I retired from the Public Defender Dept. November 12, 2015 after 16 health destroying years.
Now, I'm a full time multi-media artist and writer on a new adventure. As an artist, I create with beads, fabric, fiber, and ceramic clay. Sometimes separately; sometimes in assorted combinations. You can find my on-line store at: www.debthumanart.com.
What I’d like to say: Listen you stupid motherfucker…… except that wouldn’t be productive. I offered to do a talk about suicide complete with a power point of my quilts about suicide. I got a return email saying that given the situation with covid, talking about suicide wouldn’t be a good idea but are there other quilts I’d like to talk about.
No, asshole – it would be a wonderful idea. New Mexico has the highest suicide rate in the country and part of the reason for that is no one wants to talk about suicide. Then they all crap their pants and wonder what went wrong when they have to bury a loved one who just blew his brains out. Someone I knew would likely be alive today if people had talked about suicide. If people admitted depression isn’t a moral failure. If people admitted asking for help isn’t indicative of weakness. It’s been two years since his suicide, and I’m still torn apart inside.
My quilts have been pretty dark the last three years. They have been about suicide, mass shooting, and isolation. Art is how I understand my dark emotions. None of my quilts are cheery topics. Life isn’t always cheery and anyone who expects life to be cheery is going to be disappointed. I rarely make pretty quilts. You want pretty? Go to Walmart. Lots of unoffensive, unthought provoking, sofa matching art there.
It isn’t easy being mentally ill. It’s even harder when people refuse to listen. But what do I know? I’m just the crazy woman and I need to be treated like a two-year-old. If I were smart, I wouldn’t be bipolar. Maybe the proper response really is: Listen you stupid motherfucker….
I watched the inauguration on Wednesday. It was cold, and the women (and some men) wore coats that had the first button around waist level. That’s not a winter coat and it won’t keep anyone warm. Surely there’s a designer out there who can create a warm winter coat that’s also stylish. Bernie Sanders may have had the best idea, and the best mittens. He needed a hat, though.
There are two things Lady Gaga can do very well. She can make an entrance and can make an unsingable Star Spangled Banner sound beautiful. I loved her dress and the dove. Only Lady Gaga could hold her skirt up while walking down stairs, and still look fantastic.
J Lo, if you’re going to sing This Land is Your Land, sing all the verses. Especially the final verse:
Nobody living can ever stop me, As I go walking that freedom highway; Nobody living can ever make me turn back This land was made for you and me.
Woody didn’t write songs to be pretty. He wrote songs to make a point which J Lo clearly missed.
Monday is the yahrzeit of the deputy who killed himself. This year is easier than last year, but it’s still a sad, confusing, emotional time for me. I’ve quilted about his suicide. I’ve written about his suicide. It still tears me apart.
This is the second quilt I made about his suicide. Only the bottom half is quilted. We know what happens when we are alive. We may have beliefs about what happens after we die, but we don’t know what happens.
I’ve been working on two other quilts.
I had a manipulated photo printed by Spoonflower. I’m quilting via machine around the circles, and that’s when I discovered the cataracts have gotten bad enough that I’m limited on what close work I can do. I can’t have cataract surgery because there’s a 25% chance of the retina in my right eye detaching. A souvenir from growing up in a house run by a violent, narcissistic drunk and her violent drunken husband. Once it’s safe to travel again, I’m going to have to start looking for someone who can do high risk cataract surgery.
This is a manipulated photo of a sandhill crane at Bosque del Apache. I had it printed by Spoonflower. I haven’t started to quilt it yet.
Looking for the perfect Valentine’s Day gift? Please visit my store, Deb Thuman Art here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
I am fighting with quilt batting. Normally, I work with fat-quarter size quilts. This quilt is 30”x45” not huge, but bigger than I’m used to. Because I’m tired of fighting quilt sandwiches, I bought fusible batting. The batting is large enough for a quilt for a queen-size bed. I had to unroll the batting, unfold the batting, and try to cut out a piece the proper size. I tried working on the floor, but that didn’t work. I tried folding the batting so I could cut on the folded edges, but that didn’t work. For so long, I worked on dark, emotional quilts. Now, I have a chance to work on a happy quilt. This one is from one of my manipulated photos that I had printed. I need to make some happy art, and this batting is keeping me from doing that.
