A new painting inspired by Olls ,,,

"Energy"

It seems, for the present anyway, painting abstraction has become the preferred style of my Muse. She really liked Olls' comment on my Yahoo 360 page (will not post a link because it always screws up and goes to an old entry) the other day and had me painting in the studio until 1:00 am this morning. Well, Okay then, I’m not going to fight with Muse. As a matter of fact, I’m enjoying it tremendously. I’m excited. I’m filled with ideas. I’m contemplating buying some very large canvases. I’m running amok. I want to giggle like a school girl and roll naked in paint. Eck! Now that’s a scary vision, is it not?

I’ve been trying to sit down and type something witty and entertaining for y’all, but Muse keeps dragging me back down the hall into the studio. Blogging is taking a back seat to painting. Which, in all honesty, is exactly as it should be, don’t ya’ think?

Anyway, here’s the new abstract entitled "Energy", which I'm dedicating the creation of to Olls. It's an acrylic (with copper glitter) on a 24" x 36", 3/4" gallery wrap canvas. The image doesn’t really show the texture and variation in colors as well as I would like, but just use your imagination .... after all, it’s an abstract.

Namaste y'all ...

As promised ...

Okie-dokie, I told y'all yesterday that I would post a 'work-in-progress' image of the current abstract, so here it is. The canvas is a 1.5" deep gallery wrap and measures 30" x 40", portrait grade. Kinda' big, but I felt like doing a large piece. I don't know, I just prefer working large when I do an abstract. More room to work I suppose.

Unfortunately, I could not get accurate color representation on all of the canvas. There are a couple of areas that don't show as much color and detail as is really there. You also can't see the texture well, nor the hundreds of tiny white and light blue paint splatters resembling star clusters. Ah well, at least it will give y'all an idea of what's happening in my studio.

I'm still debating on what needs to be added. I'm tossing around a couple of ideas and I had thought I would make a decision last night ... alas, didn't happen. As I lay in bed trying to fall asleep I kept 'painting in my head'. This, just so ya' know, is not unusual in the least. More often than not, it's precisely what I'm doing when I'm trying to fall asleep ... I'm mentally painting. I've probably painted a gazillion images a gazillion different ways over the years. Sure would be nice if I could actually get some of them painted! Of course, the down side is I have nowhere to keep that many paintings, so maybe it's better 97% of them stay right where they are ... in my head.

Back to the abstract. I've really enjoyed the whole process of doing this painting, seeing where it's going. For me, that's what doing an abstract is all about, the evolution of the work. It's unplanned, almost creating itself. Rarely do I ever prop it up to look at it from a distance as I do with portraits or even mixed-media collages. The canvas stays flat on the floor and I work around it. Hard on the knees, but I'm not comfortable working on them any other way.

This time, I let color decide what's to be done. The bright blue started the process and it went from there. I often squint my eyes while looking at the work. "Ah! a little bit of yellow over here ..." or "Hmmm, I think maybe some green in this corner - with maybe a touch in the other corner to balance it out." Then there are the "Oh! I'll toss some alcohol in this spot of wet paint and see what happens." kinds of moments. So forth and so on. It's been entirely intuitive painting.

It's also incredibly liberating, working this way. Portraiture, while I do indeed love it, is tedious and controlled. Very little is spontaneous or hap-hazardly done. There is a type of focus and concentration required with portraits. Especially when done with watercolor. Unlike working a portrait in acrylic, watercolor must be handled differently, with a great deal of control of the paint. At least, that's how I use watercolor. The ratio of paint to water, water to paper, water and pigment to the brush must be taken into account. And you have to be conscious of where you are working with watercolor ... unless you want bleed, you must not paint in hair next to the face if the face area is wet. You can't paint in the background behind the head if the hair area is wet. Etc. Etc. Etc. It's all much more complicated.

When you add in the extra issues of a portrait being a commissioned piece, it's somewhat like being strapped into an artistic straight jacket. The process can be challenging, you learn a great deal with each commission, your skill with the medium becomes more refined, but often the enjoyment of the process of creating the work is much less. Sadly, this is a concession many artists must make in order to earn a living. Commissions are the bread and butter ... the rest is blackberry jam.

But acrylic allows you more 'room to maneuver', unless of course, you paint with it like watercolors ... after all, it is an aquarelle medium, just more opaque then transparent. Still, with acrylic you can paint wet next to wet, you can paint over areas you messed up or don't like, and you can manipulate the paint in ways that you cannot with watercolor. So there is a freedom with using acrylic that is, for me, a wonderful experience after doing a commissioned portrait. Working in abstract, is even better. Too bad abstract is not a genre of painting that really sells all that well.

Generally speaking, people don't understand abstract. They want to look at a painting and know what it is they are looking at without having to think about it, without having to use their imaginations. They want landscapes and seascapes and pictures of flowers in a vase. They are uncomplicated and are far easier to match up to the color of their curtains or their bedspread. And too, people don't always like to venture too far from what family and friends like, even if their own inclinations in art run in a different direction. They like to fit in. Somehow, owning an abstract makes you deviant from the norm.

Well, guess I'm a deviant. Not only do I like them, I own a couple ... and ... I even create them. *hee hee*

But I'm digressing on an art rant and I suppose I should save that for another time. Anyway, hope y'all enjoy the preview of the work. I'm going to go fix some dinner, pop in a movie, and then snuggle in bed early. Have a good evening ....

Driven to abstraction ...

Yes, I realize I've been neglectful of my blogging duties for a few days but I have an excuse ... at long last, I've been in the studio working on a painting. *Woo Hoo! Hello, Muse, I've missed you!* I spoke in a previous post about doing an abstract and yep, can't fool you guys, it's exactly what I've been doing ... and I'm enjoying myself tremendously, too.

