…When I can, that is.

I have been so tired that I’ve actually been nodding off while I’m painting! I can hardly believe it, but it’s true. It is so frustrating!

But I was finally able to finish this big one: Round House (above). Maybe it’s not that big, but it’s biggish to me at 36 x 36 inches.

This one was in my studio at the easel, so I had to stand the whole time. There were times I was able to sit in a chair, and even had to in order to get at the bottom part of the painting because the ceilings are so low in there. Believe me, I didn’t mind sitting, and I really don’t mean to complain. I have been doing better than I have in many years – but maybe not in the last handful of years. Not lately anyway.

There was a time I was using a wheelchair to get from one place to another because I could not really walk. I could make it down my hallway at home if I hung onto the walls, but it was pretty grim. But those were also the days when I refused to take any kind of Western medicine.

Anyway, I won’t get into the whole long boring story about my health. I am just really fortunate that I basically have use of my legs. I’m just in pain about 99.999% of the time. Ha! I will sport the occasional cane and/or find surreptitious ways to sit down as much as possible, but I can walk and stand – just not for long periods of time or else I will collapse like one of those push-puppets.

Yet, I will go to art openings and stand there longer than I am able. It’s not like other people know what’s going on with me, so I just feel rude to cut out early, even though I’ll do that too. And if I show up with the cane, suddenly I will have to answer to it.

“What’s a matter with your leg?”

“Nothing. I have MS.”

“Awww. I’m so sorry.”

Oy Vhey.

So I tend to go without it because of vanity really. I hate admitting that, but it’s true.

Anyway, between naps, I have been trying to get the last two paintings completed; the little one and the landscape.

This is about all I’ve managed to get done on the landscape since last week and today I only did a few yellow and lime-colored needle-leaves:

I mostly worked on the small one, which is nearly finished now.

I will be finishing it tomorrow morning – doing an “effect” on that piece of blue sky on the top part.

Don’t have a title for this little one yet. Still thinking. I’ve been boring about the titles lately, or at least I feel like I have been. Titles have always been so important to me. I got kinda screwed up when getting feedback about them in relation to what people were seeing and how the titles were not making any sense with the work. Then I felt like I had to make up really arbitrary names in order to give the viewer their own narrative, not just their own experience – meaning, I thought the titles were messing with their experience. Still, titling them is like my last goodbye to them.

Maybe I’ll be able to title this one tomorrow.

In other news, I think my show is getting pushed back a week, but I don’t know for sure yet. I haven’t heard back from the gallery. All I know is that they changed the dates on their website so I’m assuming that they have changed the show to open on March 26th instead of the 19th. Luckily, we have enough time before the show right now where this doesn’t make much of a difference and it would give me an extra week of naps before I have to be prepared.