Where I’ve Been

It’s been such a long time since I’ve updated my blog.  My time has been consumed for the last 18 months by my parents’ health (or lack thereof).  Counting hospitalizations, rehab facilities, and moving into assisted living facilities, poor Mom and Dad slept in eleven different rooms in a year and a half — sometimes alone, sometimes together.  Disorienting for them, exhausting for me!  Actually — disorienting enough that they both developed anesthesia-induced dementia following surgical procedures.  Dad died at the end of May.  Mom remembers Dad’s gone on some days, and spends other days with him yet.  61 years of marriage causes old habits to die hard!

Bowing out on Boylan Heights ArtWalk 2010 and what’s next . . .

After much consideration and another sleepless night, I’ve decided not to set up my porch for Boylan Heights ArtWalk today.  It’s been freezing for the past four ArtWalks.  Two years ago, after standing in the cold for the whole day, I had a fibromyalgia flare and could barely move for days afterward.  This year it’s even colder, the economy’s Bushed, and my parents both need huge amounts of my attention.  We close on their house next week, and I’ve still got to empty it out, get good pieces sold and others picked up by Goodwill/Veterans/whoever, and hire someone to haul away the 50-year-old beds.  The kids have trucked away the big pieces, but the linen closet, china cabinet, and kitchen still need to be sorted. 

Add to this that the parental units are desperately unhappy at the assisted living place we moved them into in August.  I’m conflicted about the level of care they receive there and have trouble sorting out Mom’s complaints vs. reality vs. what I’ve seen firsthand.  What I see there firsthand is not reassuring.  The nurses are supposed to give me two-week’s notice when meds are low so I can mail order them through my parents prescription service:  for the past two weekends, I’ve had calls from the medical technicians notifying me that Mom and/or Dad are completely out of something.  Mom complained of a UTI last week and I sent email to the head nurse and notified the medical technician in person that she needed to be put on the schedule to see the doctor when he came on Friday.  I spent five hours with my parents waiting for the doctor, in case I had to fill a prescription for her.  When I left at 2 pm, the front desk told me he was still in the building and my parents were still on his list.  Mom says he never showed up.  And then there’s the laundry – lost, bleached, ruined – I have to replace something every week.  The food service – no napkins, dirty silverware, and ask the impatient staff at least twice for anything else you need.  And little things like Mom can’t work the tv or the phone and I can’t reach anyone to help her, or I find Dad wearing his hearing aids with no batteries in them, if he’s wearing them at all.  Dad’s incontinent, but they can’t seem to keep a waterproof pad on his stuffed chair. 

Lord knows Mom is difficult to care for and Dad requires a huge amount of attention, but isn’t that part of the job description?  This place is rated highly and costs $8500 a month.  We’ve been working on getting Dad’s veterans benefits for three months and are told it will be another three months before action is taken.  I’ve used up and closed their IRA and savings accounts.

Add to this that Mom was relatively active up until this summer, when a fall led to a string of health complications necessitating five hospitalizations in four months.  Dad was diagnosed with anesthesia-induced dementia last spring and completely fell apart when Mom was hospitalized the first time.  During her most recent hospitalization, Mom became delirious, paranoid and suffered hallucinations.  Now she, too, is demented. 

I think I’ve justified to myself why I’m not going to spend the day standing on a cold porch watching hundreds of people not spending any money.  Why don’t I feel any better?   

Nightmare

I keep waking up with a recurring nightmare:  My mother is in constant uncontrolled pain with a broken back.  My father has Alzheimers.

My mother has been admitted to the hospital four times in the last two months, has been in an emergency room seven times, and in an ambulance six times.  In the midst of this, I’ve moved her to an assisted living facility, put her house up for sale, switched her doctors, and taken control of my dad’s care.  She’s been on pain medications since July 4th and isn’t quite sure where she is or how she got there.  Or who’s on her side.

My always-fastidious father is alone in bed for this first time in his 60-year married life, in a home that isn’t his, among dozens of caregivers who flit in and out of his little apartment like fireflies, speaking in accents he can’t comprehend.  He doesn’t know where his hearing aids are and the staff is in constant flux and don’t understand that he doesn’t hear anything but indecipherable noise without them.  He’s got macular degeneration and is legally blind.  He’s become totally incontinent in the last eight weeks and there’s a faeces stain on the carpet next to his bed.  He’s surrounded by dirty laundry — I’m paying this place a fortune but his laundry day is Thursday and his shower days are Wednesday and Friday.  (What Nurse Ratchet character decided that a 180-lb. six-foot-tall incontinent adult needs a shower two days a week?)