Nope, I'm not yet ready to post a 'work in progress' image just yet, y'all are just going to have to be a little patient with me on that, but it's almost ready for viewing. Maybe tomorrow. Some friends have already seen it laying in the middle of the studio floor, and have remarked favorably on it, so that's good. Always nice to get positive feedback.

Quite honestly, I was a bit surprised with the direction the painting has taken. It's not at all what I had originally walked into the studio to do. My first thoughts were about the colors Baby Blue and Silver. I called best buddy Vega early in the morning (woke her up is more like it) and asked her for a word association for the color Baby Blue. Her first sleepy response was her cousin's name, but ya' know, that wasn't working for me. I told her to try again. Second, slightly more awake response was "healing". Bingo! Rah! I almost hung up on her and ran down the hall to the studio.

I pulled a large canvas from the studio closet and pilfered through my paints for different shades of light blue. Found some silver glitter, silver jewelry wire, texture medium, spray bottle, hair dryer and assorted other stuff and got to work. One of the paint colors I had pulled out of the drawer was a lovely shade of a medium-bright turquoise blue. I can't say why, but it was the first thing I spread on the canvas. From that moment, the original Baby Blue went right out the window.

I started adding Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Cobalt Violet, Magenta, Brilliant Yellow, Tangerine, Lime Green, Christmas Green .... Baby Blue didn't make it to the canvas until very late in the game, and then only as a bit of accent color. What seems to be developing is like a cross between a picture of a new galaxy forming and a tie-dyed t-shirt. Completely unintentional, but it's what's happening nonetheless. Of course, I have a drawer full of tie-dyed t-shirts, so y'all know I'm likin' what's happening!

Although I'm pleased with the work thus far, something is still missing, some elusive element I can't quite see just yet. I have an idea brewing, but am not sure how to accomplish it. I want more than just all these lovely whorls and swirls of color on the canvas ... I want a life form of some sort, and it doesn't necessarily have to be human. In fact, I would prefer it not to be human, but it must be subtle, glazed on the canvas in such a way as to appear to be coming into form - not yet materialized - between worlds of thought and matter. Again, I have an idea, but will have to think on it more this evening.

So that's it. That's all. Short entry, I know. I hope you will pardon me for not being my usual verbose self, but Muse calls and I don't want to ignore her lest she decide to take another vacation without me.

Namaste to y'all ...

The Butt End ...

I have a new treadmill ... !!!

This treadmill, while new to me, still has a little history behind it. It all began about two years ago when Mother decided she needed to start walking. Hold on, let me back up a bit farther. In her prime, Mother was one of those women who made heads turn. She looked like Elizabeth Taylor and had the figure of Jayne Mansfield. In a word, Bombshell. At sixteen, her figure measurements were 38-25-36. The only thing that varied over the years was her bust size ... it increased. (Makes me wonder just what in the Hell happened to me!)

In 1971 Mother became ill, very ill. She was diagnosed with a rare disease called Polymyositis, an inflammation of the muscular system that causes the muscle to weaken gradually, and a person to experience difficulty in walking and inability to breathe due to muscle failure. At the time, she was only one of 10 people worldwide known to have this disease. She spent two years in and out of different hospitals, Emory University Hospital near us in Atlanta and Bethesda Naval Hospital in Bethesda, MD. She suffered a lot, was often used as a guinea pig by doctors for different treatments, and twice we were told she was going to die.

All this happened at a time when my father was, as usual, drinking heavily. To be honest, I don’t recall much about the times when she wasn’t home. I have a lot of blocked memories of those couple of years. What I do remember is when she was home, she had to have a hospital bed because she couldn’t lift herself out of a regular bed. I remember the sound of her bedroom slippers scuffing along the hardwood floor when she walked because she didn’t have the muscle strength to lift her feet. I also remember when she fell, which was often, it would take three strong men to pick her up, and she would moan from the pain it caused when they lifted her. She had no ability in her legs or arms whatsoever to help them. She spent most of her time in bed, embroidering our jeans, because it was all she could really do. I’ll add that we were the first kids at our school to have embroidered bell-bottom jeans and everyone thought we were cool - they would beg us to get Mother to embroider theirs, too.

One of the medications the doctors gave Mother was Prednisone, in massive doses. (Very nasty drug!) One of the side effects to the medication was weight gain. So not only did she have a hard time just walking, she had more than double her normal weight to carry around as well. Add in all the other side effects and it made for one miserable, suffering individual. Top that off with an already unstable mentality, an alcoholic husband, three children, and you get an even worse set of complications. Life was Hell, for her and for everyone else.

Typical of my father, he ran off with another woman and disappeared for several months. So there Mother was, sick beyond normal human endurance, husband gone, children to care for, and to add insult to injury she receives an eviction notice in the mail. My father had not been taking care of the bills while she was in the hospital all that time, he’d used up all the money, and we were now being kicked out into the street. Mother called my Uncle Conley, who also lived in Atlanta, and my grandparents - Mother’s parents - to come help us. Very nasty situation ensued; I won’t recount that part of things but Mother ended up in Georgia State Mental Institution and we kids ended up living with Uncle Conley and Aunt Eleanor, they having been awarded temporary custody of us.

I’m not sure what exactly happened, of all the details behind the scenes, after all, I was only about eight years old at the time, but somehow Mother’s doctors discovered what had occured, took charge of things and got her out of GSMI. The most amazing part was this woman, who had been practically at death’s door, had within a few short months somehow managed to recover to the point she found a job, found an apartment, bought herself a car, and got custody of us kids back from my Aunt and Uncle. She had stopped taking all the medications, lost weight back down to almost pre-illness weight, and took control of her life back from the brink of a total breakdown. It was, I have to say, admirable.

