Just a quick little note

Things have been a little bit busy over the past few days.  Yesterday I was honored to be at a reception for artists exhibition in the VSA Arts Sherlock Exhibition at the Rhode Island State Administration Building.  The show featured the work of artists with disabilities.  These are the three pieces I showed:

It was really fun.  The bottom piece was the one that provoked the most positive comment, which is ironic since it's one of my earliest pieces and I've sort of moved on since then.  The bottom piece is the one that is going to be shown in the Pawtucket office of my congressman, David Cicilline through July.  I'm thrilled about that.  Of course a number of other pieces (57) by other artists from the show will be exhibited as well.  But it's great to be included as part of the crowd.

What was really terrific was to meet two artists that work in collage and mixed media.  I don't know the name of one woman who does really, really cool assemblages--something I really want to do.  Another woman, Patience Peck, was kind enough to spend time with me discussing my work and adhesives!

The woman in blue, incidentally, is Joanne MacConnell, a good friend of mine who worked in the same office at Brown University, and who is a painter. 

So that was an exciting time.  Unfortunately, unlike last year's show, there were no elected state officials present--not sure why, maybe we weren't important enough.  However, I'm not sure how many people really noticed!

Anyway, I'm grateful to VSA for providing me the opportunity to show my work and for the ego boost which really is important to artists, no matter how they may protest that they're in it for the art only.  We all like to be liked.

And we all like to be thanked.  So I'm sending the card below to VSA (the scan is a bit crooked and doesn't seem to want to be fixed) as a thank you.

That's about it from here.  Time for a Scrabble game tonight!

Ahhh Sunday

Harking back to my Saturday piece in which I mentioned my love of the 80's, I allowed myself to indulge in VH1 Classics' "Totally 80's" video show.  It was a great accompaniment to my weekly chores, helped of course by Junior, my able assistant.

Junior on my bedroom bureau with his little friends

My friend Louise and I had arranged a shopping trip for the afternoon, accompanied by her mom, and it was fairly successful.  One of our stops was the local Joann's, and I was faced with an unpleasant surprise at the register when I discovered that the bulk of my coupons had expired on Saturday.  Damn!  I was too embarrassed to put things back so I spent more than I should have, and will have to be very careful with money for the next week.  I'm told by another friend, Maude, that I'm not the only one (I'm sure) who's done it, so I feel a bit better.  But still I should know to check the coupons BEFORE I go--or at least while in the store.

I was buying necessities actually--adhesives, mod podge, papers, tape, stocking up basically.  Louise found me some neat embellishments that were half price and that will be useful both in my own work and in workshops.

When I got home, after we made a quick stop at Wendy's, I did feel I'd accomplished something.

And an earlier phone conversation with Michele, one of the mainstays of my circle of friends, helped to further me along in my protracted agonizing over the Big Canvas.  She suggested that I do a lot of little collages instead of one big thing.  Duh!  Why didn't I think of that?  Perhaps do them as same-sized blocks.  Different sizes.  It just might work.

As usual, I had grand plans for Sunday evening--get a lot of work done.  It never works out quite that way.  The cat wants to play, I get hungry, something on TV distracts me (too much actually), like how to make good tomato mac and cheese (Cook's Country on PBS).  I'm very easily distracted.  I did finally settle down, although I was still listening to a TV program on George Lucas' genius and creative process.  (Star Wars)

And I did actually work.  The 4x4 book is all but finished.  It just needs a snappy title and binding.  And maybe I need to add something else to the back other than the blurb.  The backs are plain colored card stock.  Maybe it's too empty, don't know.

I also finished the two collages that I started several days.  Well, pretty much.  I just have to decide if I'm adding a wry comment or a 3-D embellishment.

the two collages

I definitely feel that I did accomplish something,  Finally.

Music, music, music!

Today, while we were doing the altered board books workshop at Peace Love, I think I astonished the studio's director, Jeff Sparr.  Some of the workshop attendees and I were engaged in a spirited discussion of 80's music, prompted by Louise spotting a photo of Bono in a magazine that she decided just had to be included in her board book.

Another attendee, Andrea, and I were rattling off names of bands that we particularly loved, some obscure ones, and Jeff, who was sitting beside me, was growing more and more intrigued.  He was curious--how did I know so many bands from that period?  The short answer is that I worked at a radio station for about 2 1/2 years, from 1983-1985.  It helped immensely that I was getting free LPs and tickets to shows, and plus industry publications abounded.  The longer answer, I suppose, is that I've been exposed to music since an early age.  I've often said that I was raised with Henry Mancini in one ear and Led Zeppelin in the other.  And it's true.

