I thought there were ten paintings. There are really five. Without the experimenting, I wouldn’t have realised this. Without trying to force a painting, I wouldn’t have learned not to. Without admitting that the series was starting to feel more like a chore than honest expression, I would not have made the discovery I needed to make.
Five paintings. An odd number for a series. Most of us humans like even numbers in series. Five is off-kilter. It’s in motion, leading to the harmony of an even number, but, in the case of this series, never delivering. One expects a sixth painting and will look for it. There is a desire for harmony and completion that is not fulfilled. Like waiting (hoping) for remission.
I could force a sixth painting the way I forced RAI #2. That was a mistake. Everything went wrong. I spent a few days thinking about it, wondering how I could fix it. I realised this morning that there was no need to fix it because there was no need for the painting at all. It was overkill. RAI #1 said everything that needed saying.
I knew that something bigger had been bugging me with the series. Some of the paintings were definitely forced from the start because I wanted an even number. But the even number would be too calm and too resolved and that had been bothering me for weeks without me even knowing it. A series has to be an even number, some OCD override in my head kept saying. But why? What I feel at the moment is not resolution, not in terms of my health anyway. As I have painted, I have tried to get at the root of my emotions concerning my cancer. Giving myself the freedom and space and time to make more paintings has shown me what seems true and what seems false. I do not want to include untrue or phoned-in paintings in this series. Not because I have any lofty plans for it, but because I would feel like I had cheated myself.
Besides, I have a feeling that the stucco is for the next series, The Teds.
In late May 2010, a non-representational painting came to me unbidden. At the time, I was preparing for radioactive iodine treatment. I had no thyroid and had had to stop my T4 treatment so that the isotopes could bind to the cancerous cells and kill them. Not having any T4 in your system can kill you. Your heart starts beating more and more slowly until it is literally lurching. You start weeping for no reason. You know there’s no reason, but you feel so sad. It is almost impossible to control the tears. Thoughts begin to get darker and darker.
In the midst of that near delirium, my mind’s eye projected an abstract painting on the bedroom ceiling. I say it was non-representational in that it didn’t represent any physical thing that I could look at and draw. However, it did represent exactly what being on the extreme side of hypothyroid felt like for me in that moment. No painting had ever sprung into being for me that way. I had bigger fish to fry, so I tucked the idea away in a corner of my mind.
About a year later, maybe exactly a year later, my doctors told me that they wanted to hold off on a third surgery and a third radiation treatment (this time, the external kind). A week after I got that letter, I woke up at around 5AM with seven more paintings in my brain for eight in all. The eight included the first that, though I had almost totally forgotten about it consciously, was still there. It began what I am calling the Thyca Series.
I am now doing studies. This seems a bit silly as I am using el cheapo cotton canvas and acrylic paint that I can just paint over if I don’t like a result. But the studies are turning out to be very useful for processing and getting back into the practice of painting. Setting up my water buckets, my towels, soaking my brushes…defining my work space is like setting up a stage and painting is like watching a really powerful play. It is exceptionally therapeutic for me and I remember as I paint what I felt like in art class as a little kid. Free. Totally free. Completely forgetting all the bad shit of normal life and going to my happy right brain space for awhile.
When I get stuck on a painting (Hyper #2 has been a bit of a bother), my brain keeps working away at it — even when I am asleep. This week, I have woken up at 4:20AM twice with new ideas for Hyper #2 and for Bonne Dose #1. Better ideas. What this whole process has taught me is not to rush art. Gestation periods are different for different pieces and for different people, and I need to find a way to respect that more consistently.
Doubt that anyone is even reading this blog anymore since I never post.
Biopsy was positive. Third cancer surgery in as many years this summer. Followed by an external radiation treatment. Pretty much everyone who needs to know knows this now and probably some others who don’t. I can’t really keep it to myself. Guess I’m one of those people who just has to send out the message whether or not anyone responds. Luckily, most people I love do send messages of support and that is a big help. Just the three words ‘thinking’, ‘of’ and ‘you’ can bolster me long enough to get through a week. France simply has not created the resources to help cancer patients deal with the psychological problems or isolation, unlike the UK or US. The UK, especially is exemplary through Cancer Research UK. France needs to get off its high horse and take notes. There is no Gilda’s Club here. But I’ll create one if a winning lottery ticket ever comes my way. Given how much I wanted to be her as a child, it seems fitting. Of course, I should have been more specific. I meant that I wanted to be a comedian not a cancer patient.
Now that I know about the upcoming surgery and treatment, I feel like I can get back to writing again, oddly enough. Information is power and so on. Starting with some short stories to get back into the swing of it.Will share some bits here probably and we can all have a good laugh. So far the two I am working up are rather bitter, but I hope to make them funny as well.
Theory lessons have been going really well. My guitar teacher is pretty impressed with me, but not as impressed as I am with my ability to retain everything he’s been throwing at me. Memorising chord progressions has never been a bother for me. I have been doing it since age 10. I was blessed with a decent ear. It’s all the other stuff. Like flatting the 7th of a D scale makes it a G scale. That stuff makes me laugh out loud (MUSO!). He makes the whole process really fun, like a big puzzle. He’s not only teaching me improvisation and music theory, but also a whole new way of thinking. The guy’s a genius. I used to play around with music theory a lot right before my first cancer was detected; I guess I was 16 then. Basically building chords the way people play Sudoku. So much has happened since then that I am relearning everything, but it’s sticking. Really sticking. I think associating the learning with laughter helps.
In drawing news, I am working up the gumption to finally do some proper pen and inks, though I will love my Sakura Pigma Microns forever. This means a trip to some art stores. Heaven forfend.
Well, I lied. I was feeling up to a writing exercise. Well, list.
Five favorite* childhood books.
1. Figgs & Phantoms by Ellen Raskin
2. A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle
3. The Hero and The Crown and The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley
4. Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White
5. The Girl with the Silver Eyes by Willo Davis Roberts
All of these books have strong, young female characters who feel different from others or out of place. All of these books have a fantasy or sci-fi element to them as well. Though the book didn’t specifically relate the exercise to fiction writing, it’s interesting to go back and look at what I loved to read as a kid. It could point the way to something I would enjoy writing.
What are your five favorite books from childhood?
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*Spelled in American this time.