I took some photos of jewelry I’ve made so I can put my latest jewelry in my store. Valentine’s Day is coming up and the mail service is still slow in some places. Order now to be sure your jewelry will arrive before Valentine’s Day.
When the narcissistic sociopath mocked a reporter who has a disability, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath ripped children from parents’ arms, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath locked terrified children in cages and forced them to sleep on a concrete floor, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath bragged about being a sex offender, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath told lie after lie after lie, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath told people covid was fake news, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath told people to stop getting tested so the spread of covid would be slowed, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath told people to drink bleach and hand sanitizer, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath played golf while more than 300,000 people died, you said nothing.
When the United States has approximately 25% of the covid cases in the world, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath appointed a woman who insisted on making rape on college campuses harder to prosecute as secretary of education, you said nothing.
When the press secretary for the narcissistic sociopath stood in front of a room full of reporters and denied the Holocaust, you said nothing.
When the narcissistic sociopath proceeded to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, you said nothing.
Now you want me to believe you are outraged by the narcissistic sociopath inciting a riot? Your outrage comes only after you were confronted by a deranged, crazed, armed mob storming the Capitol Building. The building in which you work. When your personal safety was in jeopardy.
I’m not stupid enough to believe you.
You are covered with the same stink that has covered the narcissistic sociopath for the last four years.
This week wasn’t easy for anyone watching news out of Washington DC. It’s less easy for someone with bipolar disorder.
On Tuesday, I was severely depressed. I know why, but it’s not something I’m comfortable writing about. I took an extra antidepressant. My doctor knows I do this when the depression gets severe and I get close to being suicidal.
On Wednesday, I made the mistake of watching some of the news about a mob storming the Capitol Building. Seeing the horror triggered severe mania and severe anxiety. Working on a quilt helped a bit. I considered taking an extra mood stabilizer but wasn’t sure if that would help.
On Thursday, I was severely depressed after being rejected by a someone who breeds labradoodles. The breeder refuses to sell a puppy to someone who has never had a puppy. That’s like saying you can’t eat green beans because you’ve never eaten green beans. The plan was, work with a trainer on puppy training – don’t pee on the rug, don’t eat the furniture, the cats aren’t chew toys, how to walk on a leash – and when the dog is 18-24 months old, work with the trainer to train the dog to be a psychiatric service dog for me. I have adult cats and they’re not going to accept an adult dog. I think it would be far easier for them to accept a puppy – especially after learning the puppy won’t eat cat food.
Today, I feel….kind of neutral. I don’t feel at center, but I also don’t feel manic or depressed. More like feeling subdued or like being a muted color. I don’t feel energy flows although I know energy flows exist. I see energy flows as colors. Today, muted colors.
Rapid cycling is defined as four or more episodes within a year. I had three major episodes in three days. Maybe my energy is a muted color because I’ve had the emotional equivalent of running a three-day marathon.
I’m at another stopping point with the isolation quilt. I figured out I wanted to do wavy lines that echoed one another. Now, I’m left with bits of unquilted space. I was going to do meandering free motion quilting, but I forgot how to attach that foot to my machine. When frustration, mania, and anxiety reach terminal velocity, it’s time for me to take a break and do something else. I’m considering leaving the empty spaces empty.
