I dont want to be in here tonight. Things are awful and the site was not developed to reflect the constant grind of a failing life that was being driven into dark poverty.
Every time I awake there is a knot of disappointment, dismay and horror in my stomach.
Contacted a group called Community Transport and asked if they could arrange for two transports to the major stores at Tuggerah. Their representative was very nice. What was needed was a transport to these shops and then some assistance getting about the shop and carrying parcels back to the car. They dont do that. They wanted $2 per kilometer unless I signed a contract that gave them access to my care package.
A couple of a local doctor’s staff told me I was not entitled to taxi vouchers. Taxi vouchers are a scheme that allows elderly and disable people to get half off fares up to fifty dollars back. According to the doctor’s staff only veterans can get it. Or something. I was pretty sure I am entitled so I rang the number of their website and they verified my entitlement and sent me some forms.
A new NDIS provider’s representative came to the apartment today and ran through my situation. We got a lot done but it was grueling. Every time I express some part of the situation that is acting to prevent me getting back into the swing of making and exhibiting art people always try and think of options to help. They are always the options that I tried and discarded decades ago.
Among the worst of them is the offer to link me up with some disabled-art schemes. I have to almost choke myself to avoid screaming. I dont do disabled art. Nor handicapped art. Nor crippled art. Nor retarded art. Nor therapeutic art. I dont study every day and carry decades of education and the experience of battling my limitations so that I have to suffer people being kind and taking my art because it is output from a sad person with no hope of ever being a “real” artist. I will burn every drawing and painting in here if I am unable to produce work that stands alone.
Another suggestion was to sell some art via the weekend markets. I think of that a lot. I used to sell hand-painted tshirts at North Sydney Markets. Another time I was given several pallets of car cleaning products by a company near Windsor to sell at Parklea Markets several weekends. My spot was invaded by Asian dealers who had heaps of products and family members and didnt fight pain all day long. I couldn’t even get my money back in the end. The art I produce is not conducive to selling at markets anyway. It costs thousands to get set up and it isnt practical unless you have a network and very cheap suppliers.
I have asked everyone to look out for some way I can get involved in undergoing a Master’s Degree in painting or several other types of art. The best way to explain what I want is to attend a university which along with NDIS and the providers will understand my physical limitations and help me overcome them to produce a full bodied proper academic outcome. That is the way I see everything but I am falling through a massive hole in reality that leaves the incredible potential of my visions turning into mud in this tiny, hostile, squalid place. I dont see how it will change. Nobody understands how painful simple actions are or how mentally and emotionally traumatic it all is. I cannot make anybody understand that every time I hear the voice of a neighbor sailing through the wall or the window my stomach seethes with anxiety and I have to reassure myself the cameras are working and the big chains are holding the doors closed. I feel absolutely alone and very lonely and see no signs of improvement
The contract that gives this new provider access to the funds has been signed. For the time being I will not reveal the company
Geez. There is a guy with an Irish accent sobbing on the radio nightline! I know how he feels!
The first image for this post is Bamboo Dragon and it epitomizes the battle I am having to find some way of working within the limits of this space. It was the back of an old cupboard that had belonged to an RAAF officer in Malaysia. The drawing wasn’t planned and done out of the desperation to be working on a decent sized piece. The under-drawing has all the faults unplanned works suffer. Then it was glazed and it almost worked at that point but the glazes ran and dribbled and sucked up dust. The space is too small and too close to the kitchen. The final green looks to have ruined it. This is not an application of color and image that comes naturally to me and it has sat for months while I try to work out how to take it another level. I will probably destroy it and start a new work. There may be enough information in this one to plan the next which is something I was too ill to do most of the time before now. I may overpaint it instead. It is a wonderful grungy old panel
Before the High Priests of Mammon. Acrylic and graphite on ply. Still at the drawing stage from an earlier post
I haven’t given up. The “High Priests of Mammon” had me stopped so a second smaller work has been drawn up to test the colors and work style. As the drawing preceding it has drawn me deeper into the complexity of light and emotion. It flows towards being that extension of emotional symbolic language that I prefer. I don’t know. The space still demands I extend myself to learn new ways of handling paint to overcome the handicaps and the squalid space. It tires me and adds to the despair
The Stelitzia series is also coming along and giving me technical skills in working strong color and glaze in smaller works. I may be finding my way with something very Zen in those simple forms. There is no comfortable place in this awful little brick box be it comfort in emotion, intellect or physical comfort. If it wasn’t equally uncomfortable I would slump and let my head smack on the table.
It may be I will look into these images which are all at the stage of being drawn and see a way of connecting the pencil to the paint and making hybrid images. I keep seeing something just beyond these images that may be beautiful if I carry it to new images
Electricity
The last few posts have included the fact that everything that can be done to push the power usage in the apartment down has been done. What did going without heat all winter, not showering as often, almost ceasing cooking, turning the water heater down, using low wattage globes and being fanatical about turning lights off save me? The bill went from $260 (um, I think) to $350 for the same period. 🙁