There hasn’t been much happening in any positive way. I managed to buy a pair of jeans and remember to get them tight so they would still be a nice fit when they were baggy from wear. Levi 504s. It is probably the one thing I have had to be happy about in months
There is no further action on getting the ducting on the stove rangehood. Everything in here has a thick layer of sticky black dust and it is an emergency if I want to have any work that hasn’t been ruined by grime. I cannot work out what to do. It will cost about five hundred dollars for parts and I just got a massive electricity bill that will strip away all discretionary and most other money for months. The only thing I might do is to get painting drop-sheets and cover everything in here with plastic. It is a tiny space and will severely cramp any future efforts to use it
Still no further activity on the stomach tests. Has it been a year since I was hospitalized? If there is anything serious in there it is happily finishing me off by now.
The mattress has been covered in plastic as well. It gave off fumes and over the winter, with the place closed down, I spent days just staring and too ill to move. I am more and more certain it is sick house syndrome and the fumes from things like this mattress are a big part as are the cleaning chemicals and plastics elsewhere. Since the flat has been opened up I seem to be functioning at a higher level although every time I think I have met some marker of improvement I find myself flailing around with memory loss or some other very strong indicator that I will never be free of it
The Nikon needs a macro lens and I regret buying a full camera instead of a bridging camera. The bridging cameras may not get very good shots of insects and things a lot of the time but right now I cannot use the camera for that kind of shot at all. A big part of the things I was hoping to be a part of in the spring are just gone from my grasp for the time being and maybe ever, There is immense downward pressure on the poor right now. Enforced poverty
My niece did a lovely little drawing the other day and it bought a gasp of outrage from me. I couldn’t help it. I love her and want her to succeed and she is a great little artist but I have spent and lost tens of thousands of dollars from my pension on trying to get past the amateur artist and up to an artist who can make work that is finished to a professional level. The realization is that after all this work and study I have been forced to flail along at a stage that a part time artist with a pencil can manage. It hurt me too much for me to stop the outburst.
This is a really horrible trap and it is exactly as I feared. Rebuilding my work and materials after another massive loss may not be possible now that I am so ill and old. I did the work. I bought the equipment and studied the things I needed to study and really lost everything again and again after theft and poverty and a total lack of support where it was needed. I just wanna make and share my art for crying out loud!
I feel like writing a long eulogy to my crashing life. The fact is that my roar of rage is echoed right across the world by people being disenfranchised. The horror is so bad that if your skin is not dripping off you from napalm or some chemical weapon nobody thinks you can be hurt badly enough to be notable.
The dismay is so strong that it sits in my stomach like some solid object. The nightmares of loss are so bad that every day I struggle to stay awake until it is impossible. The visions for each artwork pile in. The door to the muse has been opened and they burn me with regret and loss as they pale into nothing in the face of illness, brain damage and bad eyesight coupled with the pitiless tyranny of social housing. I can draw almost. But there is no point just making pencil marks on paper without finishing it in some way so it can be sold.
I cannot really paint. My painting style includes spattering, splashing sanding and all sorts of things you cannot do in an apartment with carpet. Several of the recent paintings were destroyed when shelves fell on them. Too small a space for keeping work safe. You should not cook inside a tiny studio.
I don’t know what to do. I think I may be beaten. I have fought for life so I could speak through my art. I am alive but without my art. I watch as all that sacrifice bleeds away and becomes muddy symbols of poverty. I hate as deeply as a human can hate. I hurt.
I will try. The visions bring some healing but my body is ruined and I know the moment I sit at that old table on that wooden stool I am beaten. A healthy man could do it but I am fighting just to find the energy to feed myself and am wrapped in pain. I will try. I want to write volumes about pain and hopelessness as though it will assist me to sit here rather than facing the sense of failure that comes each time my body struggles to work in this hostile place. I might stop. It isn’t helping and who will read this wail of pain anyway?
Managed to go for a walk and it was night and I was lonely and I remembered why I started the “Insomnia” series. I also remember why the disability led me to self-medicate. The fact is that if I didn’t think it would kill me I would be trying to find drugs that would let me work. Or drugs that would help me fight to stay upright and move into a barn or something. No barns anymore eh! Every grain of sand is being pored over by the great property parasites. If it was practical I would be shuffling through all those American feel-good brain pills to see if they will help me cope with this awful situation. Perhaps the worst thing is that I should be there. I have done the work. I put the structure in place and was exhibiting again at the last place. Very bad. Very very bad. Here my skills are declining. I just cannot beat the layout in this tiny place to get work done and make images that go where I am trying to go. My big papers are still getting dirty and torn and I cannot even store them let alone work on them. Dismay! Horror, Rage. I want to draw the great wave of waste again and again until it kills me. I dont want to sit here and just wait