I will not miss 2020. I’ve spent more than nine months staying home, not eating in restaurants, only getting my hair cut twice. I’m encouraged to get tested for covid to bring down the positivity rate. The positivity rate is how many positive results in relation to how many tests were performed. Once the positivity rate goes down, there will be fewer restrictions in my county. It’s artificial. The positivity rate means nothing. How many new cases there are each day is what matters. How many of the people in this county have covid. According to the stats, 1 in 13 people in my county have had covid since March. I refuse to participate in this silliness. Lowering the positivity rate won’t remove the refrigerator trucks parked outside the hospitals. Lowering the positivity rate won’t open up more ICU beds – and in my county there are only three open ICU beds. Lowering the positivity rate means nothing when there’s a more infectious mutation floating amok.
Jim’s 70th birthday was this past Tuesday. I had wanted to take him to Red Lobster for lunch. I’m allergic to seafood and there’s exactly one thing on the menu I can eat, but Jim loves seafood. We decided against that idea because the numbers of new cases of covid each day is scary. Next, we decided to take advantage of Happy Hour at IHOP. We discovered why there were almost no cars in the parking lot when we saw the sign on the door saying the dining room was closed. There is no indoor dining in any restaurant for the duration. Applebee’s has outdoor dining in a tent, but the tent has sides and it’s effectively an enclosed space. We gave up and went to Starbucks where I got a crème brulee latte, some stars, and a chance to play the current Starbucks game.
I’ve been having a neuropathy flare-up and when the marijuana, CBD oil, and gabapentin don’t kill the pain, the only reliable way to kill the pain is to make art. I’ve been making necklaces using quite a few of the latest shipment of glass beads. They are all in my store here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
I’ve switched from shooting in RAW to shooting in JPEG. I wasn’t sure I could adequately edit photos using JPEG which has less information in each shot than RAW. I was surprised that I couldn’t see the difference in the jewelry shots. They’re all shot in JPEG and required minimal tweaking in editing. RAW files are huge and switching to JPEG frees up more computer space.
I’ve kind of figured out how I want to finish quilting the isolation quilt. I just need to put away all the beads and reclaim my sewing space.
One night, while wandering around in pain, I saw an orange moon. I don’t trust myself with a heavy, 150-600mm lens and a tripod after I’ve been eating marijuana. Pot makes me walk into walls. Using the 18-400mm lens, I went outside and got an almost decent shot.
Used to be, I’d go into a major depression about the second week of November and it would last until New Year’s Day. Nightmares. Malaise. Dread. The hell that was Thanksgiving and Christmas.
I hate Christmas.
I grew up in a violent, drunken household run by a violent, narcissistic drunk who hated me and her violent drunken husband. I’m someone else’s kid. It’s not easy being on the outside looking in. Someone else’s kid is never real. Never a real sibling. Never a real daughter. Never a real part of the family.
Holidays started with name calling, insults, the drunk trying – and succeeding – to start a fight. The screaming. The crying. And that was just the first hour. The next hour featured my mother screaming that we didn’t spend enough time eating the meal she spent two days cooking. As the drunks drank more, they got nastier and louder. Behaving badly and making others miserable was our holiday tradition.
We lived in Western New York where the roads weren’t plowed from about December 20 until January 2. We had to drive through an unplowed swamp to get to the in-laws. In the dark. It always snowed huge, fat, mesmerizing flakes. It was nearly impossible to see the edges of the road. The in-laws screamed and fought almost as horribly as my family. I have two happy memories: the Thanksgiving when I had the flu and was too sick to care and the Christmas when dime-store, caroler shaped candles were lit. They melted into a huge puddle covering the bottom of the foil pie pan.
One year, after driving 20 miles on icy roads, my grandmother asked if we would drive another 20 miles to pick up her sister. Fortunately, her sister declined the invitation. That was 40 years ago. I’m still pissed that she had the nerve to expect us to drive all over hell’s unplowed half acre.
Eventually, Jim and I decided to go on vacation over Christmas. This ended the family hell and the in-law hell. One year, we discovered the entire state of Maine, with the exception of LL Bean and one gas station, shuts down on Christmas. We sat in a hotel room eating stale sandwiches from the only gas station that was open while watching A Christmas Story. It was a pleasant Christmas. A far better Christmas than could be had with either my family or the in-laws.