Whatever evils my father committed, I can honestly say that he did me a great favor by getting me interested in the arts so young.  I can remember sitting before the TV in the early 1960s, avidly watching Leonard Bernstein (the famed composer) introducing classical music to children via his Saturday morning program, "Young People's Concerts."  As long as I could remember, music was always playing on the stereo--a wide variety, although I don't think my parents were much interested in the Beatles at that time, and certainly had little tolerance for rock.  At a young age, my parents bought me a small record player and several 45's made especially for children (45's were also known as "singles" and were made out of vinyl).

At the same time, I think my brother Richy also had his own small record player, and I know that he bought records that my parents didn't care for.  However, I'd spend time with him listening to his music, and he haughtily tolerated my "bubble gum" music.  I remember that I loved all the 60's pop groups--I am not sure about the Beatles at that time--and my parents bought me 45's when money was available.

Time went on, and I was given an allowance to buy my own music, and I know that my very first 45 that I paid for with my own money was "Your Song" by Elton John.  I don't remember my first LP purchase, but remember that I spent a lot of time looking through records at the Apex Department Store in Pawtucket.  I was primarily interested in pop and rock, since I could get the "old people's music" at home quite easily.  And radio was so much better back then--wide ranging stations that weren't wedded to play lists concocted by corporate executives running a chain of stations throughout the country.  DJ's were really DJ's--determining the play lists, playing what sounded good, and becoming experts on the music they played.

Over the years my tastes diverged a great deal.  I can safely say that there's very little I absolutely do not like--rap and hip hop being one style I really can't abide.  And I don't really like much of today's music.  Much of it seems manufactured.  I don't get the sense that the music is played by real musicians, it sounds processed to me.  There are exceptions:  I really like Coldplay, I liked the first CD released by the British band Mumford and Sons, and I know there are individual songs that I've heard that I've liked, though I can't tell you who they're by.

Overall, though, I really run the gamut.  I can remember having a discussion on an online group about favorite musicians, and people seemed impressed that I could name favorite musicians in many genres and instrumentation.  Over the years, I've developed passions for particular types of music that I'd be obsessed by for a while but which would run their course.  For a while that was Cajun music, another time Celtic, and another African.  I also flirted with gospel at one time.

My constants, though, tend to be classical, 20's and 30's jazz, and certain pop and rock groups.  I confess to an undying love for disco (I can just see my brother Will making faces), I love English 80's bands, and I have loved U2 since seeing their appearance at Brown University at a Spring Weekend concert in the early 1980's.  I'm redeveloping a love for bluegrass, and because I'm always exposed to it living where I do, a fascination with Latin music.

I can't imagine not loving music.  I can't imagine a life without music.  If nothing else, from a mental health standpoint, music helps me drown out the voices (which, ironically, usually manifest themselves as music!) that are so much a part of my daily existence.  That's right, drown out the noise with MORE noise!  As William Congreve said in the late 1600's, "music has charms to soothe the savage breast." And I most certainly have found that to be oh so true.

Hush! I'm thinking

I've really been thinking hard about the big canvas I'm supposed to be doing for a fundraiser for Peace Love Studios.  Haven't gotten the canvas yet--it's being provided to me, but I did finally cut a 20x20 piece of poster board so that I can start playing a little bit.

What I really do need (aside from a small stepladder, a dutch oven, and a couple of other things I've been hankering for) is a small TV dinner table or something like that.  I've been looking at my space, trying to figure out where to put the canvas while I'm working on it and really the only place to do it is the worktable.  Trouble is, I've got supplies on the worktable that I regularly use in my work, and they'd have to be moved to make room for the magnum opus to be composed.  So I'm going to work on that, get that organized, that sort of thing. 

I did decide on a theme.  A couple of days ago, in an email to a friend, I used the phrase, "I'm in a good place for the place I'm in," to describe how I'm doing.  Yes, I have had frequent downs and ups, and the downs are sometimes lengthy.  But overall I've been able to maintain some sense of equilibrium since my last hospitalization in September.  So I'm in a pretty good place, compared to how I have been in the past.  My friends would certainly testify to that!

So, I figure the theme for this great work of art will be exactly that phrase.  I think it'll be appropriate for an organization that works so hard to bring positivity to those with mental illness and to make connections between the mental health community and the wider community, to bring the two together, which is so important when you consider how mental illness is so little understood. 

