:35 +0000

I commissioned a designer I met at a fashion review in Nairobi to design a dress for Regina.

I learned her story as we talked design, life, and philosophy.

Nkatha is one of the most inspiring and funny folk I had yet to meet.

we laughed hard and learned as we exchanged ideas and irritations.

Nkatha is a marvel and a maven of design and innovative ideas.

sojourn

Marlon Hall — Fri, 11 Feb 2011 23:58:24 +0000

the sun is setting outside of the nairobi art museum

Pa & Ma & Paa Ya Paa

Marlon Hall — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 12:36:44 +0000

When we turned the corner I got a sense of familiarity that was not just in my head but also in my heart. It was an indigenous memory that I get whenever I drive down the entrance and canopy of trees… home…
One of the first things you see as you drive up is the burnt ruined gallery that was consumed by a fire some time ago…
Then from death to life… you see the flowers… Then the lively and active, “Baba & Mama”!
The Paa Ya Paa was the first art and spiritual movement to develop after Kenyan independence. A power pole fell during a storm and burned 80% of the artwork and the gallery space down…

I sat down with Baba and Mama for a while and just talked about everything from village life to facebook… Then… Baba shared the vision for the next building project AM is to do for this great institution of divine creativity… It may partly look like ruins on the outside for now… but promise and a redefined future is brewing beneath the surface…

uniquely human

Marlon Hall — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 11:36:47 +0000

After the cab dropped me off, I walked about two miles to find the park where the festival was…. I didn’t mind cause it was a beautiful day..I finally got to the section of the grounds where the festival was only to realize that it was a Land Rover off road race… FUN!!!! Old and new Rovers were lined up next to each other like renegade mud-warriors at attention…This was one of the most exciting experiences ever… as i was snapping this photo, just one wrong move coulda found me on the cover of this particular all terrainer…
I finally saw Lou who is a photographer and a computer scientist who invited me. He greeted me with a smile and some introductions…

He was taking pictures of some interesting lookin folk who are apart of his collective…

While she did not own up to it… Wanuri, is a brilliant filmmaker who won three awards including Best Picture from the African Movie Academy in 09…When I asked if she was good she said, “not hardly”… She lied… her most recent film “Pumzi” is a science fiction about a woman who is a virtual natural curator of a museum in a futuristic Africa where WW3 caused natural extinction… It is soooo dope!

Kamathi was introduced as a fashion designer who worked at Marc Ecko for three years and decided to come back to nairobi to spark an ancient-future by claiming the history of the nation in iconic shirts…Jamhuri…

Together they are opening a creative space like our Dream Station in the H…

It was time to go…cause it was getting cold…

If Africa is the future, (and I believe it is our ancient-future), then these three are futurists and agents of imagination…

Drummer Hands

Marlon Hall — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 10:00:08 +0000

I immediately felt the pulse of the city moving through the soles of my sneakers like a cultural current. It was the cadence of every people group, nationality, and continent moving up and down the streets… a living symphony where footsteps were the instruments. NEW YORK CITY IS A PEOPLE WATCHER’S PARADISE!!!The first thing I wanted to do was meet a friend who was beginning his first day of Julliard where he is the only Masters Jazz Drummer in his class…

I took the (A)Train to 66th Street to meet Reggie in front of the school… Reggie walked up fighting that, “first day of middle school”, grin. I don’t know why he hid his smile cause I was smiling from one ear edge up to the other…

Leading with his hands, I could tell that he was very excited as we crossed the street to this french bistro where we would eat lunch before I got the chance to walk with him to school on the first day…

I trailed behind him thinking about how proud his dad who passed a few years back would be. His son is pioneering a new path for practicing musicians and music academicians. He is a masters student and a professional musician who is not stuck in academia but inspired by it.

