Better every day...

My postings have been so sporadic during recovery, but I am feeling better and better, so expect things to return to normal soon.   Food finally sounds and tastes good, and my energy is starting to return (yes, I have walked down to the studio and back up the hill several times now), and I eagerly look forward to having the stamina to actually spend several hours in the studio.

What I really look forward to first though is looking through and reorganizing the "stuff" that I use to create my art.  I don't think I've actually shown you a picture of what that collection looks like, have I?  Well,  there are full shelves, as well as various boxes and Rubbermaids overflowing around on the floor that house my goodies.  While I feel it is essential to have a big assortment to draw from, there is a fine line between being inspired and being overwhelmed.  So, often sorting, reorganizing and just looking through everything is a great prelude to actually creating art.  Creative foreplay is how one artistic friend described it.

Not only do I forget what I have buried in the piles, but different things speak to me at different times.  Something that left me cold 6 months ago may create shock waves of excitement now.  Other pieces tell me, point blank, that they need to go in the outdoor, out-of-my-sight box because they doing nothing for me.  Some may even get donated back to the Goodwill bins.

I consider my art a process, and this is part of the process, the sorting and searching.  It is a time that allows my subconscious to play with what it is seeing, while my left brain thinks it is organizing.  Usually this time is followed by a huge creative burst of energy with numerous pieces coming into being quickly.

Creative block can hit us all, but if you can identify what process helps break that block, you are on your way to having control over it.  Whether it is cleaning your studio, sorting your stuff, doing a magazine photo collage, doodling, dancing, whatever mindless/thoughtless activity it is that frees you up, identify it as a major tool in your creative process and use it whenever needed.

San Francisco Show

I look out the window and see the fog nestled between the tall Douglas fir trees...and now the sun trying to cut through the fog.  Fall is definitely here.  The leaves have left the deciduous trees, so the landscape will be dominated by the evergreen forest for the coming months.

Recovery continues in fits and starts....a few good days, a few bad days.  I finally feel like I might be through the worst of it.  Eating is still the big challenge.  What can I eat that I can digest?  What holds any appeal at all? When will I be able to eat enough to not keep losing weight?  I'm sure it will all resolve in time.

Email this a.m. brought the good news that I had two pieces accepted into a show in San Francisco called ReVisions: New Creations from Scrap.  It is a recycle, upCycle, reUse show and I am thrilled to be included.  I pride myself on rescuing "junk" and turning it into art, and I love that there are so many other artists turning waste into everything from jewelry to furniture to clothing to household items.

The piece pictured above, "Sacrifice", is one of the pieces accepted.

Still in recovery mode...

While I optimistically thought I'd be a lot more up and about by this time (3 weeks after major surgery), it just isn't happening that way.  I'm still resting, reading and napping a lot, not going much of anywhere because it is simply too exhausting,  and mostly trying to find foods that hold any appeal for me and then agree with me after I eat them.  The joys of gastro-intestinal surgery.  So please bear with the lack of posts for a little longer.  I'll try to at least write something every few days.

Today Nils took my piece "The Secret" to Corvallis for the Shrines and Reliquaries show, while I (you guessed it) stayed home and napped and read.  I hope to be well enough to go see the show before it comes down the end of December.

(Moment #3, copyright Diane Lou.  5"x 2 1/2". Private collection of Marlene Ankeny.)

We're home...

I apologize for the empty period on the blog while I was hospitalized, but we came home on Thursday (could have Wednesday except that they couldn't find a pain med I could take at home that didn't nauseate me), so I'll be getting back into everything gradually.  Blogging is a great activity for recovery actually.  It doesn't take much energy at all, you get to put your thoughts down,  and later on, you can look back and see how spaced out on the pain meds you really were!

During the period when they kept trying oral pain meds on me, several induced hallucinations.

They were completely bizarre...some creative and some horrific. One was beyond wonderful.

I think I had mentioned that I was listening to a pre-surgery CD for about 2 weeks prior to surgery, and then again post surgery (it contained tracks for both).  It helped with pre-surgery anxiety, and then helps with healing afterwards. 

Anyway, listening to it in the hospital during my hallucination phase, I closed my eyes and suddenly I was about 60-80 feet above a stage looking down on a beautiful set of reds, blues and purples and a floor full of dancers in flowing costumes.  As the dancers moved, their motions created fractal-like designs, and the costumes  gradually changed colors as the background music on the CD changed (yes, all the choreography moved with the music on my healing CD). They had me on so many drugs at that point that my first thought was, "I didn't realize there was a video with this CD." (Funny....)

