tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-47951919737288699422024-03-06T12:02:23.515-08:00Schizophrenia And ArtKaren May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.comBlogger150125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-57692364428500657422017-05-04T04:37:00.000-07:002017-05-07T06:07:45.501-07:00Artist's Evolution Part IV<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<span style="font-size: large;">Getting into art school was easy. When I went to my interview at The University of Hartford Art School the most important skill I had was how I talked about art. By now I was a trained docent. Discussing art was life and breath to me. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The intake counselor dismissed my drawing portfolio with a wave of her hand. "You're a primitive" she said. But she was keen on the things in my bedroom. The metal file cabinet that had been painstakingly covered with fluffy pink feathers. The stuffed monkey with a corkscrew stuck in his brain. And most importantly, what was on my bedroom wall. My wall changed as the light in the room changed. I had cut small tear droplets out of thin transparent vinyl. The back of the vinyl was sticky, like contact paper. After I had cut out about a hundred tear drops, I took a long piece of string and tied a weight to one end. The other end of the string was attached to the ceiling. Gravity pulled the string in a straight line. This line was a guide. I stuck rows of tear drops from ceiling to floor. They covered one wall. The window in my bedroom cast light onto the wall. This light changed as the sun tracked across the sky. The teardrops were dark in indirect light. But when sunlight directly hit the vinyl directly it shimmered and shined white hot.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The counselor said that my bedroom wall was "conceptual art" and could be used as a master's thesis when I went to graduate school. I was immediately accepted into The University of Hartford Art School. The appointment had been scheduled in order to find out what was possible. But I was in. The shock was a sweet, sweet high.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The summer before my semester began I took a watercolor class. I had never painted before. Not in any medium.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The students were from diverse backgrounds. Our first assignment was to take a small piece of paper and do a watercolor. The instructor wanted to establish a baseline, the level of expertise each student started at. We were to observe an object and paint it.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">On a sunny day I sat outside and decided to paint my mother's car. I had a little artist's canvas folding stool. It surprised me how the sunlight bounced off the white paper. A lot of the light bounced off the paper and into my eyes, making me squint. It was hard to see what I was doing. I started my painting moving left to right, the way one writes and reads. First I painted the front hood and tires of the car. However, when I got to the back end of the car, the car dropped off the page of paper. The painting ended up being three quarters of a car. Also, I did not think to put a background behind the car. So that part of the paper was left blank.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The second class all the students lined up their paintings on a wall. I was aghast. I didn't realize how poorly I had done until I compared myself to the other students. Many things I learned in the second class. First, when outdoors, you need to work with your eyes in shade. I bought a wide brimmed hat to cut the glare of the sun. Second, a painting is prepared in the mind and often on the paper. I was shown how to take two cardboard right angles and make a "window" in order to view a composition. The teacher had brought a watercolor of his own (he was a retired dean of the art school) and on it I saw pencil lines under the watercolor paint. So sketching a composition before painting became my method. Third, all the paper should be covered in watercolor paint (except white highlights). Objects sit in space with backgrounds. And lastly, a picture is created using highlights and shade. Looking at light on an object is very important. Light and dark is how objects are defined. </span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">The next class I painted a bottle of Tylenol. I used all the lessons I had learned. The instructor happily exclaimed, "Its a miracle!" At the end of the course I said to him that the way he talked about art reminded me strongly of my favorite Sunday school teacher. He said that he was a deacon in his church. I adored my first art teacher because he constantly got religion and art mixed up. In this class I moved on from painting bizarre subjects (at least for watercolor) to traditional landscapes. It was a glorious experience to sit outdoors in a rolling meadow and paint a tree.