We were snowed in the other day and made this new feature on my website. I take photos as I paint. We gathered a few and made a few slide shows. There is no text or voice over. The idea is to share with you the stomping around I do to make my art. The installation Chemo Today was the beginning of me taking myself seriously as an artist. Fleeing is about refugees of war, famine and fire. If You Just is about all the advice people have given me as I deal with ITP.
Donna Livengood, Art Patron
Gregg’s mother regularly supports our art work. When I told her about a sale on canvas, she sent a check! We got a 30 yard roll for half price. Gregg has made the stretchers from ripping 2×4’s. The pancake compressor drives the stapler. He’s made 4 stretchers, so far, and stretched 2 today. They are 41″x54″. The canvas is 60″wide and we cut a four foot piece. As you can see we need some to pull around the back. The pliers are a specialty. We don’t remember when he made the first canvas for me, but it could have been 47 years ago. Just for comparison a ready made 16″x20″ stretched canvas sells for $10. I still have to gesso (prime) them, but we save a lot of money doing it ourselves.
Thanks Donna, for your encouragement and support!
Debt Collector
Insurance companies and hospitals are so busy playing one-up games with each other that they use debt collectors to “win”. Just like mob leg-breakers, medical debt collectors use intimidation and lies. Like the big bad wolf they huff and puff until you can find someone to be on your side and make one of the big boys back down. Health care for profit is ….. wrong.
If You Just… prescriptions, pills and well meaning
I have a chronic immune disorder. No one sees me when I’m really ill, so they assume I’m making it up, to escape responsibility. Today was the first time in a year that I didn’t have an injection. Due to holidays, we put it off until Monday. Then back to a weekly regimen of blood test and injection. This painting chronicles some of my frustration with the phrase “if you just…” It’s been six and a half years. Don’t you think I’ve tried it, maybe twice?
Re-emergence
My life feels like a broke ass ladder, emerging from the goo, one more time. Surely beats being stuck in the goo.
Patience
I am not patient, and I rush my paintings. But I’m getting better. I let this one “simmer” like soup. Then you taste it, adjust spices, and it is your soup. The title is Feel the Breath, tho in meditation I’m supposed to follow the breath.
Eyes show pain
I tap into my pain as a way to get rid of it. Let it go. Here are two works, done ten years apart.
Re-emergence continues
Trying to capture or glimpse a bit of my life, which took an unpleasant turn this week. I removed the block at the top of the ladder, and added more bent rungs. The fog is still too blue, I think. I have found Zinc White is more subtle than Titanium. But do I need subtle, or bold?
Re-emergence
I’ve been working on this large canvas for awhile. 46”x54”. I’ve been thru a lot of illness and pain for the last 6 years, and now I am better. I could tell you many things that are in here, but if explanation is necessary, I have not made a painting, yet.
Pollen
So much pollen this spring!