Over the next couple of years, Mother maintained her health, her weight, and stayed active. She always took pride in her appearance, not in a vain way, but ‘kept her looks’ as the saying goes. For example, the illness and medications caused her hair to go prematurely gray so she started dyeing it back to it’s normal auburn color ... that kind of thing. Well, the cost of living in Atlanta was taking it’s tole on her financially, so in 1975 she moved my brother and I to Marion, NC, which was her hometown. My sister was still in high school and she chose to stay in Atlanta, with my Aunt and Uncle, to finish school there. Actually, Glenda had stayed with Conley and Eleanor even after Mother got custody of us again. But let’s keep moving along with the story ....

In Marion, Mother stayed well for years. A couple of times there were some crazy incidents, like the time her third husband (my sister Glenda has a different father, Mother’s first husband, than my brother and I) left her. She ended up in Broughton Mental Hospital for a couple of weeks over that whole situation. Again, I prefer not to elaborate. But all in all, she stayed in reasonably good health, with only a minor relapse with the symptoms of the Polymyositis, which again disappeared fair quickly.

When I left Marion in 1988 to go live and work in South Carolina, Mother was still in good health. She’d gained a small amount of weight, but it wasn’t really noticeable to anyone but family who were familiar with her ‘normal’ body size. But some weight gain is often typical of many people as they get older and by this time Mother was in her late 40's/early 50's. To be honest, I never really paid much more attention to her size or physical health once I had left North Carolina. I came home with my boyfriend, Randy, to visit on weekends every so often but he and I were usually so busy going around to see people, etc. that Mother’s physical health and appearance escaped my notice most of the time.

It was after being gone for about eight years or more that on one of my trips home to visit (this was after Randy and I had separated and I hadn’t been home in about a year at that point) that it again caught my attention. I walked into Mother’s apartment and was suddenly stopped by the sight of her, my sister and my niece sitting together in the living room. Now, my niece, Leia, had battled with a weight problem from early childhood, so her size didn’t surprise me overmuch. Glenda, on the other hand, had gained a considerable amount of weight, as Mother had also done. Mother had also stopped dyeing her hair and it was completely white, snow white. I won’t deny I was shocked by the sight of them and for a few seconds I honestly didn’t recognize Mother. I know I had to have been standing there with my mouth hanging open in surprise. Fortunately I recovered myself quickly and acted like all things were normal. But I couldn’t help casting furtive glances at Mother (and Glenda, who had always been reasonably average in size) and feeling really stunned by the change in her appearance.

While some would say it was complications from the Polymyositis, the incredible amounts of seriously bad medications the doctors had given her, and a host of other reasons ... some of which are bordering on valid ... the real reason Mother changed so much was a mental state of attitude called Victimization. It’s common with people who suffer from mental instability. They begin to perceive that all the problems in their life are the fault of someone else. The world is a horrible place, and they are doomed to lead a life of suffering and deprivation. They begin to cling to their feeling of depression and victimization and it becomes their suit of armor against the injustices the world does against them. They are often only ‘happy’ when things are upset or chaotic around them. They do not function well when things are calm and will often instigate or create problems for themselves, or for others, to have that feeling of turmoil and disruption going on in their lives. Another development is they become a Chaos Addict.

This is the person my mother had become in the time I was away. While she’s always had a penchant for the chaos and turmoil of life, she stayed physically healthy (with the exception of the Polymyositis) and attractive, taking care of her appearance and as I said, having an element of pride in herself with it. The person I saw in that living room that day was a total stranger, at least in physical appearance, to me. To this day, she hasn’t changed much save growing older, more of the victim of life, becoming more and more of a hypochondriac and a sadder human being. Her becoming a Jehovah’s Witness in the 1980's didn’t help matters either, but that’s an entirely different story.

Periodically she has had friends who have gotten on the ‘get healthy’ bandwagon. Grapefruit Miracle Diet, Weight Watchers, The Atkins Diet, etc. Mother will occasionally jump on the bandwagon with them and give it a shot for a few weeks. As soon as she starts seeing results, or begins to feel better, she stops. Inevitably with some excuse or other that renders her unable to continue without potential detrimental and disastrous results to her. Reality, to become healthy and well and physically fit would mean an end to all the years of her hypochondrical illnesses and excuses. In effect, she would have to start living her life instead of merely existing/suffering through it. Now, of course, she’s got the “I’m 70 years old!” thing going to support her in perpetuating her suffering.

The treadmill (bet y’all thought I’d never get back to that) is just another notch in her long line of “I’m going to start exercising” binges. About two years ago Mother started saying how she wanted to start walking. She’s just come off an exercise binge involving a couple of her friends and an all-women’s gym that had opened in town. Of course, her reasons for the expense of a treadmill were that she could do it in the privacy of her own home, at her convenience, in the climate-controlled environment of her apartment, etc. The whole gym thing had been thoroughly dismissed at unsanitary, unsafe, too expensive, blah, blah, blah. Walking around the apartment complex was out of the question because of a myriad of reasons. Nothing would satisfy her but to have a treadmill.

Mother is on a fixed income (Social Security Disability, etc.) so her expenditures have to be watched. She spent several weeks researching different treadmills, their features and cost involved. She finally decided on one at Wal-Mart. Not excessively fancy, but it’s electric, has digital read-out for calories burned, fat calories burned, variable speed, time, and distance. It also had an incline adjustment and it will fold up for ‘storage’. She put it on lay-away and paid it off in a couple of months. When it was paid for, she called me and said she needs me to help her get it home ... the husband has a truck.

