I hardly know what I’ve been doing lately because my memory has been so entirely horrible. I know I’ve been busy with multiple tasks, including painting. And then there’s physical therapy, neurotherapy, and my regular therapist (psychologist). I guess that takes up about 5 to 6 hours a week, including driving.
Most of the other things I’ve been doing lately seem to have slipped my mind. This has been super frustrating. I’ve been doing a lot of memory exercises in neurotherapy, too. Last week, I put together a whole Dr. Seuss puzzle for my homework. It took forever, but I finished it.
Recently, I spoke about not being able to find my clay and etching tools. I wound up repurchasing them all from Amazon. However, I’ve still been looking for them because I can’t believe they’re really gone. Well, this sort of thing (not being able to find my belongings) has happened a few times since then, even not being able to find my own artwork! It’s truly upsetting since I actually have two different ways I systematically keep track of everything. Two systems, and I can’t seem to find shit!
So now, I want to go through every single box in my garage, one by one, and re-document what’s in each box, down to a speck of dust. How can I pride myself on being such a meticulously organized person if I don’t have a proper way to find stuff? I’m so disappointed in myself, my new shitty memory, and all the time I’ve spent tearing things apart, only to never find what I’m looking for.
Well, this morning, it happened again! I was looking for a little punch tool that rounds the corners of paper. I first looked where I would obviously put such a thing, yet I had no memory of putting it anywhere specifically. I felt overwhelmingly lucky when I finally found it in the ninth or tenth place I looked. It was in a drawer in my art cart, which is not even a logical place to keep it. It should be with my bookmaking supplies since it’s a paper tool. What was I thinking? This is probably how/why everything else is lost or misplaced. Somebody punch me in the face, please!
Last week, I decided how I’m going to “display” the original photographs I’ve been using to make the Discarded Snapshots series. I was going to pin them to the gallery walls next to each painting, but there was something about that idea that turned me off. So, I got a vintage photo album on eBay. I’m going to fill it with the photos, display it on a bookstand, and place it on a floating shelf in the corner of the gallery. People can flip through it if they want to. Or not.
Since I’m not putting the actual original photos inside the album, I’d planned to spend the day scanning and printing them on photo paper, using copies instead. That’s just in case someone decides to walk off with the album, which is always a possibility, and it’s happened to me in the past, like with my artist’s books. The photo album is pretty cool-looking. It’s from the late 60s/early 70s, but the sticky pages are not so sticky anymore. I’ll have to glue-stick each one in once I decide on its placement in the album. I’m also including photos that were not turned into paintings…yet.
They may become paintings one day if I decide to keep adding to the series, but I’m not sure about that at the moment. Though, I’m three paintings away from finishing the 16 for the show. As I wrap them up, I’ve been antsy about creating abstracts again. I want to get back to sewing, too. Hannah got me an embroidery practice book months ago, but I haven’t had much time to work in it yet. I keep thinking about it while I do other things. I’ve never known how to “properly” embroider or sew. I’ve been winging it for years, which is why all my soft sculptures look like a little kid made them. But so do my paintings, come to think about it.
Oh, about a week ago, I happily made plans for a videographer to come out to my studio here in Joshua Tree next month. He’ll get some in-studio footage of me working. Then, once my show is installed at the gallery (in May), we’ll shoot a kind of walk-through where I’ll speak about some of the pieces in the show. Eric Minh Swenson specializes in filming artists in their element and other art documentaries. He’s a great editor, too. I really like his work. This is something I’ve been wanting to do for a long, long time, and I had to save a bit to make it happen.
Too bad my hair won’t grow much in the next couple of weeks. Not enough by the time we start filming, anyway. I’m still practically bald, but that’s because I’ve shaved most of my hair off three or four times since the surgery. I wanted it all to grow out evenly, but it took a while for the totally bald parts to grow to the quarter-inch I was shaving it down to. Now, all my hair is about a half-inch. Still not long enough to get any kind of real hairstyle. But by the time my show comes around, I should have a decent amount of hair on my head to have it styled by a professional.