In May of last year, Mom read an article in the local newspaper about a heart surgeon who had discovered a minimally-invasive way of performing open heart surgery.  My parents met with this hot-dog surgeon and signed up for his services.  He told my Dad he’d have the bounce back in his step and feel like a 60-year-old man again.  Dad was 84-years-old at the time and three years in remission from surgery and chemotherapy for colon cancer.   Anyone who looked at him knew he was not a candidate for open heart surgery.  Dad is now less mobile than he ever was, suffering overall weakness, tremors, and anesthesia-induced dementia.  I’m not making this up:  that’s what it says on his 12-page cognition report.

A Ning site that’s new (to me)

Visit Silk Painting Gallery Network

Whimsical Things

Scrolling through BBEST listings on Etsy confirmed that BBEST is a gifted team of artists and crafters.  Some of my recent favorites:

You can always count on ZudaGay to come up with elegant clay forms.  If anyone could make a black bird whimsical, it’s Zuda.  She’s quite a master of her medium.

 

 

 

 

 

Imaginuity combines vintage beads with wonderful crocheted shapes to creative stunning asymmetrical pieces like this choker.

 

 

Colours and Textures has such a lovely light touch in her watercolors and silk paintings, they always look like fairy gardens to me. 

 

 

Vivid color and abstract shapes make this painting by Heronkate a real standout.  The collage-like textures show Kate’s skills as a trompe l’oiel artist. 

 

 

 

When talking of VanFleetStreetDesign’s work, surreal is probably a more appropriate term than whimsical.   It’s a treat to see her mastering digital media.   (I also really like Two Feathers.)

 

 

 

Of course in my humble opinion, nothing says whimsy quite as well as Make Your Presents Felt’s egg cozies. I think she actually pinched these off the tiny heads of the elves that must watch over her garden.  

 

And when speaking of gardens, it’s mandatory to mention The Filigree Garden, whose jewelry is inspired by her magical garden.  Her work and her blog are always wonders to behold.  Perhaps Liv and Chrissie share the same elf gardeners?   Hmmmm . . . . .

Apropos of nothing, I really enjoy this picture from Liv’s blog: 

This old dog may just retire . . .

Trying to make a web business go on a ten-year-old computer was causing me no end of headaches.  In an act of total kindness, my hub decided to get me a brand spanking new computer last fall.

Well . . .

My web site crashed. Windows 7 uses a file storage system called “Libraries” so Dreamweaver software couldn’t find the trail to the files.

Hub spends hours on the phone with HP tech support.
The new computer’s video card shut down Illustrator, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver.

My kids upload a newer version of Photoshop and Illustrator. Illustrator doesn’t have any fonts. I can’t figure out how to do the simple things I used to do on Photoshop and can’t deal with the new Bridge and InDesign functions. Windows 7 doesn’t recognize Photoshop or Dreamweaver file extensions and only gives me the option of saving them into “Adobe Bridge.” Before I know it, Windows 7 converts all .htm files to Firefox files, thus preventing me from actually editing them.

I’m advised by friends to buy an Apple. Hub points out how expensive they are and how I’d have to learn all new software. I have absolutely no inclination to learn anything new.

Hub spends hours on the phone with HP tech support and replaces phone batteries.

I perform a system restore to my stand-alone hard drive, so as not to lose any files.  From this point on, whenever I open a file, I go thru the following breadcrumb trail:

• >open\
• Computer\
• Free Agent Drive K:\
• System Recovery Files\
• 2010-02-07 123812\
• C\
• Users\
• Janine\
• Documents\ etc., etc.

I gradually start moving files to my desktop so I can find them.

HP sends a specialist in January to replace the video card, but the screen still blacks out and shuts down programs repeatedly.

Hub spends hours on the phone with HP tech support.

In February, we did another system restore to the hard drive, boxed up the new computer and sent it to HP. Two weeks later we got it back and I again started moving the files I was working on to the desktop so I could keep track of which files were the most recent updates.

The computer continued to suffer spells — it puts the back of its hand to its forehead and swoons. So do I. It is arbitrarily shutting down, freezing up and blacking out. So am I. I’m advised by friends to buy an Apple. Hub points out how expensive they are and how I’d have to learn all new software. I have absolutely no inclination to learn anything new.

I spend hours on the phone with HP tech support.

I spend hours on the phone with HP tech support and replace phone batteries.

I spend hours on the phone with HP tech support and get mad. I’m transferred to a specialist who only knows one line: “I’ll send you a box and you can return the computer to us for restaging.” I point out that my hub has found all kinds of forums online discussing the fact that HP’s video card doesn’t work with Windows 7, so I don’t see the point of sending the computer back again. He doesn’t know anything about that and sends me a box.

I don’t send the computer back. Seems pointless.

I decide to just take a step at a time and redo my web site. I spend hours on the phone with GoDaddy.

I replace phone batteries and spend hours on the phone with GoDaddy.

I get my new website up and my two domains communicating with each other. Eureka.

I go into Dreamweaver to update all dependent site pages. Dreamweaver launches but won’t respond to any commands.