I tell her I’d be happy to haul it for her if she can get me some help. After all, it weighed about 70-80 lbs. and came in a big box. I’m capable of lifting and moving more than my physical appearance belies, but quite frankly, that’s a bit more than I can manage to move by myself, especially a big, awkward box. She says, “The stock boys at Wal-Mart will put it on the truck for you.” Well, great. “Who’s going to get it out of the truck and into your apartment?” I asked. “I’ll help you if I can.” she replied. This coming from the woman who’s so out of shape she’s sweating, huffing, puffing and out of breath just walking from the Wal-Mart parking lot to the front door. Somehow, I wasn’t seeing her being of any help. “No”, I tell her, “You’re going to have to get me some help if you want me to move it. What about one of your Jehovah’s Witness friends?” Ummm-hmmmm. THAT wasn’t a well received response. After about two weeks of this back and forth crap, it ended up she finally got two of the JW guy friends with a truck to help her out.

Then came the ‘put it together’ drama. I, of course, was the one she demanded do the job. I tell her I couldn’t do it alone. I had looked at the instructions and it clearly stated two people were required for assembly. Again, she insisted she would help, but I again told her she wouldn’t be of any use, I needed someone with enough strength to help hold parts while I put together bolts, etc. She wasn’t liking that at all. Every few days, for about three months, she’d call and say something about me putting it together. I finally got so aggravated about it I swore to myself it would snow in Puerto Rico before I put that damn thing together. When she would mention it during the phone calls, I started changing the subject.

About another month went by when she called one day and said the two guys who had helped her move it were going to come over and help her put it together. She was all giddy with finally managing to manipulate someone into doing what she wanted about it. A few days later she called again and said it was assembled, but now she needed to get rubber mats to set it on because of the carpet in her bedroom. I didn’t fail to miss her mentioning that while they were putting it together one of the men had commented that “... it sure was a good thing that the other guy was there to help or he’d never gotten it put together.” (Yep, uh-huh, duh.) I don’t think she even realized what she’d just said when she said it.

Well, it took another month for her to find the right rubber mats. Then another month for her to find just the right surge protector to plug it into. Then she began a search for just the right clothes to exercise in, the right shoes, etc. Then she spent a month or two moving it around the apartment (it also has wheels so you can move it easily once it’s assembled) to get it in just the right place so she would be comfortable, blah, blah, blah. Every so often over the next few months I would ask her how many miles she’d put on it yet and she invariably made some excuse or other about not having used it at all.

As I said, this happened over the course of a couple of years. The last year the treadmill has sat in the corner of her dining room, folded up, and used as a place to hang laundry. She never, not once, used it. So one day a couple of months ago I asked her if she would consider selling it to me. I told her I’d pay her what she’d paid for it. She said I could have it. Not surprising, really. She had decided it was 'cluttering up her apartment'. To make space for it here at my house I had to tackle and kill my Master Bedroom Closet Monster so I could put one of the chest-of-drawers in the bedroom into the closet, rearrange all the rest of the furniture in the room and voila’, treadmill space.

I lined up the services of my friend Paul and he helped me bring it home Wednesday. I used it that evening and both Thursday morning and this morning before I went to town to do my Domestic Goddess duties. Three days, 20 minutes each day and I’ve already put about six miles on it. I like it. I’m going to enjoy having it.

I’m not out to set any land-speed records. I’m not focused on how many miles a day/week I put on it. I’m not really concerned with calories burned or fat calories burned or any of that stuff. All I care about is making the commitment to use it every day, a minimum of 20 min. a day, and working on toning my flabby butt back up. I hate my flabby butt. I've never had a flabby butt before. It’s horrible. I can stand it no longer. Truth is, for several years now I’ve not been active the way I was when I was living in the Charlotte area. I had a firm butt then. I’m still the same weight, but the muscle tone is gone with the wind. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. And with effort, I’ll have a firm butt again. Hallelujah!

No buts about it, my ‘new’ treadmill is my butt’s new best friend ...... *hee hee*

Cat love ... only a cat lover would understand.

*** Roy ***

Every day I read Crazy Aunt Purl's blog. She's funny, she knits, she talks about both serious and totally off the wall stuff, she's a little on the crazy side (right up my alley!) and she has four cats; Roy, Sobakowa, Bob and Frankie. Her site is one of the feeds on my Y360 homepage. Some people are addicted to TV shows; I am addicted to Purl's blog. For me, it a guaranteed smile in my day.

Being the cat lover that I am, I'm particularly fond of her posts that talk about her cats. I love the captions she puts with the photos she posts of them as well. I can't tell you the times I've laughed until I cried at some of their antics. Guess you have to be a cat lover to appreciate them, but hey, I am, so I do. But while I like all of her cats, I have an especially soft spot in my heart for Roy. He was such a character and he had the most hysterical yet loveable snaggled-tooth cat smile. When I read the profile on Roy's Catster Page I cried. I was immediately sucked in. Roy had a place in my heart.

Now, for those of you who don't know me, I will tell you here and now with no embarrassment or shame that animals are one of my greatest weaknesses. I feel for animals in a way I have never felt for another human, even "M", who is the love of my life. I can be reduced to tears just walking past a pet store. I get sick to my stomach to see a dog sitting all alone, chained beside a dog house way off at the edge of a yard. To hear or read about the abuse of an animal breaks my heart in a way I cannot even describe. I feel their pain, their suffering, their loneliness and their heartbreak at the injustices and abuse inflicted upon them. I feel it like a lead weight on my shoulders and deep in my chest. It's like what most people would feel at the loss of a loved one. Maybe that's outrageous to some, but it's me, it's what I feel, and it hurts terribly.