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">When art school started in the fall I signed up for two very different sort of classes. There were the shorter hour and forty-five minute classroom classes. And then there was one longer three hour studio class, Introduction to Drawing. In all the shorter courses the teacher mostly lectured. Our assignments were done at home and typically involved doing a narrowly defined art project. When we brought our art project with us the next class we spent time critiquing. This arrangement was a good fit for me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">By now I was no longer living in an apartment. Before I had had a roommate. Then I spent several weeks on a psychiatric ward in the hospital. When I got out, the roommate no longer wished to live with me. So I ended up living in a homeless shelter. It was my second time living in that homeless shelter. Since I was a student and owned a computer I was given my own room with a lock on the door. In my little room there was silence and an intense feeling of privacy. I could focus very well on making art in this environment. However, making art during the the studio drawing class was difficult for me. There was no privacy in the studio classroom. The circumstance in which I make art matters to me.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Our first studio drawing assignment was to draw a chair. The chair was placed on a pedestal in the center of the room. All students sat behind easels in a semi-circle around the chair. The teacher lectured on the difference between positive and negative space. We then drew the chair while thinking about positive and negative space. As we worked the teacher walked around and peered at the emerging drawings. He spoke to us behind our backs. I was told to bear down harder on my pencil lines.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">There were several things that gave me discomfort. Something that changed from pre-breakdown to post-breakdown (I am describing before and after the onset of mental illness) is how I relate to people. A medication nurse once said, "Schizophrenia is a social disease". I like that statement because it contains a lot of truth. There is rawness and vulnerability to people who have schizophrenia. It is most obvious in social interactions. As a student at Barnard college, pre-breakdown, I only got a little nervous in classes. A little bit self-conscious. Then post-breakdown, after my two year stay on a psychiatric ward at The Institute of Living, I took several courses at Trinity college. At Trinity my anxiety was off the charts. I was hyper aware of the other students. Now I was so anxious in class that I sometimes took a tranquilizer. A natural, protective barrier had been dismantled during breakdown. Over decades that barrier between myself and others has been built up again. Please note that healing does take place but it is at a very slow rate. The drawing class was my only art school class where I had social anxiety. Most of this was due to working without privacy or silence. Also, perhaps I could not handle the fact that the teacher's aim was to criticize me and correct me as I worked. I don't mind criticism after a work is finished. But in the middle of the process of creation, it is deeply disturbing.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So as I drew the chair. The event was toxic. I was trying to immerse myself in creative flow while at the same time battling fear. After the three hour class I walked back to my car in pain. I was deeply suicidal. It was a raging war in my head. Thoughts of "I want to die" mixed with "I must live". All I could foresee was the drawing class triggering suicidal thoughts again and again. It was an easy decision to drop Introduction to Drawing. By doing so I was being kind to myself. However, this studio classes and many more were mandatory to getting an art school degree. Art school wanted to teach me how to make art. But I couldn't emotionally handle the structure of the studio class. I was facing the reality that I would only be able to attend art school for one semester. I was sad and solemn.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">Then a strange thing happened. I had an interesting conversation with my art history professor. In his class he made us keep a drawing journal. Each day we were supposed to spend forty minutes drawing an object. Mid-term our journals were handed in to get a grade. By accident I had a folded piece of paper in my journal. It was a little piece of fiction I had written. When I bumped into my teacher in the art school lobby he addressed me to tell me that he really liked my writing. I told him that I had to leave art school. He did not think this a catastrophe. Sometimes, he said, school ruined natural talent. He had had a college roommate who was a strong creative writer like me. And he believed that school ruined his friend's talent. The fellow had eventually become a book editor. My teacher told me I could become an artist, or writer, without going to school. Radically, he suggested that I may be better off not going to school.</span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;">So the idea was planted in my mind that leaving art school was not an end to my being an artist. </span><br />
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Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-66728081734425390572017-03-10T08:19:00.000-08:002017-03-15T04:26:46.869-07:00Ren Hang<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">A question wa<span style="font-family: inherit;">s </span>emailed to me. I<span style="font-family: inherit;"> c<span style="font-family: inherit;">an't</span> tell how old the student is</span>.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> I assume that he is young.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello, </span></span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Me and my classmate do a work about madness so we use some of your
painting and we need some information about you. So we have questions
for you.
We read you used medicines to paint so why did you use that to do it ?
In which circumstances do you paint?
Thanks for your help and your time.
