grand rêves

I've decided to stop causing myself any additional stress so far as how and where my art and chosen medium are taking me. For now, I just want to go along for the ride. "Broader Strokes" has come off  the design wall and has been disassembled - the pieces will be put to good use in the next project. more on that tomorrow. The materials for finishing and mounting these four have been ordered.

mending with color

The  corner of this tablecloth had a spray of rust stains. Now garden islands are poking through melting snow.

Right now I have no plans to use this technique in a piece but let me think on it some.

If you are shopping online for the holidays, the last day to mail first class for Christmas arrival in the US is next Tuesday, but I'm calling it Monday, 12/19. ..the store inventory is current! Run Wild!

Last year the lobby of our local post office looked like the deck of the Titanic as the last boats were being swung out....

paying close attention

Seth just reminded me "Some things are true whether you believe in them or not"

Judy Martin's dots

Thank so much for the tutorial Judy!

Of course I chose inappropriate cloth, drew the wonky roundness by hand, did not baste and had no silk thread..still I like it. Where Judy's dots are almost holy in their precision, mine will be crawling off the blanket in their own organic way. Remember my notion of islands?  This technique could work for that idea. let's see.

broader strokes

I've decided to stop bitching about it and see how I can go about using fabric more like paint. There will be  a lot of false starts with stitch so I've basted this one loosely so the end wont have little blood stains all over it.

Most of yesterday was given over to finally getting my hearing tested and confirming what I suspected - that I am hearing less than half of what is said and have worked out a complex of methods to work around the loss. I really didn't realize how much I was depending on visual cues in face to face conversations.

The phone is another big issue. My job entails listening to incident reports over the phone and I depend a great deal on the fact that nothing much new and strange happens on a daily basis...repetition and anticipation, sort of human predicative spelling. I have reports typed out before people even finish dictating them. How many stupid ass ways can one slip and fall or burn oneself in a commercial kitchen anyway?

The doctor couldn't say if the tinnitus was a separate issue from the hearing loss but it certainly compounds the problem. I really miss stone cold silence. My range of hearing is narrow and odd and hearing aids are called for as soon as possible to prevent further loss/damage. They may or may not help the tinnitus. When it's at it's lowest level, I can pretend it's only cicadas partying hearty on midsummer's eve. At it's worst, a jet's engines revving up just before take off...only it never does. A new element cropped up the other day -- a mercifully short low toned hum, not unlike the reverberations of a really big bell ..it came creeping in my left ear like a fat fuzzy brown caterpillar, and then thankfully slunk away. Sometimes it's hard to hear my own thoughts.