There’s a truck stop in Lexington, Kentucky that’s open on Christmas. They have the best biscuits. They are also the only place that’s open. We drove around Kentucky eating Chex Mix and clementines while looking for an open restroom. One year, we went to West Virginia and stayed at a resort. At least the restaurant was open, the restroom was open, the food was decent, and they stocked The Washington Post.
After discovering my German Lutheran family were really Polish Jews, I gave up on Christmas. I was no longer tied to a pagan holiday. I could celebrate Hanukkah. I made my raku menorah. I left the Christmas decorations packed away somewhere in the garage. I had a holiday that came with no horrid memories, no screaming, no fighting, no crying, and best of all, no extended family.
I’m working on quilting the isolation quilt, and trying to figure out what I want to do next.
I’ve pretty much figured out how I want to quilt the figure. I’ve outlined the figure inside the box, but not outside the box. I haven’t decided how or if I want to quilt the rest of the box. I’ll make that decision after I get the rest of the piece quilted. I also haven’t decided if I want to quilt around the outside of the part of the figure that’s outside the box.
The hard part is deciding what to do with the quilting for the rest of the quilt. The original idea was to do narrow quilting. Rather than have sharp corners on the quilting, I decided to stagger the lines.
Quilting this narrow is tedious and a PITA. So….. do I keep slogging along hating every stitch? Do I gradually make the lines farther apart? Although it’s hard to see when the lines are this close together, the quilting is a variation on the Log Cabin quilt block. I didn’t have that in mind when I started quilting, but I like the idea now that I see it. Log Cabin and it’s emphasis on the home gives an interesting additional meaning to the quilt. I think lines an inch apart would make the Log Cabin more obvious. It would certainly make the quilting less tedious. Until I figure out how I want to proceed with the rest of the quilting, the quilt will sit quietly.
It’s finished, quilted, and bound.
My Biology Journey. I put the beads on before I started quilting. I thought I’d be okay quilting by hand. While I don’t mind hand quilting, the cataracts make seeing up close difficult. Unfortunately, I kept going until I was too far along to give up and machine quilt the piece. I’ve got some serious retina issues so cataract surgery requires an extremely skilled specialist. Hospitals in New Mexico have gone into crisis mode this week. No elective surgery and we’re about to start rationing medical care. Translated: you get to lie on a gurney gasping for air and dying slowly while others get medical care.
I ordered some Hobbs fusible batting. I had two of my photos printed by Spoonflower. Each photo is centered in a yard of fabric. I’ll be doing the quilting on those by machine and neither lends itself to any kind of beading or other embellishments.
I have one biology teacher who causes quilt designs to dance in my brain. After two years of making quilts about suicide and mass shooting, it’s a relief to work on something fun.
My Biology Journey
My journey started when I was a real college student as opposed to a continuing education student. I took botany to figure out how plants grew. Then, I looked at the other biology courses I wanted to take and the requirements for a degree in biology. All I needed to take was two additional classes. And so I earned two undergraduate degrees – biology and journalism.
I haven’t finished quilting the piece, so there are orange basting threads holding the top, batting and backing together. I’m quilting by hand because I added the beads before making the quilt sandwich. Had I not done that, I could have done the quilting by machine. I have cataracts that can’t be removed because there’s a 25% risk of the retina in my right eye detaching. The cataracts mess with my vision, and I’m having difficulty seeing close up.
I knew there was a molecular overlap between plants and animals. The beads in the lower left corner represent a chlorophyl molecule – magnesium surrounded by four nitrogen molecules, The beads in the upper right corner represent hemoglobin – iron surrounded by four oxygen molecules. The molecules work differently, but I was intrigued by the similarity.
This semester, I learned there’s a structural overlap between plants and animals. The appliqués represent cell-to-cell communications in animals. Some cells are attached. Plant cells have the same structure. This amazed me. The beads represent simple diffusion.