Have a good day,
Stael Manoé
PS: I love your work </span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">My answer<span style="font-family: inherit;"> is terse and <span style="font-family: inherit;">wooden</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">;</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Medication
is important. It evens out my emotions. It gives me energy.
Willpower is hard for some schizophrenics. We are not lazy, but we may
not have the energy or focus to do tasks. Negative symptoms of
schizophrenia are things that are lacks, or minuses. Lack of
motivation, lack of concentration, lack of desire. Sometimes I think
that what makes life hard for me is being too sensitive. Medication
shields my emotions a little, like a wall around my mind.<span style="font-family: inherit;"> </span> I hope this
helps you. Thank you for liking my art. Sincerely, Karen May Sorensen</span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then this came a day later<span style="font-family: inherit;">. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I am a little confused who is w<span style="font-family: inherit;">riting<span style="font-family: inherit;">. I guess</span> that Manoe's teacher is emailing. Communication on the inter<span style="font-family: inherit;">net <span style="font-family: inherit;">can be difficult. But I am really happy for the chance to give a better answer.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Hello,<br />
I am working with Manoé Stael (who send you an e-mail about your work
because we are preparing a presentation about madness). I am sorry to
disturb you but I am really interested by your art so I have other
questions.<br />
So here are my questions :<br />
Is it difficult to paint when you have the <span style="font-family: inherit;">effects</span> of your medications ? Or is it easier ?<br />
Does painting get a little something off your chest ? Do you feel you better after that ?<br />
I’m sorry if I disturbed you, you are not required to reply at this e-mail.<br />
Sincerely yours,<br />
Célia Rouffiange. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Now that the questions are clear <span style="font-family: inherit;">my writing flows;</span></span><span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></span></span><br />
<div class="gmail_default">
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<div class="gmail_default">
<span style="font-size: large;">The
medications help me to be a person living in society. Making art is
easy. But having a relationship with a husband and family is hard.
Mentally ill artists who cannot live in society often do not survive.
They take their own life. I believe this happened recently to the
excellent photographer Ren Hang in China. Or Vincent Van Gogh. All
artists have to have a level of emotional stability before they create.
My medication gives me the mental stability so that I don't take my own
life. The pain of mental illness is very strong. Medication dulls
that pain. Medication also dulls creative thought and slows your mind
down. So I take as little medication as I can get away with. I don't
know Manoe's age, but the threat to creative mentally ill people, of
suicide, is high. I hope he is old enough for the topic of suicide.
Making art is my natural gift, medication does not help that, it can
only hinder it. Medication helps me in that it soothes some pain. An
artist cannot live to make art alone. Life for art? No. There has to
be more to it. Friends, loves, happiness, all these things outside of
art are necessary to survive.</span><br />
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<div class="gmail_default">
<span style="font-size: large;">I
love to make art because I am making the visions in my head real. My
art is painful. It is colorful, and that is fun, and it is creative,
and that is fun too. But there is also so much sadness and darkness.
Probably my art tells the stories of my life. It is a beautiful life
with both joy and pain. Am I better off because I tell my life stories
in my art? Yes. Certainly. </span></div>
<div class="gmail_default">
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;">All
people will have challenges in their lives. The challenge in my life
has to do with living with a mental illness. This is a source of pain
for me to overcome. However, all people have sources of pain that they
must overcome. The stories of peoples lives are all different. But I
don't believe anyone has things easy. It is just the challenges comes
in different forms.</span><br />
<span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div>
<div class="gmail_default">
<span style="font-size: large;">The
one physical thing medication does for me is give me a little extra
energy. I have to have energy to stand at my easel and paint. I have to
be able to focus on my artistic task for many hours. The medication
helps in very small bits. Just a little boost of energy and focus. But
it helps. At high levels of medication it is both hard to focus and
sedating. I would not be able to work at a high level of medication.