I'm planning to make the piece abstract, with lots of little details so that the viewer will find something new every time he or she sees it.  I want it to be complex, because I am complex.  I have great hopes for this piece--I hope it doesn't fall flat on its face.  I am frightened by the size of the piece.  But it's going to be a good challenge for me.

In other news, I'm a little unhappy by the news, received yesterday, that I am losing my current psychiatrist.  Because I am part of a resident clinic at Butler Hospital, the longest I can potentially have a psychiatrist is three years.  I've had to switch doctors twice, thus far, in the past three years, and will lose Dr. B in June.  He is leaving a year early to start a child psychiatry fellowship in Boston.  I really wish him well--he's a fabulous doctor--but I'm disappointed that I won't get another year with him.  I know he'll find a good match for me--I just hate to once again rebuild a relationship with another doctor.  The clinic works for me, though, because psychiatrists are hard to find in Rhode Island--good ones especially.  I'm lucky to have what I have--it's also hard to get into the clinic.  But I can't help being regretful.

That said, I'm still in a good place--and let's hope I stay there!  My recent history has averaged 4 good days to 3 bad days per week--I'm on Day 5.  Fabulous! 

Spending the day at home

The past couple of days have been pretty productive.

I decided to spend today at home after a busy Monday spending time with my cousin Jan.  It was unplanned--I had headed out early to East Providence to mosey around Savers and Dollar Tree in search of things I could use both for my own work and for Peace Love classes.  For those who aren't familiar with Savers, it's a thrift store that sells stuff that people donate and that gives some of the proceeds to local charities--in this case, Big Sisters.  When I arrived at the Wampanoag Plaza, where both stores were located, I discovered that my cousin had called and left a message.  My phone does not have a loud enough ringtone (actually none of them are loud enough, really).  So I checked in with her, found that she wanted to at least go out for lunch, and we arranged to meet at Savers.

While I waited for her, I hit Dollar Tree where I found that employees had collected the bits and pieces that had fallen off the artificial flowers they sell (odd blossoms, leaves, and suchlike) and put them in plastic bags that they were selling for 50 cents each.  Bonanza!  I'm doing a spring craft workshop for kids next week, so the flowers will definitely come in handy.  I'm also doing (I think) an Easter craft workshop, so I found some Easter items, and I picked up a couple of other things that I can use for this and that project.

When Jan arrived, we hit Savers.  I searched through the children's books for some that could be used in workshops, and did fairly well.  Savers has a wall where odds and ends in plastic bags are hung on hooks, and sometimes you can really find useful things.  And I did.  Someone had apparently donated wallpaper strips, and I bought as many as could be useful.  I look for wallpaper that has large designs--usually flowers or plant life--that can be easily cut out and used for collages.  I found a couple of small rolls and some packages of wallpaper borders.  That was well worth the trip out to East Providence.

After we were done shopping, Jan and I drove down to the East Bay section of Rhode Island, and landed in Bristol where we found a wonderful Irish pub, Aidan's.  For the first time ever, I had bangers and mash, something I'd only read about in novels.  Fabulous!  After lunch, we drove slowly back to my apartment building, and that was it.  I had planned to do some artwork Monday evening, but was called to play Scrabble instead.  Which was fine too.

Today's project was to clean out one set of my art supply shelves, the one nearest the window.  It had gotten pretty scary:

After going through the shelves, it looks better than before, and is more organized--sort of.  At least there isn't the risk of things falling off the shelves.  I didn't take an "after" picture.  As usual, when one sorts through things, I found stuff I didn't know I had which is always nice.

Later, I decided that I really needed to do more with the 4x4 project, and so I added little sayings to the pages.  And I decided, since the back of each page is a solid colar, I should add a little blurb that expanded a bit on what the person said.  Haven't typed those out yet, but they are written on scraps of notepaper.

And then I decided to sort the calendar pages I'd started into color groups and then allocate the colors as evenly as possible given that I hadn't made the same amount of pages in each color family I was using.  I have ended up with 10 sets of 14 pages each--12 months plus 2 covers.  That's a lot of calendars!  Since I'm a glutton for punishment, I then punched holes with my Bind-It-All in all 140 pages.  Fun (not).

That's where I'm at at 7:45pm.  Don't know what the rest of the evening holds, but I know tomorrow will be busy.  I see both my therapist and psychiatrist tomorrow.  And hopefully later in the week I'll be able to make trips to Jerry's Artarama and to Joann's. 

So, a good couple of days.  Hope the rest of the week is productive!