Yesterday I popped over to Purl's to get my daily fix and was pleased to see it was a story about Roy. I thought, "Oh goody, Roy!" I suppose it was a form of self-denial and blocking that kept me from sensing there was something wrong with it. I was half way through the story when I came upon these words ... "I sang that same song to Roy yesterday, as he passed on, as he left my world as a cat (soon to inhabit it, again, I'm sure, as a President or as a Wise Man or maybe a piano player in a martini lounge) and he died, even as I sang him his song, and I miss him so terribly I can't even explain it to you ..."

Y'all, I sat here in my chair and bawled like a baby. I cried for over an hour before I could type up a comment to express my condolences for her loss. (Just one of over 1,200+ similar comments to the post.) She will probably never read my words of sympathy, but I wrote them anyway. I had to say how much I had come to love seeing Roy, how he made me smile even if I was having a terrible day, and how much he would be missed. I suppose it probably amazes and confounds y'all that I could grieve over the passing of a cat that wasn't my own, one that I'd never even met. But I feel the loss. My heart is breaking for Purl ... I know exactly how she feels because I once had a cat, Baby Dave, who was the most special cat I've ever owned (been owned by).

I got him from a lady who's cat had kittens and she was giving them away to good homes. It had been awhile since the passing of my last cat, Ralphie, who was killed in the motor of my mother's car while I was away at the Art Institute in Atlanta. Dave was a tiny little ball of Tabby fluff, afraid of everyone and everything. The day I went to pick out a kitten I spotted him first. When I walked through the door of the building, the rest of his litter mates frolicked and scampered around all over the place, but he dashed off to hide behind some boards, out of reach. In all honesty, I mostly saw his Lemur-like tail in the air and his ass-end skittering out of sight as quickly as his little bow legs would carry him. But I just knew instantly he was meant for me.

The lady must have thought I was nuts, sitting there on the floor of the workshop (where the momma cat had her kittens) beside that stack of plywood boards, softly talking a bunch of nonsense to that scared little kitty. Even my boyfriend, Randy, asked if I didn't really want one of the other more playful and friendly kittens. The lady told us it was the only boy in the litter and that he had never let anyone touch him after he got big enough to run around. I stuck to my guns and said that he was going home with me. After about twenty minutes of coaxing, he finally stuck his head out and I snatched him up, holding him close under my chin, still talking softly to him about absolutely nothing at all. The lady was speechless, amazed he'd even gotten close enough for me to grab him.

I took him home and stuck next to him all evening, letting him get accustomed to me, my scent, my voice, my hands holding/touching him. I stayed right with him while he ate, used the litter box, or wandered around the house. I wouldn't let him hide from me. I wasn't trying to be mean, I just knew that he needed the constant reinforcement of my presence to make him realize I wasn't going to hurt him, or let him be hurt. It took all weekend, but my patience paid off and he stuck to me like glue. When, on Monday, I had to leave for work, I made sure he was in a cozy box with my bathrobe to snuggle in. I didn't immediately name him because I wanted to wait to see what his personality would be.

I guess I had Dave for about a week when a coworker told me his cat recently had kittens and he thought I needed one for my kitty to play with. I declined at first, but he got me with the sucker punch, one of the kittens was gray. I have a serious weakness for gray kitties. Dave was supposed to have been gray, but the lady I’d gotten him from didn’t know “gray” from “Tabby”. Naturally, I went over after work and got the gray kitty, a girl. On the way home Randy asked what I was going to name them. I decided that since I had gotten this second kitten from my coworker I would name her after him ... his last name was Medford, so my new girl was named Medford. Given that, I gave the other kitty my coworker’s first name ... Dave. Needless to say, the original Dave Medford thought it was hilarious when I told him the next morning at work.

My two kitties, Dave and Medford became best buddies. Where there was one, there was always the other. And when not spasticaly rolling around in the floor with each other, or tearing through the house in that crazed hyper kitty zinging mad free-for-all way, they were with me. It was as if they were biding their time until I sat down and the race was on to see who could get in my lap first. They piled on me to sleep at night, Dave on my neck and Medford on my stomach or legs - after they settled down from a good game of Killed Feet Under Blankets, of course. I loved my kitties and they loved me.

Dave and Medford had their own unique personalities, habits and quirky traits individual to themselves. Any cat owner will tell you how special and different their cat(s) is. Dave and Medford were no exception to the rule, and I loved their uniqueness. I could write novels about their antics, but I won’t. I’ll skip ahead in the story. What I will say is that Dave was a “Garfield” kind of cat, loving to lay around in warm, sunny spots relaxing. He stayed close to home at all times. Medford, on the other hand, like to venture around the yard, the neighbor’s yard and check things out. Although she liked to travel, she never wandered farther than the sound of my voice - when I called her she immediately came to me. Without question, I loved Medford, she was my girl. She was soft and sweet and very snuggly. She loved to be carried around the house like a baby. She would lay on her back on my lay and when I would tell her to “reach for the stars” she would stretch her arms up and I would scratch her under her armpits. Her head would hang upside down over my knees and she was the picture of a cat in bliss.

But Dave had me wrapped around his paw. I can’t explain exactly why. He was just ‘special’. Even at five years old, he would skooch up close to me on the sofa, nurse on my t-shirt, twist his body in a weird contortionist way so I could rub his big, fluffy snow white pot-belly, and he would sing. With each exhale of his breath his purring would sound like a tiny ringing bell. I’d say, “Sing me a song Baby Dave.” and his purr-sing would get louder. He would stay there, in that twisted up position, nursing on my shirt, as long as I would continue to rub his tummy. It melted my heart to hear that purr-singing. It was the sound of pure contentment.

