Well, time flies. It has been more than a month since I posted. I am working on a piece for a gallery show called View from Above, View from Below. Or that is, I should be working on a piece for this gallery show. I have the idea, I have a sketch, but I haven't started yet. My first step would be making a tree; not so hard to do. I am hoping to have it done in the next several days.
I made a new journal cover. I inset a wooden mini casement window which open to reveal - ta da! - whatever image I put behind it. Perhaps a woman sitting at a window? We'll see.
This summer I have been to brooks, found many stones with holes, convoluted shapes, and fascinating grotesqueries, and even made necklaces out of some of them. I got to Doylestown to see the art on loan from the Uffizzi Museum in Florence, which I remember dimly from my childhood. I finally finished my Spring book/journal . . . But somehow, this has been a slightly gray summer.
Right now, there is a lot going on in my life. One of my two best friends had a small stroke after surgery, impacting the peripheral vision in her left eye. Her daughters, who live in Seattle, panicked and strong-armed her into moving into assisted living in Seattle just one and a half days after her release from the hospital. No time to say goodbye to the house she lived in for 40 years, or her friends, or her town, or her life. And for what? The loss of some peripheral vision? She was in such a vulnerable condition, and they literally forced her into it. She has been there about a week and a half, and is miserable, and told one of her daughters, from whom she has taken a lot of guff and for whom she has done a great deal, and the daughter basically said, "No way are we letting you go back to Princeton."
Letting her? But my friend is still very psychologically shaken, and said to me "I guess I'll just have to make the best of it." Her house is still there, most of her clothes, books, and belongings are still there, all of her furniture except one chair a friend took and can return is still there, and my friend doesn't need assisted living - so just why shouldn't she come home?
Last Friday, one of my mother's best friends would have died if I had not come to visit her. It was very frightening, and reminded me all the more of the fragility of life and the constant change and unpredictability all around.
And I have given notice at the school where I teach art that I am not returning for the Fall term.
So much change. I feel quite unsteady, and even vulnerable. I believe good comes out of everything, although we may not, with our limited capacities, be able to recognize it; so I believe good will come out of all this as well, but it doesn't mean that it is easy.