So you see the question of medication is complicated. Different
outcomes at different dosages.</span><br />
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<div class="gmail_default">
<span style="font-size: large;">Please
tell Manoe that he was brave to email me. I like his courage. What
age is he and what country does he live in? I hope that I am able to
help with the project on madness.</span></div>
<div class="gmail_default">
<span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="gmail_default">
<span style="font-size: large;">This is the response I got to my question;</span></div>
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<div>
<span style="font-size: large;">Both of us are 17 and we live in Brussels. I think that your story
is really interesting ! I really like your courage and I admire you. </span></div>
<div id="m_-5262683075482011246AppleMailSignature">
<span style="font-size: large;">We are honored to speak about you and your art during our presentation. </span></div>
<div id="m_-5262683075482011246AppleMailSignature">
<span style="font-size: large;">Thank you for your time! You help us a lot, thanks again, </span></div>
<div id="m_-5262683075482011246AppleMailSignature">
<span style="font-size: large;">Célia Rouffiange. </span></div>
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Last week I read <span style="font-family: inherit;">about the suicide </span></span>of Ren H<span style="font-family: inherit;">ang</span>. He was a Chinese photographer. He was 29 years old. <span style="font-family: inherit;">Looking at his </span>photographs I <span style="font-family: inherit;">am st<span style="font-family: inherit;">ruck by how effortless they seem</span></span>. I think that is part of his brilliance, <span style="font-family: inherit;">making a photograph look effortless. </span>For example; a naked man hanging by a tree branch over a pond. The crouch of the naked man in mid-air <span style="font-family: inherit;">is</span> perfect. His leg cover<span style="font-family: inherit;">s</span> his private bit. But the crouch of the naked man <span style="font-family: inherit;">is</span> also perfect in that there <span style="font-family: inherit;">is</span> a feeling of joy and freedom. I c<span style="font-family: inherit;">an</span> feel exhilaration. I c<span style="font-family: inherit;">an</span> feel the physical prowess and beauty of youth. Most photography leaves me a <span style="font-family: inherit;">little </span>cold. It is not my medium. But Ren Hang was my favorite photographer in the world. None of his work <span style="font-family: inherit;">is</span> tepid. He hits a note of beauty again and again and again. Conceptually everything is new. <span style="font-family: inherit;">H</span>e summons poses for his models like a <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">magus, straight from the E<span style="font-family: inherit;">ye of God to the photog<span style="font-family: inherit;">raphic paper</span></span></span>. </span> His beauty <span style="font-family: inherit;">almost always has an </span>erotic <span style="font-family: inherit;">element</span>, so in this, his view and my view coincided.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">I ached for several hours after I found out he died. <span style="font-family: inherit;">A cold feeling in my gut. This had to do with the news that his death was not natural. A <span style="font-family: inherit;">Chinese new<span style="font-family: inherit;">spaper had written that he jumped off the top of a 28 s<span style="font-family: inherit;">tory building. </span></span></span></span> So he could have lived. But he chose death. In one article I read that he had trouble with depression and voices. Another article said his trouble was cyclical depression. <span style="font-family: inherit;">It fe<span style="font-family: inherit;">els like the wo<span style="font-family: inherit;">rld</span></span> ha<span style="font-family: inherit;">s</span> lost an<span style="font-family: inherit;">other Vincent Van Gogh. <span style="font-family: inherit;">I wondered why, with this modern age boasting of treatments and medicine, how <span style="font-family: inherit;">a Van Gogh c<span style="font-family: inherit;">an</span> di<span style="font-family: inherit;">e</span>. Is the medication available failing for the living, or <span style="font-family: inherit;">i<span style="font-family: inherit;">s it too <span style="font-family: inherit;">poisonous</span> for living.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Was Ren Hang's depression treatment <span style="font-family: inherit;">resistant</span>? Or <span style="font-family: inherit;">did Ren Hang reject depression treatment because of side effects of the medication<span style="font-family: inherit;">? And I'm not talking about p<span style="font-family: inherit;">hysic<span style="font-family: inherit;">al side effects. I am talking abo<span style="font-family: inherit;">ut <span style="font-family: inherit;">the <span style="font-family: inherit;">negative im<span style="font-family: inherit;">pact <span style="font-family: inherit;">o<span style="font-family: inherit;">f <span style="font-family: inherit;">psychiatric medication slowing down <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">thought</span>, diminishing interior vision, <span style="font-family: inherit;">fogging up perceptions, and <span style="font-family: inherit;">dismantling</span> <span style="font-family: inherit;">overall connected<span