Because Dave was a lazy cat, it took awhile for me to notice he was sick. When I noticed he wasn’t acting quite right on a Friday evening I thought he had a cold and planned to call the vet first thing on Monday to get him some medicine. I got up on Saturday morning and went over to clean a house I was planning to move into that next week. I hadn’t been there an hour when Randy called and said something was wrong with Dave. At the house where Randy and I lived together we had an enclosed back porch where we had our washer and dryer. There was a window into the den behind the washing machine and Dave liked to lay on the windowsill. Randy said Dave had fallen down behind the washer and couldn’t get up, and although he would open his mouth to meow no sound would come out.

I immediately went into panic mode. I told Randy to call the vet’s office, tell them it was an emergency and we were on our way, and I drove like a demon back to our house. When I got there, looked at Dave crumpled behind the washer, struggling to stand up, I almost lost control of myself. I literally picked up the washer and shoved it across the porch. I grabbed his favorite blanket from on top of the dryer and wrapped him up, talking to him in that exact same nonsensical way I had done when I first got him. Randy and I jumped in the car and took him to the vet. I talked to Dave all the way there, telling him it would be Okay, Mommy would fix it.

Dr. Forbes met us at the door and lead us back to the examination room. It was so hard to let go of him, but I laid Dave on the exam table and let Dr. Forbes check him over. He tried to take a blood sample, but he couldn't get anything. Dave’s mouth and gums were completely white, not their normal fleshy pink color. The vet said that was indicating internal blood loss. I was standing there, unable to do anything save try not to cry ... unsuccessfully, I might add. I have never felt more helpless.

Dr. Forbes said to leave Dave with him and to call back on Monday morning. He would run tests, etc. and figure out what was going on. Randy had to practically drag me out of the office and stuff me in the car to go home. I didn’t want to leave my boy. In the five years I’d had those cats, I’d never left them accept for once, overnight, when they were six months old and I had them spade and neutered. Even then, I couldn’t stand their being away from me and picked them up as soon as the vet called and said they were awake - groggy as bugs in beer - but starting to wiggle around a bit.

Once home, I forced myself to go back to my new rental house and clean. I worked like a crazy woman, trying to keep my mind off the image of Dave behind that washing machine, looking up at me with his beautiful green eyes, trying to meow but making no sound. The weekend seemed endless. I hardly slept. Couldn’t eat much. I just cleaned.

At 8:00am Monday morning I called Dr. Forbes to find out about Dave. The receptionist said he wasn’t available yet and to call back in about thirty minutes. I watched every one of those minutes tick by on the clock beside the phone until at 8:30am precisely I called back. This time, Dr. Forbes came to the phone and the first words out of his mouth were, “That was certainly the toughest little fighter I’ve ever seen.” My mouth went dry and my stomach dropped to my feet. I got light-headed and had to sit down on the side of the bed.

“But he’s going to be Okay, right? I can come get him and bring him home, right” I asked. “Carol, I’m sorry, but Dave passed away about thirty minutes ago. I haven’t done an autopsy but I’m fairly positive it was Leukemia. I can do an autopsy to verify that. I know you have other cats because, technically speaking, it’s Feline AIDS and although it not transmittable to humans, it’s highly contagious between felines. You’ll need to take precautions for the others. (He was referring to both Medford and another stray kitty (named Baby Zip) who had mysteriously appeared and decided I was to be his new mom.)

All I really heard from that entire speech was, “ ... Dave passed away about thirty minutes ago.” When I had called at 8:00am, my Baby Dave was dying and I wasn’t there to hold him, to comfort him, to spend his last minutes together with him in my arms. I was overcome with guilt and regret and sorrow. Somehow, I managed to get through the conversation, told the vet to do the autopsy, and made arrangement to come get Dave within the next hour. I called work and told my boss what had happened and that I would be late. I called Randy’s office and told him I was going to get Dave, and that no, I would do it myself, alone.

The thirty minute drive to Dr. Forbes’ office was rough. I had to try and keep myself focused on driving, paying attention to the road and to traffic, all the while my heart felt numb and I was still feeling too stunned by the whole turn of events to even cry. Once there, the vet told me the autopsy revealed it was indeed Leukemia, gave me the run down of what I needed to do for Medford and Zip, and said he would dispose of Dave if I wanted. Boy, that sure snapped me to attention. I adamantly refused such an atrocity, demanding he give me my cat.

Dr. Forbes’ assistant, a nice older gentleman, came out carrying Dave into the lobby. My boy was wrapped in his favorite blanket, and stuffed in a black trash bag. The man tried to take him to the car, but I said no and took Dave’s body, limp and empty of life, into my arms. I turned and walked out the door. I got half way to my car and stopped in the middle of the parking lot. I literally felt the cry/scream come up from the bottom of my feet and out of my mouth before I could even take a breath. I collapsed to my knees, clutching Dave to my heart, and wept great, gut wrenching sobs of despair and loss. I was completely blinded by tears. In that moment, my heart broke completely. I had never before, even at the worst time in my life, felt so alone, so small, so overwhelmed with grief. Crumpled in a heap on the asphalt of that parking lot, to this day, is still the most horrible moment of my life.

I don’t know how long I knelt there. I wasn’t conscious of anything around me accept the small, lifeless body of my Baby Dave in my arms. No one came near me. No one spoke to me. I can’t recall actually getting in the car, and I don’t remember driving home. I do remember going into the house with Dave, taking him to the enclosed side porch off the master bedroom, unwrapping the plastic to see his sweet face again, then closing it up as I told him how sorry I was that I couldn’t make it better, that I wasn’t there when he left, and that I would always carry him in my heart. I got up, washed my face and went to work. Randy called and I told him I’d left Dave on the side porch so nothing would bother him until I could get home to bury him.

