Write Art Life Art Write

This year for the Village Fine Arts Association Poetry&Art Night I will be submitting 3 paintings. For the last two years I've submitted 6 poems, and won 4 awards. I told my therapist who gave me a card to join a writing group a few years before I entered PAN "I'm not a writer." And one step out of the first gathering, I wrote an article that was published. I  told an art friend years ago, "I can't do watercolor-it scares me." And here I am, creating the best art I've ever done. Medium. Where your art lives you live. Poetry & Art Night in Milford, Michigan was started by Thomas Lynch and Suzanne Haskew. The art and writing scene I have been blooming blessed to drop into is in Milford, Michigan. If you are unfamiliar with Thomas Lynch's work, get familiar now. This minute I figured out how the universe works. I have goosebumps. My birthday is coming up, I'll be entering my 65th rotation around the galaxy, and by golly, I just this minute figured it out. I couldn't go to my first watercolor class with Jeane DeHann, because Dad went into the hospital with congestive heart failure. She is an artist I admire. And Barbara Weisenburg, a gracious member of the VFAA, and an artist who created two paintings I own, called to offer some alternatives. She miraculously offered to teach me what I would have learned from the class. Miracle. Stuff turned into rich soil, into growth into harvest. We struggle each day with stuff. Our stuff recently is Dad's fall on Feb. 2, working to get physical therapy in the house, my brother with Alzheimer's being freaked by the new stuff, me wondering if I can do all this without combusting, and damn. Here it is. Dad is here in the senior complex because that's what my parents chose. I'm here to give my brother a good quality of life. And subsequently understand that parents don't have a clue with kids, no matter what age, and forgive and forget, and learn to love in a different way. That fear of dying is stupid and wasteful when we can carry each other over. And that's what Thomas Lynch does and Suzanne Haskew did with their lives and their work. In art and writing. Carry each other over. And wasn't this always there? Except for the awareness. Rosemary Jozwiak told me 10 years ago "all you're missing is faith in a good outcome."

Art Therapy for Caregivers

My watercolor instruction is therapy. I figured that out this week when we were covered in 14 inches of snow, and Monday class was canceled. Creativity immersion is a way to dispense with thought processes and emotions attached to random brain access, and be free. Started 2 paintings, messed both up pretty badly but I saved the paper to use the other side. Dad fell on Sunday, hurt his knee and we're dealing with the aftermath of that. I am not doing well with this. He says he's not a good patient-I think I'm not a nurse. I am trained after long practice to be constantly vigilant, which is exhausting. He sat down on the top step last night going to bed, and couldn't get up. I heard him sighing and since this sounds a lot like the precursor to congestive heart failure, I investigated. An hour and a half of trying to get him in bed. None of my suggestions were any good. Perhaps he had a mini-stroke and his brain wasn't functioning well. Scott, who had to step around his father on the floor to come out of the bathroom, was freaking out, repeating "It's OK" over and over again - trying to calm himself, I think. I'd suggest a method to Dad: he'd want me to do something physical- lift him, put my feet in front of his so he could push off my body. I ended up walking down to the neighbor and asking him to help me. Today we'll have to make plans, none of which include continuing in this untenable situation. The stairs are not an option any more. Meanwhile, I'll hope to continue to find peace in watercolor.