style="font-family: inherit;">ness to the universe. Artists are sensitive. <span style="font-family: inherit;">For me I am <span style="font-family: inherit;">keenly aware that <span style="font-family: inherit;">my <span style="font-family: inherit;">artwork's quality is dependent <span style="font-family: inherit;">upon <span style="font-family: inherit;">emotional <span style="font-family: inherit;">sensitivity to an inner world and the outer world. And I also an aware that the medication I take builds a wall around my mind to prevent me from experiencing sensitivity. My mental torment comes from an excess of perception and <span style="font-family: inherit;">overwhelming</span> sensitivity. So that is why I take medication. To numb me a bit. Is being nu<span style="font-family: inherit;">mb unco<span style="font-family: inherit;">mfo<span style="font-family: inherit;">rtable in and of itself? Yes. They are just different kinds of pain. <span style="font-family: inherit;">The pain of being medicat<span style="font-family: inherit;">ed<span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">vs the pain of being medication free. I am just lucky that my character <span style="font-family: inherit;">is such that I can find <span style="font-family: inherit;">joy and value in the narrowest of circumstance.</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">When I was 29 I faced a<span style="font-family: inherit;">n <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">existential</span> crisis. It is no accident the age th<span style="font-family: inherit;">at Ren Hang <span style="font-family: inherit;">died<span style="font-family: inherit;"> at 29. He probably faced, in some form, the same existential crisis I faced. <span style="font-family: inherit;">The age of 29 is <span style="font-family: inherit;">a rather visionary age. You look at the landscape of your life. You assess. And you think, "<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is what I can have. <span style="font-family: inherit;">And this is what I can't have. Do I want to continue?" Wh<span style="font-family: inherit;">en I was 29 I was a very immature artist. <span style="font-family: inherit;">Unlike Ren Hang I</span> was not famous, I did not have a large body <span style="font-family: inherit;">of</span> work, and I certainly had not discovered <span style="font-family: inherit;">yet a signature artistic vision. <span style="font-family: inherit;">So when I faced <span style="font-family: inherit;">my crisis I had very little to lose by living. There w<span style="font-family: inherit;">as so much of me and my work that was not defined. <span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"> <span style="font-family: inherit;">My crisis had to do with <span style="font-family: inherit;">accepting an alternative path in society. I could not be the person I w<span style="font-family: inherit;">ished to be. In my mind, at the age of 29, I wanted ster<span style="font-family: inherit;">eo<span style="font-family: inherit;">type living. I wanted to be a young woman like the young women I saw in <span style="font-family: inherit;">movies. </span>A <span style="font-family: inherit;">8 hour work day, <span style="font-family: inherit;">financial independence, friends and going to parties. <span style="font-family: inherit;">There is a temper tantrum e<span style="font-family: inherit;">lement to suicide. You think "If <span style="font-family: inherit;">I can't have what I want, I don't want <span style="font-family: inherit;">to live."</span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">For me, th<span style="font-family: inherit;">e answer to life at the age of 29 was "Be humble Karen. Walk very slowly and be humble."</span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span> </span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
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Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-87902054071757048122017-02-10T04:24:00.003-08:002017-02-11T04:43:54.544-08:00An Artist's Evolution; Part III<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Working at the Wadsworth Atheneum changed my life. It saved my life.<br />
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After living in a mental institution I needed to get back my self confidence. Visitors could check in their coat and backpack with the security guard, and then they would talk to me. Sometimes our transaction was only a matter of paying the entrance fee. But about half of all the people who walked in had a question. They might ask directions to a special show. We provided maps of the museum and helped people find what they wanted to see. And when we answered the telephone, we directed calls to curator's offices, or helped with traffic directions and parking. In rare occasions we would be asked where to find a specific work of art. Quickly I discovered that in order to do my job well I needed as much education about the Wadsworth as I could get. When a new program of docent training began I applied and was accepted.<br />