This is a generic cell. The embroidered line with the star bead on one end and white bead on the other end represents a G-coupled protein receptor. It’s one of the ways proteins cross the lipid bilayer membrane. The other beads around the edge represent a trans membrane protein, a protein that is on the outer layer of the lipid bilayer, a protein the rests on the inner layer of the lipid bilayer, an isoform, and a protein that has just been synthesized and is being moved to the cell membrane. While I wasn’t thinking about this when I chose the fabric, the circles can represent various organelles in the cell.
I asked my teacher how proteins get from where they are synthesized to where they need to be. She explained there are transport proteins. And so here’s a transport protein taking a protein where it’s supposed to go. It’s the image I saw in my head when my teacher said transport proteins. This is the kind of imagery that makes me wonder about myself at times.
I have peripheral neuropathy and gave up on useless neurologists a couple years ago. I’d ask questions the neurologists would smile, hand me a prescription, and walk out of the room. I’ve been on a quest to heal my neuropathy. I’m making progress. The bottom appliqués represents a neuron with ion pumps and neurotransmitters. The upper appliqués represents a dendrite. Dendrites are on one end of a nerve cell and the axon is at the other end. The axon spits out neurotransmitters and the dendrite has receptors for neurotransmitters. There’s a neurotransmitter docking with the dendrite. Since I gave up on neurologists, I’ve had less pain and I’m on my way to curing the neuropathy.
Aside from the advantages of living pain free, I want to go to Antarctica. The NSF gives out an artists and writers grant for a nearly all expenses paid trip to Antarctica. There has been some building in the last few years. An engineer came up with a design to allow blowing snow to go under the building rather than burying the building. The new buildings are on stilts and have tiny windows to let in light without letting out heat. I want this grant. But the grant is dependent on me passing a physical – which I can’t do now. Once I cure my neuropathy, I will apply for the grant again. The reason for the physical is in the event of a medical emergency, under ideal weather conditions and assuming a plane is available, the nearest medical care is eight hours away. A couple years ago, a researcher at the South Pole developed pancreatitis and the NSF decreed he must return home. Except it was winter and the continent was dark. This rescue requires a plane equipped to handle extreme cold, and pilots who can fly blind. The only air business with both is based in Canada. There are no visual landmarks to be seen in the winter. The GPS goes a little crazy – longitudinal lines converge at the South Pole. This rescue also required ideal weather conditions – and weather conditions change in a heartbeat on Antarctica. The researcher had to be ready to get on that plane the second it stopped moving. There’s a window of no more than two minutes between touch down and lift off. Any longer on the ground, and the skis freeze to the ice.
The applique represents the new buildings on Antarctica.
The beads represent the Southern Cross. As the Big Dipper, Little Dipper and North Star have been used for navigation in the Northern Hemisphere, both on the sea and traveling the Underground Railroad, the Southern Cross, only visible in the Southern Hemisphere, is used for navigation. I’ve seen the Southern Cross, and I will see it again. I won’t be able to see it when I’m on Antarctica because the grant is only for the summer months. However, there is a requirement to spend a few days before and after being on Antarctica in Christ Church, New Zealand. I will be able to see the Southern Cross there.
90S is the latitude of the geographic South Pole. There are actually three South Poles. A ceremonial South Pole – a frozen place for a spiffy photo op, a geographic South Pole, and a magnetic South Pole located in the ocean. I need to go to the geographic South Pole. I took Jim to the top of the Empire State Building so we could dance on the top of the world. Now, I need to dance on the bottom of the world.
I have proofs of 84 designs and I’m in the process of putting them in my Spoonflower shop here https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman My editing program has some new features and I’ve been playing with geographic when I manipulate my photos. Those manipulated photos are then uploaded to Spoonflower and become my fabric designs.
Jim has made a number of key rings with secret compartments. They are in my store, Deb Thuman Art, here http://www.DebThumanArt.com You need to click on “shop” at the top of the home page in order to see everything that’s in my shop.
At the moment, I’m waiting for fabric to tell me what to do next.
