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.
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’m taking a human physiology class from one of my favorite teachers. This is the third class I’ve taken from her. For some reason, her classes trigger quilt ideas. No quilt ideas have come from any other class I’ve ever taken. When I took neurobiology from her, I made two quilts about nerves.
Someday, I’ll bind this one.
When I took animal physiology from her, I made a mitochondria quilt.
Now, I’ve got a human physiology quilt floating in my brain.
When I was in college for real, I majored in biology. I would lay awake at night trying to figure out how water crossed the cell membrane. I loved botany. Had I gone to grad school instead of law school, I would have been a botanist. Now, I’m in college for fun. I take classes that interest me and I’m not working towards another degree. I can’t get another degree; I’m out of wall space.
As I was reading the textbook for my human physiology class, I saw something astounding. There are junctions between human cells that closely resemble junctions between plant cells. I’ve never seen structural overlap like that before. That’s what triggered the quilt idea. The soft idea floating in my head features representations of the parts of biology and the parts of my class that mean the most to me. I need to do some sketching.
In the UFO category, I still haven’t made quilt basting spray which means I still haven’t quilted the suicide quilt although I’ve got a firm idea of how I want to quilt it.
I’ve been working on photographing necklaces I’ve made and putting those necklaces for sale in my store, Deb Thuman Art which you can find here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com
I woke up in pain yesterday. Only one thing to do when that happens – grab the camera, go outside, and start shooting.
I woke up about an hour after sunrise, so I got some interesting light.
The agave that bloomed two years ago still hasn’t died. We didn’t cut the stalk down, and the stalk is now woody and it has become a perch on which birds watch for predators. These are dove.
We took a tiny trip to Albuquerque on Friday. We stayed overnight and came back Saturday morning. Travel is interesting. No more breakfast buffet at the hotel. They offer a breakfast grab and go bag containing yogurt, a granola bar, and some juice. No bedspread on the bed. If you want a blanket, you have to ask for one to be brought to your room. All the dishes, including the coffee pot, are in the dishwasher rather than in the cupboards and drawers. No more hot coffee and hot tea all day and night. We bought teabags at Sprouts. No honey. No sugar. No creamer. The pool is closed but the exercise room is open. Only two people or one family in the elevator at a time. One of our favorite restaurants appears to be permanently closed. Limited hours at other restaurants. I had to contact the Department of Transportation to ask if restrooms along I-25 are open. They are. I asked because restrooms at parks have been closed since mid-March.
The point of this trip was to buy beads at my favorite gem store. I checked before we left home to be sure the gem store was open. This trip, I decided to splurge and buy some of the more expensive beads. Expensive is a relative term. Although I loved the 10mm round larimar beads, I couldn’t afford to pay $750 for them. The most expensive beads I bought were $45 a strand. It’s a balancing act. I wanted to have higher end beads, but I need to have high end beads that turn into earrings and necklaces my customers can afford. Few people are willing to pay $1,000+ for a necklace from an on-line store. At that price, people need to see the jewelry and feel the stones before buying.
Bumble bee jasper. These are beads the clerk recommended, and I’m fascinated by the colors.
Larimar which is found only in the Dominican Republic. I love the stone, but at the moment, the beads are pricy. Gem prices are driven by scarcity, politics, and how much is being mined at the moment.
Phosphosiderite. The name is from the components of the stone, phosphorous and iron. I was surprised to discover it’s rare because the price for these was reasonable.
Peruvian opal. Although these opals don’t have the light play of the more famous opals, a couple of the stones are clearly trying to sparkle.
Rhodochrosite, one of my favorite stones. It’s the national stone of Argentina. While the price here is reasonable, the price is outrageously expensive in Argentina.
Turquoise. The reasonable price was a surprise because turquoise jewelry is expensive in New Mexico.
Vericite. I love the delicate green color of the stones. The color isn’t absolutely accurate in these photos.
Here in New Mexico, we’re getting smoke from California and Arizona. I don’t remember the last time smoke didn’t hide the mountains in haze. I took these photos from the hotel window and had a time and a half editing the shots.
My broken tooth was extracted this past Tuesday. I opted for anesthetic because I detest getting a shot of anything in my mouth. The oral surgeon explained that the tooth had three roots and the roots would have to be drilled out. After the tooth was removed, a titanium post was implanted in my jaw. I watched a Youtube video to see how the post was implanted, and I was glad I wasn’t awake. While the process is fascinating, some things I’d rather not know about while they are happening. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k6pFGwUHVs if you’d like to see the process. I stopped taking the painkillers on Wednesday. I hated being stoned and when I wasn’t having pain. I’m still taking the antibiotics four times a day. I still have to eat on only one side, but I’m starting to eat semi-solid food. Pasta. Enchiladas. Refried beans. Rice.