Unfortunately, Randy got home before I did and he buried Dave without my being there. I was furious. I tried to understand he was only trying to help, but he buried Dave way out at the edge of the field behind the house, alone and isolated, away from me and his favorite spot to lay in the sun where I had intended to bury him. What made it worse was Randy wouldn’t tell me exactly where he’d buried Dave so I could re-bury him. In the eight years Randy and I lived together, it was the only time I ever raised my voice and yelled at him.

That evening I did all the things Dr. Forbes had told me to do to protect Medford and Zip from possible illness. I took my anger and frustration out by scrubbing the concrete of the porch floor with Clorox and a brush. I washed all the blankets they liked to sleep on. I Cloroxed all the food and water bowls. I cleaned until I was sick from the smell and my hands were raw. After finishing the cleaning/disinfecting, I took a long shower and cried until I had the dry-heaves ... which anyone who has ever puked their guts up from being drunk, or had the stomach flu, knows is miserable and painful. I got Medford and Zip and we snuggled in bed. It was together that we three moved out of the house without Randy (we were separating) and into our own home.

As I said, I loved Medford, and Zip, but the loss of Dave put a clamp on my heart for a long time. I didn’t ever neglect them, always making sure they got lots of attention and all the other things that go into have cats. Yet, somehow, even when I held Medford in my arms, I always felt a piece was missing. I carried a lot of guilt because I knew Medford loved me so much.

Sadly, when Zip was a year old, he was struck and killed by a car one day while I was at work. (Not long after we split up, Randy moved to another state and with that house vacant again, Medford, Zip and I moved back into it.) My neighbor found Zip in the road and buried him out in the field near where Dave had been buried. Medford and I were on our own. As it always seems to go, another stray kitty showed up shortly afterwards. He was small, solid white, and loved to climb everything. I named him Scooter the Albino Squirrel. He and Medford became good buddies. She had never really warmed up to Zip and I often thought she missed Dave as much as I did.

Medford and Scooter came with me when I left the graphics industry and made my move from the Charlotte area back home to Marion in 1999. It was shortly after I married my husband and we were living in a rental place before we bought our house that Medford and Scooter disappeared. It is a complete mystery as to what happened to them. One morning they were there for breakfast and by that evening for dinner they were gone. I looked for them for weeks but never found out a thing. Medford had been with me for eleven years and Scooter five years. I pray that whatever happened, they did not suffer. I cannot bear the thoughts of it. My girl didn’t deserve to suffer.

It wasn’t until she was gone that I realized how much I had indeed really loved Medford. Through the most difficult times in my life she had always been there, my soft sweet girl. In her quiet way she had been my comfort, my companion, my best friend. I still feel the loss of her deeply, and I carry the guilt that I never gave her true appreciation and total love she gave me all those years. I’m infinitely sorry for that. I will always regret it. You don't know what you've got 'til it's gone ... very, very true.

After they disappeared, I swore I would never have another cat. I would not become so attached to another animal. The loss of them is just too incredibly painful. But the Divine decided that wasn’t to be and stray kitty #3 showed up at my door a few months later. Yep, the orange fur-ball. Creature. The Creeps. She is as unique as all of the other cats I’ve had, yet I see a little part of all of them in her, too. She's a composite of them. I can’t imagine my life without her, and when the time comes that she passes from this world to the next I will most assuredly grieve the loss. I love my girl. I wouldn't deny she isn't 'special' like Dave, she isn't as sweet as my Medford, but we have a bond that only another cat lover would really and truly understand.

So, again, my condolences to Purl (Laurie). To Roy, you were a beautiful boy and will be missed. To all my own cats who have left this world, I hope that while you were with me you knew you were loved, you gave me more love and happiness than I deserved, and I still miss every one of you. I you have a cat ... or any beloved pet ... take a few moments to give them an extra hug, tell them you love them, tell them how very special they are to you ....... believe me, they will hear you and understand what you say.

An unpainted canvas ...

It sits quietly in my studio. So lovely in white and sealed in it's protective plastic wrapping. It waits patiently, with no complaints or grumbling at my attempts to ignore it's presence, though I'm all too well aware of it leaning there against the wall every time I walk into the room. The current bane of my artistic existence. An unpainted canvas.

It's a sad thing to admit, but I'm stuck somewhere in limbo on painting. Stumped. Stupefied. I have the desire, an undeniable urge to paint, only I do not have a clue about what I want to paint. Right this very minute, as I type this, I want to get up, walk down the hall to the studio and pick up my paintbrush. Instead of doing it, I'm blogging about it. Truth is, I'm not one of those artists who can just wander into the studio and start slinging paint on a canvas and Ta Da! New painting begins. I don't really feel I have that kind of talent.

I usually need a 'game plan' of what I'm going to put on the paper (or canvas). I need some preliminary starting point and then I can get busy with paint slinging. Now, I'm most definitely not one of those artists who has to do a complete, detailed sketch of the image. But I do like to have something to work from, maybe a photo or an image I've tinkered around with in Photoshop. Reference material. Once I have that I'm generally good to go. When the actual painting process starts I can even deviate from the planned image if the mood strikes me. But I have to have that starting place.

Right now my studio floor is covered with books, magazines, old calendars and assorted art images I've collected. I got out all the stuff that sparked my interest and sat on the floor in the middle of it for hours the other day, trying to 'see' something inspirational. Alas, I just found myself flipping pages, looking at other artist's work and daydreaming. I know there's an idea lurking in the back of my brain, slowly forming into something. The problem is finding a way to push it to the forefront and get it out on canvas.