I’ve taken three classes from one biology teacher, and I’ve had to make quilts for each class. It wasn’t an assignment; it was art that insisted on being made. This semester, I’m taking human physiology. I’ve worked out what I want on this quilt, and worked out what the different things will look like. The quilt will have trans-membrane proteins, G-coupled protein receptors, transport proteins, neurotransmitters and neurotransmitter receptors, hemoglobin molecule, chlorophyll molecule, cell-to-cell communication, and if I can get enough detail into a small space, a protein receptor on the surface of the cell membrane.
I find it easiest to choose fabrics if I grab fabrics I want to audition for the quilt and let them sit for a day or so. Frequently, fabrics look different a day or two after I choose them. I started with a different fabric for the background, but nothing seemed to work well with that fabric. I’ve eliminated some fabrics that don’t want to play nice with the other fabrics. Now, I just have to wait until the fabric talks to me.
This is the lone detail on the isolation quilt. I know how I want to quilt the rest of the piece, but I haven’t decided how I want to quilt this part. I think I want to outline the figure, but I don’t know what I want to do with the box. I don’t think I want the box to recede and I know I don’t want a lot of detailed quilting in the box. I’ve basted the quilt so it’s ready to be quilted. I just need the quilt to talk to me about this portion.
I’ve been asked about how I manipulate photos to make fabric designs. I use PhotoScape X to edit the photos. This is a free (mostly) app for either Mac or Windows. A one-time payment of $40 USD unlocks all of the features and the app gets updated from time to time. The most recent update includes the ability to do geometric designs.
First, I find look for a subject that I think will work well.
Next, I apply an assortment of overlays.
The first of the geometric manipulations.
Each additional geometric manipulation makes for a more complex design.
I don’t normally twirl the photo, but I decided to experiment a bit.
My online store, Deb Thuman Art has jewelry, scarves, coffee scoops and seam rippers. The photos on the home page show only a small portion of my store. You have to go to the top of the page and click on “shop” to be able to see everything in my store which is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
My brain isn’t working well today. I’m having significantly more anxiety than usual and a I’m having peripheral neuropathy pain. I’ve combined an anti-anxiety med, the medical marijuana and three hours’ sleep. I don’t recommend it.
I have nearly all of the 167 new fabrics in my Spoonflower shop. Because of the insomnia, anxiety and meds, I’m having serious problems coming up with key words for each fabric. At the moment, 142 new designs are in my Spoonflower shop and you can find them here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
There are two single yard pieces that I plan on quilting. One is a photo that I manipulated using the geometrics part of PhotoScape X. I like that it looks like a modern version of a traditional quilt. Yes, there will be photos.
There’s a reason it’s called art therapy and I’ve been playing with photography.
I photographed the desert coming alive in the spring and summer. Now, I’m photographing the desert going dormant. What strikes me is how determined plants are to keep blooming. Here are the remnants of a recent bloom surrounded by dead blooms and dead leaves.
Yucca pods that have opened to release seeds.
Every photographer, including me, has an assortment of full moon photos. I’ve been deliberately looking for opportunities to photograph a less than full moon.
It was a nice night, so I decided to play around a bit. I experimented using a flashlight to light up different parts of the yard. I was hoping for something a bit different, but what I got is intriguingly eerie.
One of my recent manipulated photos. Here’s the original photo.
Today, I started with a photo of bare branches and played a bit. Here’s the final manipulation.
For some reason, the original shot won’t load.
I can get nearly instant gratification with photography and I find I am suddenly calm when I start to make art.
I’ve got nearly all of the isolation quilt basted and can start quilting it tomorrow. I’ve a pretty good idea of how I want to quilt it. I need to work on the human physiology quilt.
Don’t want to risk shopping at the few stores still open? One safe option is to support an artist. Many artists have on-line stores offering one of a kind treasures. Mine, Deb Thuman Art, is here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
I’ve finally put the binding on a quilt made in memory of 11 people who were killed inside a temple in Pittsburgh a couple years ago. The blue in the center is the Hebrew word for life. The 11 Stars of David are for the 11 people killed. The red is blood spatter. I remember reading that when members of the temple went inside the temple, they found blood spatter and brain tissue on the walls.