I spend hours on the phone with Adobe Dreamweaver tech support and am informed that they don’t support old versions of Dreamweaver with Windows 7. I’m advised to buy the new Creative Suite for $1800.

I log onto my old computer which is now hub’s new computer. When I log in under my name I can access Dreamweaver and old file sites, but can’t access the separate hard drive.

When I try to log in under hub’s id, it asks me for a password. Hub is out of town. I’m advised by friends to buy an Apple. I have absolutely no inclination to learn anything new.

I go to the library and then to the bakery.

Hot silk dyes, cool results

Experimenting with new processes in color makes for a really fun collection of spring scarves!

Teaching what you know

  If you be a lover of instruction, you will be well instructed.
        —Isocrates+

When I insisted on attending art school instead of a traditional university, my mother balked.  She kept insisting that I at least study teaching art, so I’d have something to “fall back on.”  However well intentioned and practical her advice was, I determined never to be a teacher.  So — how odd to find myself teaching now that I’m in my 50s and have much less patience than when I was younger.  I tend to be less than organized, to be polite about it, and often can’t see the forest for the trees, but I’m learning.  It never dawned on me that a grown person wouldn’t know you had to rinse your brush periodically, until a student asked me why her entire painting was brown. 

Instruction does not prevent waste of time or mistakes; and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.
         — James Anthony Froude

I thought it was lip service when I heard teachers say they learned as much from their students as the students learned from them.  It’s true!  Preparing lessons forces one to really think through their process, and watching others come up with solutions for their ideas can lead you in all kinds of new directions.  Creating ways to teach what you do in a limited time frame is also a great exercise. I’ve been silk painting for over 20 years and was stumped when Jerry’s Artarama asked me to teach a two-hour class.  After wandering around the store with my hands in my pockets for a while, I came up with a short project idea that would whet students’ appetites.  It came off quite well and each student’s project was completely different from mine or anyone else’s. 

Sharing knowledge does not diminish one’s talent.
— Me

Which leads me to a point often brought up by artists and crafters:  why teach someone else to do the thing you’re trying to make your living at?  Aren’t they just out to steal your ideas?  Am I shooting myself in the foot by sharing my ideas?  No, no and no!  Teaching a person to read doesn’t mean they can write your story, does it?  Teaching someone a skill can often make them appreciate more fully what goes into the making of your art.  Altruism pays!          

+Isocrates the orator, not Socrates the philosopher, in case you were worried about that.

A Culturally Wealthy Group of Women

The most recent silk painting group at Pullen Art Center was an especially great class, since the group included women whose countries of origin ranged from Denmark, Greece, Israel, Poland, France, and Russia.   It was a culturally wealthy, not to mention very talented group of women!  They hit the ground running, so eager to get started, and made wonderful things in and out of class.  It’s always mesmerizing to me to watch the way color floats across the silk.  It was such a gift to watch each of these women get hooked on the process.  I’m always tempted to say, “the first one’s free,” at the initial class, as if I’m offering something illicit.

I really hope you all keep up the good work – you’re all so talented!  You’ve encouraged me to work on proposals for continuing and advanced classes at Pullen Arts! 

(You can see more class photos on my Flickr site.)

My get-up-and-go got up and went . . .

in regard to promotion efforts.  I’ve had such a great few weeks travelling and visiting museums that all I want to do is get into my studio and sort out all the ideas rampaging through my brain.  That coupled with the fact that my new computer had to be sent back to the manufacturer has got me out of the blog habit.

Hub and I took the train the New York this month, and it’s a good thing he loves museums as much as I do.  The crowds were amazing considering it was January and frigid.  The city is so outrageous, I think we could spend each visit just people watching.   

The Guggenheim‘s Kandinsky retrospective was the biggest draw in getting us to New York.  We spent hours going through it, mostly on the early and transitional work.  Considering the Spiritual in Art and the phenomenon of synesthesia have contributed more than anything else to my art journey.

Georgia O’Keeffe at the Whitney didn’t do much for me, but the Roni Horn show was mesmerizing.  I was also looking forward to visiting NYU’s Center for Ancient Studies.  The exhibit was great, but the signage was irritating.

Hub is the greatest travel agent, researching everything beforehand and taking me to sites previously unknown (to me, anyway).  The Rubin Museum was such a treat — a beautiful museum and each show on its six floors was fascinating and beautifully presented.  They’ve got a terrific web application so you can build your own mandala.

We were both smitten by Andrea Dezso’s tunnel books at the Museum of Art and Design.   If you can’t make it to the museum for Slash: Paper Under The Knife, visit the website.

From Klimt to Klee at the Neue Gallery celebrates the museum’s founder more than the artists, but it’s always worth it to see Klee’s work.  (And they’ve got a terrific book shop.)

Now I need to get to the Cloisters to see The Art of Illumination.  The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry is unbound for the first time in many years.  I’ll have to convince Hub that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.