The Slippery Slope

One may be forgiven for feeling creaky when it's time to apply for Medicare.  It is after all, a watershed moment.  Luckily, someone alerted me that it must be done within three months before  turning 65.  I'm not sure what happens if you miss the deadline.  Perhaps you have to wait until you are 130.

I came upon a true indicator of advanced age in the dentist office while waiting to have a tooth extracted, the hole packed with cadaver bone, all in preparation for an implant.  It used to be the only benefit of visiting the dentist was the wait room filled with copies of People Magazine.  Imagine my dismay when I realized I have no idea who the featured people were.  I am so removed from hip culture that Nicki Minaj might as well be the new pomegranate flavoring.

Books of a Feather

                     "Take your Choice" by John Frederick Peto. 

   I love books.  Who doesn't, you might suppose, but there are those among us who do not read.
   I come from a family of writers.  My father wrote best sellers.  My mother wrote and illustrated "Jerry the Giraffe" in 1945. (The copyright page affirms "This is a wartime book produced in full compliance with government regulations for conservation of paper and other essential materials.") One brother has written several well-received scholarly books.  And then of course, I added to the pile of felled trees.
  My daughter, a voracious reader, designs books.  She could make more money if she took her skills elsewhere, but she loves finding 'her' books in stores.
   Last post I was de-cluttering the house.  If I were serious about purging, I would start with the books.  But I can't.    Books aren't 'friends', as some have claimed.  But the good ones become a part of you, echoing throughout your life.  I would never treat books as they are pictured in Peto's painting (above) but I do mark passages and turn down corners.  Some pages may sport the occasional food stain.  My father was even more vigorous with his books, sometimes tearing whole chapters from the binding (to be used as research).  Not just for the mind,  books are visceral, meant to hugged or even thrown across the room.
   My husband is a steady reader.  We used to share books.  No more.  I bought him a dreaded kindle for Christmas as his heavy computer bag was tearing at his joints.  Secretly, I hoped he'd hate it, as I know I would.  He loves it.  Bastard.
   In the late 80's I could not find a publisher for my fifth novel.  My agent called to say I had been offered a contract for an electronic book.  I laughed and said, don't be ridiculous. No one is ever going to read a whole book on a computer.

Four Bags Full

People like pear paintings, or so I hear.  Not only do I have several pear paintings languishing in my inventory, I still have all the artificial pears from the above painting.  Multiply that times countless still lifes and then add 'possible' still lifes.   My husband has complained often that our house is stuffed to the gills.  He issued a directive: 'nothing comes in unless something goes out.'  For years I have smiled and nodded and then snuck in still life objects while he was on the golf course.  When bad weather strikes, and my back is turned, he de-clutters.  He doesn't tell me what he has tossed. This is insidious on so many levels. I spend months searching for something never knowing if it is even still in the house.
   This weekend I bought a French tin ribbon wreath at Great Stuff by Paul.  I tried to hang it and realized to my horror, my husband was right.  There is not a blank 14" wallspace left in the house.
   So I am purging.  Emptying drawers and cupboards with abandon.  It feels great, until a month from now I need something I tossed. 
 

Oh Happy Day...

   On the last day of the year, as one is thinking of the year gone by and preparing to embrace the next, are there any words less festive than, "You need a root canal."  Knowing the first weeks of the 2013 will involve repeated dental appointments, I am loathe to make a single resolution.   I mean really, why bother? 
   It puts me in mind of a quote from one of my favorite authors, S.J. Perelman:  "Every twelve years I drop whatever I am doing and allow wild horses to drag me to the dentist."
   

Will Scar for Art

Carol Dupre's seminar "Potential Space and the Found" has ended.  I will miss being confounded weekly.  She promises us the Brothers Grimm and their deeply twisted fairy tales next semester.  I learned much this time, though I would be hard put to explain it.  Best to adopt a nod and a knowing smile.
Our "found" project is still in the works.  I chose to do an ontology (look it up, I had to).
Apparently, paintings of scars are big in the art world just now.  I don't mean to brag, but I have many scars. (The only better news for me would be if Ruben-esque women were to be declared the avatar of healthy womanhood.)  So my canvas is a grid of nine squares.  It will be titled, "A Sum of my Parts".  The center grid will depict of woman with a migraine (they were central to my life for many decades).
 For scars there's my knee replacement gone bad, my double back surgery, my hysterectomy, my ectopic pregnancy, my twisted colon, my skin cancer...
When this piece is done, the art world will be my oyster. (And should the knife  slip while opening said oyster, I'll have a series.)

Passing Addictions

   This much I know to be true: Peanut Butter is my gateway drug.  Not just any PB, certainly not smooth, or natural (with its enticing pond of natural oils sitting on top).  JIF Crunchy is my Waterloo.  It's my go-to drug.  I have a long history with peanut butter.  As a teen I took long baths. My family speculated that I was doing something intimate.  I was: eating spoonfuls of peanut butter.  I can judge my adherence to a diet by how much I crave my JIF.  When off the wagon and eating late at night in front of the tv, I have found myself eating JIF.  I fall asleep, jerk awake, and eat more. 
    This being Thanksgiving week, food looms large. Even discounting peanut butter, I am a serial food addict.  Something catches my fancy and I eat it all the time, for about six months and then I'm done, never want to eat it again.  I've done this with Dove ice cream bars, bagels, Trader Joe meringues, lime yogurt with almonds, peppermint candy, those styrofoam wheat pops, caesar salads, fresh tomatoes, baked potatoes,peanut butter/banana/chocolate chip sandwiches, and buttercream icing.  Something triggers in me and it won't let go for months.  I can not have ice cream in the house or home baked goods.
   My current constant is McCann's oatmeal with sunflower seed butter and dried sour cherries.  Every morning for seven months.  I'm beginning to tire of it, which means another obsession is around the corner.
    The good news is I haven't had JIF in 8 months. My acupuncturist said peanuts were toxic to my  system. These days I am drinking Aloe Juice and curcumin pills to heal.  What fun!

The wheels keep on grinding...

   Once, many years ago, I got stoned.  I liked  the mellow and the munchies of the sixties.  This was the nineties and pot had intensified.  I felt like the inside of my body was rotating in one direction, while the outside of my body was rotating in another.
   I bring this up because I am having a similar reaction but without the grass.  Stasis on the outside, turmoil on the inside.  I'm not painting at home, or stretching canvases or in any fashion, productive.  My mind is whirling with ideas but there is a short-circuit.  I am taking a seminar with Carol Dupre, "Potential Space and the Found".  I knew I was in trouble when I didn't understand the class description. ( Do you know what a vulgate is?)  Carol is a brilliant painter and she has spurred many an artist to make the leap.  I wasn't in the mood to leap, but I figured it couldn't hurt to look over the edge.
    Apparently, it has disconnected my intent from my action.  It is supposed to be a painting class, but so far we haven't touched paint.  I don't even bother bringing paint to class.  We've made clay heads, looked at death masks, read "By Night in Chile" by Roberto Bolano.  (Excellent book about Pinochet's reign, but it is one paragraph, 118 pages long.)  We've seen and dissected the movie, "Perfume: the history of a murderer."  Lovely, twisted images to fire the synapses.  "Pan's Labyrinth" is next.  Last week we read about paradigm shifts in science.  I love what I have learned from this, but it seems to have immobilized me.