Post 47 of 92

Sky is just beginning to lighten.  It's not that early but we're still on daylight saving which makes 6:30 look like 4:30.  There's a push to change back March 1 rather than Easter.  I heartily agree.

Have been writing and painting and reading and practicing guitar and yoga-ing in addition to the usual stuff. Had a pretty bad day last week.  Not sleeping, overly sensitive, depressed but other thatnthat 2 day blip I'm staying afloat pretty well.  What else is there to do?  The deterioration in Richard seems to be more pronounced or happening faster than before.  He was doing the dishes (I cook, he washes up) without water in the sink.  His verbal skills often fail and we spend more time than usual uncovering what he wants to say.  Sometimes he can just show me.  Have made a dentist appointment for next week as his teeth are in a dire need of a clean.  He brushes them twice a day but I didn't know he wasn't brushing them well.  The Parkinsons interferes with manual dexterity so that he isn't getting the brush around his teeth as he should.  Which accounts for his terrible breath.  Maybe that will help.  That and getting him on an electric toothbrush. 

Dental hygiene isn't the sort of thing I considered would be an issue. 

But we're ok. 

Was pushed and cajoled and asked to apply for Art Post Uki, which I did - and was knocked back.  S in a terrible position as she had to tell me when she was the one who nagged, and I mean nagged, in the nicest sort of way, to apply.  Now I have been asked to re-apply.  But I won't.  All my adult life I have sketched and drawn for my own pleasure.  Last year I sold a few pieces, before that I'd given some away, bartered some, had one in a raffle - but there was never any pressure to please any one other than myself.  So I was happy.  Of course some days (many days) I couldn't draw worth crap or was bereft of ideas or just generally uninspired, so although I could be frustrated about my work, I was never sad.  Creating art never made me sad. 

When I was refused I was sad.  Thin skinned, ego deflated, too proud, yes all those things but also really sad.  Someone had a say about my work that meant something.  One auditor liked it, another didn't (awkward composition, doesn't know anatomy).  I've always created stuff for me.  If another liked it, or loved it, wonderful, but it was always for me.  Now I'd let someone else's opinion matter.

So I've made a decision.  No more.  I'll show in the locals, I've got 2 in a raffle next month, but I will never put myself in a position where I'm chasing 'success'.  I was told if I had a 'theme' or made this item my signature in every work or told a story....  This is a different version but the same thing Mal Camin said to me 40 years ago, 'if you change your colour palette your work will sell' and he'd sold out to Worth Avenue and Martha's Vineyard to do family portraits of the wealthy.  He was a talented artist but he was sad.

Post 43 of 92...yeah, I know

Well, I'm writing again.  Joined a local writers group and have 'assignments' using writing prompts.  So a story is forming.  Very loose and already full of loose ends which will have to be tied up but must admit it is good to be writing again.  It won't be like before when I would sit down first thing in the morning with a cuppa and punch out 1000 words.  Life just doesn't work like that anymore, other commitments, different schedule - but I am starting to carry a small notebook and a pen on our afternoon walks as that's when the best ideas come. 

It's fun.

No pressure.

Like the guitar.  Have started over.  Somewhere I read that one should use a mirror to help with placement of the left hand.  That however has turned out rather awkwardly as I became dependent upon it and couldn't find the notes without it.  So have put the mirror away and am retraining without it.  It's muscle memory.  Finding the exact positioning of the fingers near the frets; too far away and the note buzzes, too close and it's dead.  Really difficult.  Odd too as a song came on and I grabbed my air guitar and I STILL hold it the opposite way to the way a guitar is to be played.  Thought as I had no bad habits to break I may as well learn to play with the left hand fretting and the right strumming.  But my air guitar is exactly the opposite; right hand fretting and left plucking.  Oh well.

Still drawing too.  Have one I rather like up on the easel and another on the floor waiting for the final touches.  Two people keep insisting I apply to have a show at Art Post Uki.  Thought no no no, as I don't do Opening Nights - get quite anxious and claustrophobic at other people's opening nights.  It's such a small space and it's always packed.  How would I cope if it was mine and I couldn't run away as I usually do?  That is if my work was accepted in the first place.  One makes an application which goes away to be independently evaluated by artists not associated with APU.

Actually got on their website to have a look for an entry form.   I could have an opening night where I wasn't there - but it all seems so childish and precious - and a bit pretentious - to not attend my own opening night. 

The idea of showing my work?  No worries!  Either people like it, don't like it, or don't care either way.  That's fine.  Because as conceited as it sounds, most of my work I like.  Sure I recognize the failings of them but they speak from and to me so I'm fond of them. 

Time to walk Mikaela.

My birthday yesterday and my birthday wish was to take Mikaela to the beach.  A grand day.  She is such a good and funny dog.  She runs and grins and leaps and bounces, crashes into me or cuts me off while running.  But whatever she does she doesn't run away and comes when she's called.  That's with no dogs on the beach.  Not sure she would be so amenable if there was a white fluffy within chase distance.  Hopefully we'll never find out.  Find if we go on a weekday there are hardly any dogs!
Anyway, 63 years old and life is god.