That's the only part I am sure of at this time ... I want to work with the acrylics on canvas. It's the subject matter which eludes me. Well, that's not exactly true. I keep thinking of some kind of image representing the seven Chakras. I see a female form somehow in motion, the colors of the energy centers both within the form and swirling around it, and a dark yet hazy background of stars. That's about all I've come up with. While that may sound like I've got a reasonably good image idea, the way the figure should be in motion is undecided. The way the Chakras would flow is undecided. The background is still really undecided. So, no, I don't have a good image idea yet.

I think the problem is that I don't want it to be a traditional, typical, cliche' Chakra painting. I don't want it to be a re-hash of something already done. After all, how many other artists have painted the very same subject matter? Probably a gazillion and two. I'd just be a gazillion and three if I don't figure out a way to make it different. Conundrum.

I can't help but wonder if I should just put it on the back burner and work on something else until the image becomes more clear. The problem with that is I've done it before and the image I was once so excited about doing, as this one, gets lost in the abyss of the "want to but never done" pile. The enthusiasm shifts and is gone. It's hard for me to recapture it.

Thing is, I keep thinking about a friend of mine (and yes, I'm talking about YOU - and you know who YOU are!) who can go into her studio and just start working. She may have no clear image in mind, or maybe just a quick sketch in her sketchbook. She grabs up a piece of charcoal, a canvas, draws out a rough sketch and begins to paint. Now, her work is not as photo realistic as mine tends to be. She is not always as accurate with proportion, perspective, shading, etc. as I'm inclined to get so caught up with. She just starts working and goes intuitively with the process, letting it become whatever seems to work at that moment. If isn't working, she has no remorse in slapping a fresh coat of gesso over the whole thing and starting over. It amazes me. It intimidates me. And yes, I'm envious of how she does it. I'm even more envious of the fact that her work is incredibly beautiful as well.

I have another friend who is the opposite. He will spend more time 'prepping' to do a painting than he actually spends painting. He can work for days on layout & design, colors, light & shadow, proportion, the whole kit and kaboodle. He gets as much enjoyment from his hours of mixing colors on a scrap piece of paper as he gets from actually painting. I've seen him spend weeks at the prep stage and take less than half that time to finish the final piece of work. His work, I might add, is also incredibly beautiful.

I fall somewhere in between the two. I can't just sketch something off, but I can't spend weeks in the planning stage without losing interest altogether. I know it's different for everyone who creates art. I know we all have to work in the way which is best for us individually. I know it's a waste of my time and energy to pay attention to anyone else's process save my own ... because in the long run, my own is the only one that matters to me in respect toward creating my own art. I get it. I understand it. Doesn't change a thing at the moment. I'm still stuck and don't know what to do.

It's times like this that I wish I had a formal education in art. I wish I had been able to go to a fine art college, spent time developing the basic skills, the fundamentals, the foundation that many artists have. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. I'm a self-taught artist. In a way, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I haven't studied under some master, learned their method and now crank out work that looks like someone else's. I have had to work at developing my own techniques, my own understanding of the mediums I use, and my own style of working with those mediums. At times it's been an uphill battle, other times it just seemed to click into place.

For now, I seem to be having another uphill battle which I'm not at all happy about. What I should probably do is just go into the studio, grab an old canvas and start an abstract. I did that with Path of Least Resistance and personally speaking, I think it turned out rather nicely. I remember being stuck, as I am now, and I decided to have a go with creating an abstract.

Early one morning I laid a big towel in the middle of the studio floor (to protect the carpet), grabbed an old canvas which had belonged to my father and laid it on the towel. I gessoed the canvas, addeding some texture medium to it as well. Then I dug through my paints, picked out ones that appealed to me, and started squirting them on the canvas. *I use those cheap-o liquid acrylics most people use for craft projects.* I didn't bother to decide if the image would be vertical or horizontal, I just pushed the paint around until an idea popped into my head. I kept thinking about water. More specifically, I was thinking about the creek that runs beside my favorite camping spot.

The afternoon of the last time I was there, getting things packed up to go home, I went over to the the edge of the creek to wash out my coffee pot. Squatting there, scrubbing the pot with sand, I happened to look over and noticed the way the water diverted itself along the edge of the creek into tiny little tributaries all through the dark earth, around pieces of leaves and moss on the bank. It wound it's way around small stones and flecks of silvery mica. I thought about how people used to pan for gold in creeks exactly like the one I was beside. Hoping to strike it rich.

I finished washing the coffee pot and looked at the woods around me, at the water flowing it's course over rocks and sand, the blue of the sky through the tree tops. I thought to myself that once, a long time ago in that very place, I believed I had found my own form of gold. That is a story I won't go into now, but suffice it to say it didn't work out as I had hoped it would. I sat on that creek bank and cried, both terribly sad over the loss and yet deeply grateful for the experience. I realized the memory was all the "gold" I had left and I did indeed treasure it.

With that memory playing through my head, I worked on the abstract all day and into the evening. I crawling around on my knees, working from all sides of the canvas, not really paying attention to what I was doing so much as thinking, remembering that place, that time, and the feelings I had experienced. I put all of that onto the canvas. Late that night, after I was done, I finally stood up and looked at the work. Considering I had never painted an abstract before, I was pretty pleased with the results. The title of the painting came to mind, a double meaning representing both how water follows the path of least resistance, and also, in contrast, how the path my life had flowed since I had thought I'd found 'gold' - in opposition of what I had believed.

So, I'm wondering if maybe I should try that again. Try not painting with a particular image or photo, but work "from a memory" on the canvas instead. Hmmmmm ... sounds like a good idea. Think I'll go do that now.