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Public speaking is an old friend. In high school my senior year I was captain of the debate team. The learning curve how to be a public speaker had been steep. When I had my first debate as a junior I nervously chewed on a necklace while I spoke. And with the necklace in my mouth I whispered. Because the judge couldn't hear anything I said the score out of a possible 50 points was zero. After a zero score, there was no place to go but to improve. Then I got it into my head that our school's bedraggled, losing, debate program could be better if I was captain. So the summer before my senior year I went to debate camp at Baylor College and wrote a debate training manual. They voted me captain not because I was popular or smart, but because I was the only one who had thought to prepare for leadership. As a captain the way I helped the debate team was by emphasizing debate preparation. I tried to make it fun. I would schedule a study night at the town library with a spaghetti dinner afterwards at my house. Before every debate there was study and a dinner at my house With this strategy there was a huge improvement. Our debate teams started winning big. And for myself I had a year long run of perfect 50 point scores. My partner was a freshman and the weakest debater on the team. I wanted him with me so that my score would pull up his score.<br />
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So I had the skill to talk to an audience. But why was I now interested in talking about art? It was because with art I always asked the question "Why?" As a child I had gone to art museums with my family and to myself asked questions such as "Why is this piece of garbage in a museum? Why is that considered art? Why do I like this artwork? What was the artist thinking?" When it comes to art there are usually more questions in my mind than answers. And I like to live with a longing to connect, both emotionally and intellectually, with a work of art. I have been fascinated by art for a very very long time. In college at Barnard my student ID gave me free entrance into any art museum in New York City. On weekends I both studied and feasted on art at museums. Bizarrely, it never occurred to me to make art an academic pursuit. So the docent class at the Wadsworth Atheneum was my first introduction to art history and I was so happy to realize that many of the answers to "Why" about art could be learned by reading.<br />
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As a docent the best training advice I learned was how to activate a visitor's brain. For example, when you read a book a specific percentage of your mental attention is activated. When someone lectures to you, a different (and lower) percentage of your attention is captured. And finally, if I stand in front of an artwork, the guaranteed highest percentage of attention I can get from the museum visitor is to ask a question about the artwork. When you ask a question the listener searches their mind for an answer. But ultimately I think the duty of a docent is to simply get the visitor to look at the artwork. I like answers that lead the viewer back to the artwork. It never ceased to amaze me how swiftly museum visitors flew through an art gallery. A mere glance at most paintings. As a docent I wanted to slow down the experience of looking at art. I wanted the masterpieces to get their deserved attention.<br />
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How did working at the information desk and becoming a docent save my life? It caused me to perform a task where I gave the best of myself. Because I love art so much, I gave my all for it. And in giving my all, I discovered that while my new mental illness came with deficits of cognition, there still was a lot of the old Karen left. I had lost a part of myself during institutionalization and breakdown, but the core personality still existed. The Karen who liked challenges still existed. The Karen who was curious still existed. The Karen who was ambitious still existed. The Karen who had discipline still existed. And the Karen who could talk to crowds still existed. There was only one concession the museum had to make because of my mental illness. It was a matter of time. I could only do one tour a day. I had tried to do two back to back tours (what all docents sometimes had to do) and had found that at the end I almost fainted from mental exhaustion. I don't have the mental endurance that a healthy person has. No docent liked back to back tours. They were draining for everyone. But I alone was excused from this double chore. Because I had a mental illness. And that did piss some people off.<br />
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There were so many experts who worked at the museum. And every Monday morning (while the museum was closed to the public) the total docent body got an hour and a half lecture on either the newest exhibition or some other facet of museum life. Docents were expected to always be learning. And it was probably during one of these lectures, when a curator was explaining the skill behind a painting's composition, that the question first popped into my head, "Isn't he jealous of the artist?" To know about art, and devote a career to explaining art I thought must automatically lead to jealousy of the artists you study. Because it was the artist who knew the joy of creation. All commentary afterword by the experts must pale in experience. Did the experts mind living in the shadow land of the artist creator?<br />