When we got to the spot, one of his friends was waiting there with a warm and genuine smile. Alyse is a Masters student at Fordham studying Political Science with a focus on Central American Government. She had a keen sense of insight, an”almost but not quite latin” accent, and a soothing way of not taking herself too seriously. She was from Panama by way of Dallas, but her charm made it easy to overlook the “Dallas situation”…

I wondered what Reg was thinking seeing him drift off, so I asked him to talk about this day and what it meant to his life story...Open Doors_1-2 (click to hear)As he began to talk, I saw how expressive his hands were….Almost every syllable came with a hand gesture or motion…After a while it made perfect sense… His rhythmic gift was expressed though his hands as a drummer. He uses his hands to speak to audiences in the language of drum beats and syncopation, so why shouldn’t he use them to aide him in sharing ideas verbally. The weirdest thing was how he held the fork and knife over the plate for his meal as he would drumsticks over a snare drum.

This dude literally ate, spoke, and lived life through his music and gifting. He not only plays the drums to help make his living, playing the drums helps to make his life. His art is both his living and his life. WHAT A DREAM!

He put on his hat and his coat… we walked outside… and we were off to his school. While we were coming close to his school I asked Reggie to talk about what he was feeling. Let The Music Come Out (click to hear)Because drums are his life, Reggie’s job is to live!

No one on Earth should die before discovering the joy of living for a living.

Reggie’s first day affirms that working myself to death trying to make a living for profit or position is counterproductive.

We all must have a job at times in our lives to make ends meet, but a job should never be an end. Working a job as a means to purpose is honorable, but working a job as an end for money is horrible. “Purpose will make money, but money can not make purpose.” -Dallas Austin (speaking to Kim from Real Housewives of Atlanta)

snow day

Marlon Hall — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 05:10:12 +0000

Today Regina, Jen, Cody, Connor and I played in some simulated snow.

I began by showing Cody how to make a snowball…

Once I taught him, he immediately put on his game face…

Cody and Connor began shaping snowballs to start their playful snowball fight.

Connor was so serious about finding the right section of snow…

He finally found it and was on his way…

Regina decided to get in on the action with a cute little hay laced snow ball…

That made cody sooo happy. He was hype to see regina in the game…

Connor got another ball…

Connor’s ball exploded like an air grenade as soon as it left his hand…

I decided to jump in and have some fun and these boys both ganged up on me…

I got an old sign and used it as a sled to send Cody moving down a hill…

Once Cody went down I followed him feet first. It was fun!

by the Connor cautiously made it down the hill and inspired his mommy to follow…

She started off lookin kinda grown but by the time she was half way there she was laughing out loud like a kid… later she said that her greatest memories where of the snow in michigan where she grew up…

The adventure ended with a fun time in the tub to the soundtrack of an original song called:” tub…tub..”…

This was a rich and restful day that I won’t easily forget…

..

Urbanatholon

Marlon Hall — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 23:34:13 +0000

Months,pounds, and shoes… (3) months of intense training, (13) pounds weight loss, and (1) pair of running shoes later I am in Chicago with my team ready to work harder physically than I ever have in my life.

We arrived in Chicago ready to work, but we decided to have some fun and relax before a night of rest and meditation.

This journey began four months ago when Art, the Youth Architect at AM learned about the Men’s Health Urbanatholon.This 11.7 mile marathon has three legs with obstacles ranging from taxi cab hurdling to monkey bars to soilder stadium stair climbs.

Art decided to invite a few men from an underground small group of men called GAM (grown a** men) to join him as a team competing in the event.

Within a week the idea became viral and four teams were formed. Training with Sincere Hogan began within a month. We worked hard but mostly had fun growing as a team.

Back to Chicago… Even though we were are a large team of 12. We split up into four teams of three for the atholon and my team was made up of Nakia, Devon, and myself. Devon was the team captain, Nakia was the athletic specialist and I was just on the squad. We woke up with the mission of registration, getting our packets, and number tags for the race.

In Chicago…Devon woke up with his “team captain game face” on…Professor Nakia woke up checkin in with his wife and checking internet mid-term papers…The hotel was right by the train…

This was a fun and complex excursion. In between the professor and the engineer we were on our way…

With a child-like excitement and joy we finally made it to the city and hooked up with the other teams.

We were acting like we had not just seen each other two days before… Seeing each other in the city that we had been preparing to compete in made us feel like we had never really seen each other this way before… the same but different…

These boys look like a 1990’s rap group from the midwest…

After a day of play it was time to get ready for battle the next mornin… I don’t know why but I was kind of anxious…