I quilted and put binding on the suicide quilt. I’ve only quilted the bottom half of the quilt. We don’t know what happens after we die. People have an assortment of beliefs about what happens, but no one knows for sure. The lack of quilting reflects that unknowing. The line between the hands is how connections between people are forever severed when someone dies.
New Mexico is shut down for two weeks. The number of new infections each day is out of control. I doubt shutting down for two weeks will make a difference. I think the timing of the shutdown is an attempt to keep people home on Thanksgiving. I suspect the state will remain shut down until the end of the year.
I’m getting tired of this virus. Tired of not being able to go anywhere. Tired of having my photography restricted to what’s in my yard. While dead yucca seed pods are interesting, there are only so many I can look at before I get bored.
I’ve been playing with photographs of the only part of my yard that looks like a forest. The rest of the yard looks like a desert.
Last spring, I found a cholla I hadn’t seen before. It had small, white flowers rather than the large, garish purple flowers on all the other chollas in my yard. Now, it’s got tiny tunas about the size of a marble. The other chollas don’t have tunas.
I’ve been doing most of my shopping online and it’s taking a long time for things I order to arrive. I think this is a combination of horrible orders given to the postal service in an attempt to stop mail-in ballots and the larger than usual number of packages traveling through the mail. I have an online store, Deb Thuman Art http://www.DebThumanArt.com. I mail out orders Monday through Saturday the day after the orders are placed. If an order is placed on Saturday, it won’t go out until Monday. Please shop early to allow for gifts to arrive in time for Christmas.
I’ve had this quilt design floating around in my head for a while. After reading an email this past week, I felt alone and isolated. The quilt couldn’t live in my head anymore; I had to make this quilt. It’s a self portrait. I tried pinning the white square on the fabric, but the square bunched up. I ripped out the stitches and made quilt basting spray. That was frustrating. The spray bottles I bought are only good for spraying something the consistency of water. Quilt basting spray wouldn’t go through the nozzle. Because my anxiety is high enough that it’s in the stratosphere, Jim had to figure out how to make a spray bottle work. Eventually, Jim found a bottle and sprayer that would accommodate quilt basting spray. I’m surprised at how well this spray holds fabric together.
I outlined me with purple Razzle Dazzle because purple is a healing color.
Using Razzle Dazzle for hand sewing can be frustrating. The threads separate and get tangled. I used a fast-drying adhesive on the end of the thread and that kept the threads from unraveling. There was a knot in the other end. This quilt is still in progress but this is all I’m going to do in the way of design. I need to figure out how I want to quilt it. I’ve got an idea about quilting that may make a couple quilts play off each other and tell a story.
Armed with a 25% off coupon, a couple dollars in commissions and the promise of free shipping, I placed a sizeable order with Spoonflower. When my order arrives, I’ll be able to put 168 new fabric designs in my store. I also ordered two of my designs to be printed on two one-yard pieces of fabric. I think they will make interesting art quilts. The fabric with all the proofs will be used for quilt backing. My Spoonflower shop is here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman
It snowed this week. Snow in southern New Mexico is rare, so I had to go out and photograph the snow covered desert.
Next, I started playing around in editing and came up with some intriguing fabric designs.
I received a newsletter this morning and I haven’t figured out how to respond. Part of the newsletter was about coping during a pandemic. When the organization first sent out email wanting to know about how people are coping with covid, I responded by email saying it’s important to understand that as difficult as a pandemic is for most people, it’s far worse for those of us who have a mental illness.
I was ignored.
Here’s what I feel like saying: Listen dumb ass, if you think you’re coping with isolation, grief and feeling alone, how do you think I feel sitting here knowing you think less of me and that I’m only worthy of being ignored because I’m bipolar? I’m alone, isolated, depressed, and stuck with your prejudices. I didn’t choose to be bipolar. You chose to be cruel. How dare you pretend to care about people when the only people you care about are people who don’t cause you to confront your own bigotry.