A day in the life

I woke up this morning kind of in a quandary.

It occurred to me that I was not using the time I've had at my disposal in the most efficient and useful of ways.  I've been kind of dithering around, not really settling down to actually do a lot of the work that I tell people means so much to me.  I've spent a lot of time doing nothing, frankly, and it's bothering me.  So I really have to get the wheels turning and working effectively and setting a schedule for my day.

Good luck!  I know plenty of people who try to do the same thing and they say it's always a struggle.  Something always gets in the way of the work.  Life happens.  Deal with it.

I've been asked to do an art class at a local group, and while I've agreed to do the class, I haven't set a date.  I know it's going to be a collage class (after all, what else do I know how to do?), but I'm trying to decide if it's going to be a "have fun and glue stuff" kind of class or, more to my mind, a more "therapeutic" kind of collage thing.  The group deals with mental illness, so that's why I think there needs to be a purpose to the class.

Most people, when challenged to be, at the very least, creative, run for cover.  "I'm not creative" is their cry, and they plead that they haven't a clue what to do with a blank piece of paper.  After the newspaper article about me ran in December, one person accosted me and said "I haven't a creative bone in my body."  I think most people feel that way, even though their days are full of creative tasks whether they know it or not.

So now I'm thinking about how to bring the idea that people are automatically creative to this class, to this group of people, and I'm hoping that I'll find the answer sooner rather than later.  Just add this project to the other projects I have in mind, right?

So I did manage to start a couple of collages last night, and I added a little bit to one of them this morning.  I then decided to take a bunch of small canvases that I know I won't be able to frame and paint them.  I don't know why I like to paint the canvases first, before starting a collage.  Perhaps it's just that I hate that blank white canvas and it seems easier to do something with the canvases if they're painted.

I cleared my nostrils of the smell of acrylic paint by taking a walk this afternoon, and now I'm deciding what to do next.  I do want to develop a plan for the upcoming week.  So maybe that's what I need to do next.

In the meantime......here's my wonderful worktable full of stuff.

And my kitchen table just before I started painting:

Not a particularly interesting picture, I just felt compelled to show you, that's all!

Some progress being made

Two weeks ago, at the Peace Love Barnes and Noble fundraiser, I did my bit to help raise money by buying two New York Times crossword puzzle books.  I used to do these puzzles online at the Yahoo! Games site.  I also once had a collection of puzzles that I purchased shortly after I experienced a concussion three years ago.  At that time I had a great deal of difficulty in doing the puzzles and gave up.

This time, though, I was able to finish the book of 75 puzzles in two weeks.  These were the "easy" Tuesday puzzles (I guess they increase in difficulty during the week).  I didn't do them all by myself--I think I only managed to finish 10 of them completely without help.  But I'm encouraged.

The puzzles of course draw upon knowledge already gained.  I'm not learning anything new really by doing the puzzles, but they are a test of whether or not I can remember things.  And I can.  Things I learned before.  I still have trouble remembering things I've learned recently, as in reading a book or magazine.  And I've attempted to read books more challenging than a novel, but have had limited success in remembering what I've read and with concentration skills.

Three years ago, my then psychiatrist had me go for a neuropsychological exam to test my cognitive abilities.  At that time I tested at "below average intelligence."  My current psychiatrist is considering having me retested, and I would be very interested in the results.

Doing the puzzles, though, has been an interesting journey.  Encouraging.

Not much progress on the art front.  Although I did do a thank you card for a friend, I haven't done anything substantive.  The spectre of the huge canvas still hangs over me.  I am convinced that the only way I'm going to conquer my fear of it is to actually glue something to the canvas to start with or apply paint--even if I cover it up later.  Now I just have to DO IT.  I still don't know what I'm going to do, but a friend of mine says that I should just glue paper to it with no particular aim in mind and see what develops.

I suppose that makes about as much sense as any other idea.  Right now, though, I just need to actually finish something.  I still have the 4x4 book hanging around because I can't decide whether to turn it into an actual story book with a real story line, or just add one-liners with no real aim.  Otherwise, I just have to punch holes and bind it.

Decisions, decisions.  I'm sure other people have the same problem!

And the big news of the day:  it's snowing!  Up until now we've had 5.47 inches of snow; our average snowfall during the winter is around 37 inches.  Quite a difference.  Anyway, this is the view outside my window in Central Falls, Rhode Island at about 4:40pm:

I have to admit that I'm pleased that it's snowing, probably a minority opinion.  But the forecast isn't for much snow.  Oh well.