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Of course swiftly the answers came to me. I myself was jealous of the artist creator. And people who have careers in the art world do not necessarily feel that they live in the shadow of the artist creator. But the imaged fun that the artists were having making their art really did start to interfere with my satisfaction of being a docent. I began to wonder if it was at all possible for me, a non-artist, to get into an art school. In the same city as the Wadsworth Atheneum there was a good art school, The University of Hartford Art School. Why not make an appointment and talk to someone about my chances of getting in? I thought that for this interview I should at least have an artist portfolio. So every day, for three weeks, I did a drawing a day. I took a pencil and make a drawing. Then I went over the pencil lines with a very fine felt tip pen in black ink. And when the ink was dry I erased the pencil markings. At the end of 21 days I had my artist portfolio. The University of Hartford Art School was kind enough to let me come in and talk to a representative.<br />
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During this appointment I got a huge shock. I will explain my shock in the next installment of "An Artist's Evolution".<br />
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Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-6533632253536143622016-10-14T03:21:00.000-07:002016-10-14T03:21:33.127-07:00Miss America<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The title of this artwork is "Miss America and Her Black Baby." The image was found in a dream.<br />
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During my dream I was at a party at my sister's penthouse apartment. The party was only for mothers and their children. Most of the moms were from high society. The children were gathered in a separate area, controlled by nannies. Women in high society use nannies and baby sitters a lot. Toward the end of the party, all the women and their children had trickled away, except for an actress who I recognized as "America's sweetheart". She was a young blond lady who had once been crowned Miss America and then went on to have a blockbuster career in movies. It puzzled me that after all the guests had left, only the actress and a black child (with a black nanny) were left. The actress did not interact with the black child and because of the child's color of skin, I did not think that the two were related. "We can't be seen leaving the building together" the actress told the remaining nanny. So the nanny and child left first, and after a space of time, the actress finally left too.<br />
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"What was that all about?" I asked my sister.<br />
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"Oh, the child is a secret" my sister replied. "For the sake of her career, she has to seem unattached. The pregnancy was an accident. Its surprising that she was able to keep the baby a secret, but so far, nobody knows."<br />
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"Why does she feel she has to keep her baby a secret?" I asked.<br />
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"It's the color of the little girl's skin" my sister replied. "That dark hue is a constant reminder that Miss America had sex with a black man. If people knew, then parts in movies would dry up. America is racist. We only want our white people to have sex with white people and black people to have sex with black people. She lives with constant deception, but she has managed to hold onto the title of America's sweetheart."<br />
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"How sad for her" I said.<br />
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"Yes, and very sad for the baby" my sister replied. </div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-59851568280155203142016-08-28T04:42:00.000-07:002016-08-28T04:42:58.248-07:00An Artist's Evolution, Part II<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In 1991 it was difficult to meet the requirements for discharge from a mental hospital.<br />
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In order to leave the hospital I had to first demonstrate that I could hold a part time job. I must live at the hospital and work outside of it. Ideally they wanted me to have a job and take a class at a local collage. There was another schizoaffective patient who did this. She had a job, she took a collage class, and she lived with me on the locked ward. She was very busy. When I bumped into her years later in a clothing store she told me she had become a paralegal in a lawyer's office.<br />
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The first job I had while living at the hospital was working with brain damaged children. It was a volunteer job. The Institute of Living had a children's day program. Most of the children were just a bit over kindergarten age. They were old enough to walk and be mobile. But none could talk. It was explained to me that most of these children had been born to drug addicted mothers. Almost all would eventually go to into institutional care when they matured. Never I had I ever imagined human life could go so wrong, that brains existed that were so unsuitable for living. The pain that these children bore in just their simple, simple existence was beyond belief. The volunteer job was a nightmare.<br />
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The room where I met the children was large. It had a square marked off on the carpet in blue tape. The children were instructed to follow the line of the blue tape. That was all they had to do. Walk round and round the square of blue tape. My job was to gently steer a child's body along. Every volunteer was given one child. And I quickly discovered that it was only a matter of a short time when the child would try to leave the path of the blue tape and have a crisis. It would be an emotional meltdown. The child would flap hands and make loud distressed noises. Sometimes the child would throw itself on the ground and thrash. The volunteer must make soothing conversation and try to get the child up on its feet, quieted down, and focused again on walking the line of blue tape.<br />