Here’s what I said: ????? I haven’t yet figured out how to respond.
I don’t live in the closet because I refuse to be ashamed of an illness I didn’t choose and can’t escape. I can, and do, medicate my illness. I can, and do, tell others that medication doesn’t cure bipolar disorder, it only dulls bipolar disorder. I can learn to more or less cope with being mentally ill. I cannot, and will not, accept the bigotry, stupidity and ignorance of others. Law school taught me to say in four paragraphs what anyone else would say in two words. As much as I would love to tell the person who wrote the article in the newsletter to fuck off, I will refrain. It wouldn’t do any good.
Bipolar disorder makes everything larger than life. My emotional responses are larger than life. I’ve been told I give people the feeling they need to back up about three feet just so they can breathe. I’ve been told I scare the hell out of people. Do you think I like being told those things? Do you think I don’t notice or feel pain because you view me as different? Ostracizing me hurts. Both of us. It wounds me, but it hurts you because you’re missing out on knowing some amazing people just because you’re a bigot. That’s right. You’re a bigot. Or did you think bigotry only involved racism?
I am hurt. I am pissed. I am alone. I am unable to think of a solution.
After a week of touring Dallas and Ft. Worth, my roasting pan finally arrived. A week after Bed, Bath & Beyond said it would be delivered. I’m not interested in making a roast; I’m interested in making creme caramel and I needed a pan deep enough that I could have hot water 3/4 of the way up the side of the custard cups. And so I set out to make creme caramel. I gave myself a second-degree burn working with the caramel – which I burnt. My copay for a visit to the emergency room is $275. I can think of a whole lot of other things I’d rather spend $275 on than sitting around an emergency room waiting for someone to tell me what I already know. Instead, I put lidocaine on the burn and put a bandage over it. It’s an interesting experience trying to temper eggs when working with only one and a half hands. The custard part of the creme caramel came out really nice. The caramel part taught me I need to use a candy thermometer rather than try to guess when the caramel is just right.
This damn pandemic better end soon. The insomnia is killing me. I will fall asleep at a more or less reasonable hour two nights in a row, then the insomnia is back and I’m up until 4:00 AM. Bleah. This has been going on long enough for the extreme anxiety to feel normal.
I need a haircut, but that’s not going to happen for a few months. New Mexico is now a hotspot and the county I live is is one of the hottest spots in the state. We’re setting records for new covid-19 infections at least once a week. It’s terrifying. So I will live with shaggy hair for several weeks. Or longer.
The air quality here has been terrible for weeks. All the particulates from the wildfires are blowing through and causing me to have an allergic reaction. Finally, in desperation, I went outside yesterday to do some photography. Fortunately, the air quality was better than it had been. I started the pandemic photographing spring in the desert. That morphed into photographing the desert in the summer. Now, I’m working on photographing the desert as it dies back to be dormant for the next six months.
The few flowers on the desert sage bushes are tiny. The leaves are turning yellow.
Some of the desert plants don’t seem to understand what time of year it is. This is a blossom on a red yucca that should have stopped blooming four months ago.
Last night, for the first time in weeks, we had a colorful sunset and I went out to photograph it. I got distracted by the cottontail that was willing to hold still long enough for me to get a few decent bunny shots.
After the bunny left, I documented the sunset.
One of the editing programs I use is Photoscape X. Much of the program is free, and $40 unlocks all the bells and whistles. The other day, Photoscape issued an update. Wow! Do I have bells and whistles!
Here’s the original shot of a seed pod on a red yucca.
Cohen holding still long enough for me to get a more or less decent shot of her. Usually The Deranged Ones hide when I grab the camera.
I’ve been working with some of the beads I bought last month when we took a tiny trip to Albuquerque and I’ve been putting necklaces into my store, Deb Thuman Art, here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
Deb's Art 