I was reading in my human physiology text book, and my brain took a little trip. I thought about chocolate chip cookies and how everything in a body is interconnected. That transition made sense at the time. Then, an idea for a physiology quilt started to form. The design needs more work, but I may end up with something fun. Fun would be nice. For the past couple years, my quilts have been about mass shootings, suicide and isolation.
I’ve been working out a design for a quilt about how I feel isolated. Frequently, I don’t understand what’s going on inside of me until the feelings come out my hands. Sometimes, art is the only way I can communicate.
I bought a copy of Step-by-Step Texture Quilting by Christina Cameli and it arrived on Saturday. I’ve been doing some skimming and I now have some ideas about how to quilt the suicide quilt and how to quilt the isolation quilt after I finish working out the design and turn it into fabric.
This is the original photo. I was working with my macro lens and saw a feather on the ground. I thought it would be an interesting subject for manipulation.
Here’s one of the manipulations:
And here’s the one I used for a fabric design:
I haven’t proofed the design so it’s not for sale in my Spoonflower store yet. I’ve got a coupon for 25% off, and I’m working on getting together a huge order.
Fall in the desert is…..interesting. Several years ago, I decided I wanted to make a quilt using fall colors. I’m from western New York where fall is wildly colorful. When I finished the quilt, it didn’t look right. I had yellow and purple, but I thought I had too much green. How we design quilts and the colors we choose is strongly influenced by what we see around us.
In the desert, we get most of the annual rainfall in July and August. In the fall, the brown desert turns …
These are Dona Ana Mountains behind my home. One of these days, I want to hike these mountains. Alas, the pandemic has caused restrooms in the parks an on trails to be closed. I’m not adverse to relieving myself al fresco, but I don’t want half the town watching me while I do so.
Art is a fleeting look at a moment of the artist’s life.
I make emotional art. The kind of art no one wants to look at. The kind of art that shows the ugliness in my life. Maybe, if I’m very lucky, it’s the kind of art that will unlock past trauma and let me feel the feelings I’ve refused to feel for so long.
I’m not responsible for the trauma. I am responsible for allowing or not allowing myself to feel things I couldn’t feel during the trauma because releasing those feelings at the time of trauma wasn’t safe.
I’m in the process of recovering from my last blog post. I put in that post things I’ve never told anyone. Things I was ashamed of. Things that, at the time of the trauma, seemed not exactly normal but also not unusual or special. Didn’t everyone hate their siblings as we were taught to hate each other? Didn’t everyone have parents who hated and beat them? Didn’t everyone stagger through hell while denying they were in hell?
I couldn’t feel anything growing up because it wasn’t safe to feel anything. At one point, I convinced myself that I didn’t have emotions. Prozac without the prescription. Now, it’s safe to feel what I couldn’t feel before. Except now I can’t feel those feelings. I can’t access them. I don’t know where to find them. I don’t know how to let the feelings out. Maybe that’s why I can’t find the feelings. Those feelings are buried under raw terror.
What would happen if I allowed the pain from neglect, emotional abuse and physical abuse to release? Would I explode? Would the feelings be horrifying? Would the feelings hurt? That’s the one that terrifies me. The feelings would hurt. I’d have to relive a hell I’ve buried.
More than anything, I want to heal. I want to be normal. I want to be able to make friends. I want to attend services at my temple without wanting to be by myself curled up in a corner.
I don’t’ know how. I don’t’ know how to be normal. I don’t know what to do with people. I don’t know how to be part of a group. I go through life believing I’m all I’ve got, all I’ve ever had, and all I ever will have. What does it feel like to be normal? What does it feel like to be happy? What does it feel like to feel? To be fully alive?
Lose a tooth and find myself.
I don’t recommend it.
I’ve sketched a couple designs that may become quilts. I’m not sure. I’ve tried drawing my trauma, but it has never seemed to be accurate. I think I’m coming closer to drawing what’s hidden inside of me. It’s emotional art. I’m not sure I want to look at it.
I do not like this pandemic. I have money, time and gas is cheap. I have more than 135,000 points and can fly anywhere Southwest flies for free. Except flying isn’t safe. I can get a good deal on a cruise. Except taking a cruise isn’t safe. I have nowhere to go. Hotels all have restricted occupancy. Restaurants in New Mexico are take out or patio dining only. I’m surrounded by hotspots. It’s not safe to go anywhere. At first, I amused myself by documenting in photos spring in the desert. Then, I amused myself by sewing masks. Next, I amused myself by photographing summer cactus flowers in the desert. Now, I’m not amused. And I broke a tooth Friday evening.
I have put 30 new fabric designs in my Spoonflower store here: https://www.spoonflower.com/profiles/deb_thuman I manipulate photos I’ve taken of assorted subjects and turn the manipulated photos into fabric designs.
To sell fabric designs on Spoonflower, the designs have to be proofed. I use the economical 30 designs on a length of fabric to proof designs. I think I found a good use for the fabric. Quilt backing and making boxers for Jim. The only sewing I feel like doing is making boxers so I’ve been using up leftover fabric for Jim’s boxers. He’s used to getting a leg of this and a leg of that.