At that point I realized I was seeing my own response to the music and that my own brain had created the stage sets, costumes and complex choreography.  It was wonderful seeing it, and yet being awake enough to realize that.  I experimented to see if I could open my eyes and go back to it, and I could...and I could "fly" around to look at it from different perspectives.

I had 20 minutes of that, and it was pure pleasure.

Anyway, now we are home.  I am far exceeding any expectations the Dr's had of how I would feel (quite good), I am not in pain, I am relatively mentally clear (thanks to IV Vit C to clear anesthetic out of me after surgery) and I feel like my recovery has already moved way ahead.  The Dr saying I wouldn't feel like myself for 6 months, is not even close to reality.  In fact, later today I want to go check on the garden and studio, and see if I gained some new ideas for future work.

So glad to be back!

Fall and Flickr

 
 Perfection...the fall we are being gifted with this year.  Day after day of sunny, clear, cool days with crisp, chilly nights. I'm delighting in  each one, wringing each moment dry.  In a few days, I'll be under the knife, and then, for a bit of time, I won't be running up and down the hill to check on the garden or to play in the studio.

Thankfully my dear friend Jan who helped me get through recovery (via email) from the last surgery (as she was recovering from her own) has helped me once again by introducing me to Flickr.

Yes, I'd gone there to view Jan's art but hadn't really considered becoming involved or posting my art until she nudged a little.

  

If you think Facebook is a time passer (think black hole), try Flickr.  There are hundreds of thousands if not millions (my guess) of pieces of art to look at and to leave comments on. Some

are mediocre, some excellent.  There are friends and contacts to make and to email. With it being an international art community,  I am now in contact with people from France, Germany, England and Nova Scotia as well as Portland...and that's in just two days!

Truly, what a gift right now.  Even while I am spending those days in the hospital, I can use my laptop and distract myself from tubes and discomfort and enter into a never-ending, ever-changing world of art!  Thanks, my dear friend.

P.S. My Flickr name is assemblageartist (can't believe no one had it). Jan's is akaLunaMoonbeam 

Another piece....

Around the outer edge of the inner box is the following sentence, cut from words in a book:

"I cry in the time of the new moon, a roaring heart in the night season, my bones are like melted wax, and all I am poured out like water from my mother's breasts."

The pine needle nest has rusted nails protruding, and the pendulum does indeed swing.

(Mother's Milk, copyright Diane Lou.  Approximately 24x14x5")

The Secret

I have always loved shrines and reliquaries, and actually just love the words themselves.  They evoke something mystical, secretive and enticing...and they invite search and discovery.

In November and December, the Corvallis Art Center will have a show called Shrines and Reliquaries which I am happy to be a part of with this piece.  The box that became the reliquary was found on a good day at Goodwill.  This old black box with metal corner protectors and a replaced handle nearly flew off the shelves into my hands a few days after I found out about the show.  I knew immediately that this was the beginning of my piece.

It sat on my worktable for a week or two, open and in an upright position while I waited for inspiration.  The first thing that came to me was to divide the right hand side, so I cut a piece of foamcore and made a shelf.  The second thing was to use some frayed canvas with a transfer of old text on it as a background for the left side.  (Sorry, the detail is pretty limited in this photo).

From that point I started playing with the left side, using an old tintype, a small black box, some buttons, and other things.  The lower right meanwhile began filling with an assortment of torn letters/secrets, which were then rolled up, tied and glued into place (a source of huge frustration to many).  I like having the viewer so want to pull them out and open them up and read them.  It evokes an emotion similar to peeking into someone else's private things. Sort of scary and anxiety-producing, but very alluring too.

The top right filled with a favorite family photo of mine of my great grandparents, their homestead on the plains of Kansas, and a few of their 16 children.  The sense of desolation

in the photo (and the empathy I feel for my great-grandmother) have always been very powerful to me, and I have used the photo in several art pieces.  A bottle dangling in the center of the roof-like space holds another "secret" written in Braille. 

Another glorious fall day here.  I'm off to walk to the garden to see if it frosted there.  It was 34 this a.m. at the house.  Enjoy the day!