July is over

Well, July is almost over and I have accomplished a few things. I got the living room and kitchen cleaned up..Jeni was doing a movie and she came over and took a lot of crap out of the yard and I gave my extension ladder to my neighbor so the yard is showing promise. I started on the garage because it will fall down without help. Hoping to finish it up by next month (Aug) I finished teaching my class and worked a little on art but didn't complete much. I will promise myself that I will work more on my Art ideas in August...that, and finish up the Garage stuff. I did get the form to make a trust and I have filled it out. I am chipping away with the things on my list that really need to be done...I am a good girl. We'll see what August will bring. I feel hopeful that things are indeed changing.

Monday/breaktime

Well, this is turning into a blog that has to do with clutter as much as creativity. I am thinking a lot about the way I spend my days and what I like and what I want to change. I have tackled the clutter in my living room and am moving into the kitchen. I went to Jan Book's race for Gene yesterday and then met Joyce for lunch. We did a little for her house in Baja and then talked more about clutter. I believe that there is a tendency to live in my imagination more than I live in my real life. I imagine that I WILL be doing things that I never end up doing in reality. I have to buy and keep stuff to do the things that I imagine I will do. BUT...I never really get around to doing most of the stuff I imagine. I do a few things...just enough to keep me believing that I will, in fact do more...so, I have to keep the stuff in order to have it available when I do the projects that I only imagine I will do. This probably does not make sense..but it does to me. Also, I am learning that OCD is a component of the clutter problem and I can see that I do have some very compulsive traits in terms of acquiring things...books are a good example...it is very hard for me to give up a book...I have to do it fast, like taking a bandaid off...if I think about it too long I talk myself into the idea that I will need that book in the future...in case. Also, I am a person who believes that if one is good, I probably need at least 12 more...in case. I think that this problem (maybe disorder) was a bonus in my years taking care of the house and family. If I stocked up on toilet paper or soap or packaged goods that we used and I got a good price, why, I was just being an efficient homeowner. If I bought dress up stuff for the garage for Melly and the girlfriends to play with, why, that was just being a good mom who allowed for creativity and fun. And, my collection of science fiction books and cook books, etc was just to remind me that I have an intellect. etc, etc, etc..I would be the perfect Junk Shop owner...because I could acquire to sell and use my compunction as a money maker. Anyway, these are the thoughts that occupy my mind these last few days and so I have made no Art...but...I think I am on to something and creativity has many forms. I am using my own creative juices right now to solve this real problem. This problem that is based in the real world I live in day to day and not in the world of the imagination where I am a groovy Artist who lives to create. I will now give myself a break.

Nibbling away at it...

So, I spent yesterday organizing all the things for collage that were stacked up under the desk...feel pretty good about that. I also pasted some art work I wanted for inspiration into my notebook. This was a very good thing to do, and I feel that I am making a dent in the dis-organization that plagues me. I also put two coats of paint on an old Barbie doll that I want to re-work...It is odd because there are 3 different materials that make her up...the legs are either rubber or a flexible plastic...took the paint well. The body is a rigid plastic...took the paint only OK. The arms are another type of plastic that did not take the paint at all. The head is the same as the body. I will have to remove the paint I put on and then primer everything first...or, I can coat everything with sizing and gold leaf her and then paint into that. I have more than one of these Barbies to work with so I may just leaf the one I am working on now and know that sanding is not enough for the paint and that I will have to prime first always. It seems that I am nibbling away at the things I want to do. I have also been out to the Garage to get stuff for my class and looked things over. Don has offered to help me clear it up and even offered his guy Richard who can shore up the Garage...we"ll see. I would really like to get it all done and organized again. I also need to get to the furniture that is out there and START PAINTING!!!!!I must stop procrastinating about the furniture. Anyway, I am moving along at my own pace which is probably too slow for everyone else. As Andrew always says "oh well". Eating the elephant, one bite at a time.

A little work

So, I did a little work since last time. I worked on the small square
"F" that I had done for calligraphy and I set all the images and then shadowed and varnished several coats. I also shadowed and detailed another piece that is an angel figure on an eye with a stylized snake and using that same blue tree that I did earlier...also varnished that one. They are done and I am going to begin with my piece about the dancing figures cut out and adhered and then leafed and aged. The figures are drawn and cut out and I just think that I have to beef them up a little so the forms will be defined under the leaf. I will either re cut them or just paint a few coats on the ones I cut to make them thicker. I am also thinking that I need to draw more and maybe not rely so much on the pictures from magazines. The magazine cutting is getting more and more obsessive...my obsessiveness is not a bad thing, it just needs to be more directed toward something that is more Important to me in the long run..ie..something I can show, sell, have as a body of work. I am still confused about all this process. I really do believe in the importance of the process vs the product. The only trouble is that the product lets you eat and pay rent. Too bad. I need a patron or a lotto win. 7/7/07 is coming in two days and I will buy a lotto ticket. It is supposed to be the luckiest day ever. I do love the future, it always holds promise. Makes you want to sing "Tomorrow". I wish I were more like Melly...She just decides to do a new thing and feels no compunction to take 4,000 classes to study it, she just begins to do it. That is a quality that I seem to be lacking...but the past does not mean that you have to keep repeating. Tomorrow IS another day, and I can really just start doing things a different way anytime I decide to. I am, not, after all a piece of seaweed in the surf...even though I like to think in terms of that image. I have a brain and legs and a good strong body. I can do anything that I choose to do. The word is CHOOSE. Tomorrow WILL be another day and the rest of today as well. I am CHOOSING to make a change right now. Done.

By the way

I was looking over the blog and realized it did not update the new medication...I will not take it. I woke up at 3AM on a Sunday and I could not breathe. I had to pull hard to get air in and my heart felt like it was "too full" of blood. Like it was going to pop..This after nausea that lasted for several days...so I will just live with out of rythm, thank you. Some truths are just self-evident.

Well Hell, it's July

It is July...Time keeps flying...Saw SICKO and EVENING over the weekend...both really good movies. AND...I worked on collage this week, or should I say last week. Did something with the "f" I did in calligraphy class that makes me laugh. And I am working on yet another Original Sin thing. I really need to do some less structured pieces. It is getting so that all I look for are hands and apples and, of course girls and women. I never seem to really get the snake in there..or the tree...at least not much..Anyway, I am working, however slowly. Heart is out of rythm today...I wish I knew exactly what the trigger is..oh well. Took money out of my CD for the next three mos. bills so I really need to get it up to make some bucks soon. Seems really stupid for me to be worried about making money when I am sitting on a LOT of equity...but, I am not impressed with reverse mortgages and I do not want a huge monthly nut to take care of..I will figure this out..it is, after all, part of the creative process to work with things like money as well as painting or collage work...or so I tell myself. EVENING is about a woman who is dying and she has flashbacks to her youth...I have been having a lot of memories lately and I am thinking that I need to hie myself to the library and grab a cubicle and just write for a while...it is cool in here and quiet and the cubicles enclose you visually so you can concentrate...also the chairs are not half bad as far as comfort is concerned. This is a really good idea...wonder what I will do with it. It is SO HOT outside...even here at the beach and I hear on the news that it is over 100+ in the valley, etc. Here I am, talking about the weather when I should really be heading home to work on my collage AND to get busy with all the damned furniture in the garage. Who knows how all this will turn out. Not me.