I am battling depression at the moment. In an attempt to banish the blues, Jim and I went to the Bernina store and I looked at fabric. Jim looked at sewing machines and discovered the Pfaff I bought two years ago was a huge bargain. It was on sale and it’s the nicest machine I’ve ever had. Next, he discovered the machines that cut out quilt pieces are expensive, the dies are expensive, and – as Jim put it – the machine doesn’t help you put the pieces together. Lots of opportunity to stretch fabric cut on the bias, not get the seams even, and end up with an expensive mess.
I found two pretty batiks on sale. Four yards of each have had the ends serged and are being pre-washed and run through the dryer. Serging the cut ends keeps the ends from unraveling and giving me handfuls of thread messes. Plus, if the ends are serged, I know the fabric has been pre-washed and run through the dryer. If fabric is going to shrink, I want it to shrink before I cut out a garment. Also, I’ve yet to find fabric that was folded on grain when it came off the bolt. I’m thinking blouses for this fabric. I got some patterns on sale a few weeks back.
Jim has been busy, and I’ve been listing the seam rippers he makes in my store here: http://www.DebThumanArt.com There are 8 new seam rippers. Here are a few of them.
I’m closing in on the quilting design. I’m playing with the idea of heaven and earth, dead and alive, and how they are separated. I’ve been thinking about how there’s no communication between dead and alive. I don’t believe mediums can communicate with the dead. We have assorted beliefs about what happens to a person after death, but those are beliefs. We have no actual proof of what, or if, anything happens to a soul after death. I believe a soul is alive before conception and lives on after the body dies.
There’s no communication between heaven and earth. Maybe. Those on earth pray, but we’ve no confirmation that anyone or anything is hearing the prayers.
I’d like to put all of that into the quilting and I think I’ve figured out how to do that. If the quilting works out the way I have it in my head, I’m going to have a strange quilt. That’s okay. It will work well with my other strange quilts.
I’ve been sending short stories in to writing contests and I got a rejection email the other day. The short story that got rejected is 1800 words and four chapters. Now, I need to find another contest to submit this story. I submitted two stories to the Chicago Tribune in February. Those are still pending. As I go through stories I had written for my writing classes, I’m struck by how weird my writing is. When I was in college, my writing was normal. When I was a journalist, my writing was normal. When I wrote appeals for my clients, my writing was both normal and constipated. I don’t know when or how I started writing weird. Although I’m an avid reader, I’ve never read anything remotely like my style. That I write weird was an almost disconcerting discovery.
I’m working on a novel. Anyone who thinks writing a novel is easy has never tried to write a novel. When I was a journalist, I’d sit down down, starting a story at the beginning and going straight to the end. All in one sitting. Novels don’t work that way. At least the novel I’m writing doesn’t work that way. The story is about a woman who is my age, bipolar, a criminal defense attorney, a widow, and she’s in love with a police officer. I had to kill Jim off to write the novel. He’s taking it well. New Mexico is a community property state and any royalties I get from this novel are marital property. Translated: Jim and I will jointly own any royalties.
Because I don’t consider any book that doesn’t have at least one dead body to be worth reading, I’ve put three bodies in my novel including an officer involved shooting. My view of officer involved shootings is nothing like the views written about in The New York Times. It’s also nothing like the views held by the majority of criminal defense attorneys. I’ve never been good at conforming. In the novel, I use capitalization in an odd way. Not only am I working with a story line, I’m working with unusual concepts requiring unusual capitalization.
I still haven’t figured out how I want to quilt the suicide quilt.
I put together a quilt sandwich and proceeded to audition quilting ideas.
I had thought quilting lightening would be a good idea…..until I saw what it looked like.
Next, I thought some of my fancy quilt stitches would be a good idea.
Stitch #79 has possibilities. I like how it looks when the stems of the “T” are squished together. I thought stitch #191 would be a good option until I saw how it looked. The stitches where there is heavy stitching don’t seem to work well.
I had thought quilting horizontal lines would be an option and I auditioned assorted widths, but I’m not thrilled with how that turned out.
This is a quilt where the applique needs to stand out and the quilting be subtle. So here I sit with still no idea how I want to quilt this piece.
Photography this week was more successful.
The barrel cacti have started to bloom.
I don’t remember the last time it rained and it’s been even longer since it rained enough to matter. Even the prickly pear cactus, a cactus that is hardy in deserts, is withering. The prickly pear cacti will perk up once it rains. Global warming has caused the desert to be hotter – we have had 100+ temperatures, a few of them record breakers, for the past couple weeks – and drier.
Jim, DH, has been busy making seam ripper/stilettos.
The brown one is mine, and the teal one is for a customer. Jim is working on more seam rippers and when they are ready, they will go in my store, Deb Thuman Art.
Deb's Art 