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It boggled my mind that after the children's day program, these children would go home to caretakers (had the drug addicted mothers all recovered?) and in their mute world, in their mute distress, with their loud freak outs, exasperate a parent for hours on end. And the children were at home all weekend! These special children required adults to take care of them who had endless patience and endless compassion.<br />
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What could I hope to offer the abnormal children of The Institute of Living?<br />
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As a patient at The Institute of Living I was an emotional wreck. My problems were more than just dealing with the onset of the schizoaffective mental illness. It was only after I had left the hospital and I could experiment with my medication that I really understood the big picture. There were two strong side effects of the high dose of antipsychotic medication the hospital had me one. One was akathesia. But since this word is technical and I did not know what it was, all I could do was describe the effects to my therapist. I described overwhelming anxiety. It was the feeling that reality was a pane of glass. A clear pane of glass that I could see through. And this pane of glass was on the verge of shattering. All that was real was going to break into shards and fall apart. My anxiety was due to my perception that reality was on the verge of shattering. I understood clearly that this new anxiety had no specific cause and no known reason. Yet with restless, unrelenting intensity it intruded upon me several hours after taking my morning medication <br />
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And I became very depressed as my new medication started. I wanted to die. Life had little value. I cried. I cried a lot. The other patients in the hospital did not cry. Undeniably all the patients I lived with were all in tremendous pain. Some were there because they had slit their wrists or tried to hang themselves. I could see the body language of a new patient. Many new patients came in in a fog. What were they feeling? It could only be described as dense. Very dense, overwhelming emotion. But they did not come in crying. And from my perspective as a patient who cried a lot it was madness in and of itself when a person was in pain and could not cry. I believed I was sane for crying and all the dry eyed patients were not. I was anxious and depressed and I had no problem about being vocal about it.<br />
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My therapist was adamant that medication only made me better. She told me that it was uncomfortable facing reality. I should feel anxious facing reality. I should feel depressed facing reality. These negative experiences were really signs of progress and healing!<br />
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The months passed. Months of group and individual therapy. My parents were brought in to have therapy with. And I did not get better. I quit my volunteer job with the children. And then the hospital became fed up with me.<br />
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My therapist said that there were now no more issues left for therapy to discuss. She said the issues had been resolved with my parents. She said that I was on the maximum dose of antidepressant and I should not be depressed. So she had a new theory. Her theory was that I liked living at the hospital and I did not want to leave. I liked not working and having all my meals prepared for me. I was refusing to grow up. I did not want to be an adult functioning in the real world. So my "mental illness" was my own fault. But the hospital was going to give me one last chance. I had been on the unit for a year and a half. On our unit they only intended for a patient to stay six months. The one last chance they were going to give me was to get a new job, outside the Institute walls, and keep it. If I could get a job and keep it then they would discharge me to a half-way house. Otherwise they would discharge me to a State Hospital. Apparently my family medical insurance no longer wanted to pay for keeping me at the Institute of Living.<br />
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At this crisis point in my life I met an Angel. Oh, he was a real human being. He was a retired lawyer. Very elderly. He was a volunteer for the United Way. I met him at the United Way offices. He was supposed to find me a job. This one meeting with a stranger would alter my life forever. That is why I call him an Angel. An Angel of mercy.<br />
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When I met with this fellow I imagined I was only fit for janitorial work. Pushing a broom. Washing a chalk board. Mopping a floor. Truly I believed I was the lowest form of human life. Having a mental illness and not being able to recover felt like some sort of sin just above criminal. Criminals were locked up in jail, and I had been locked up in a mental hospital for a year and a half. Since I could not recover maybe I did belong in the mental hospital. Maybe I was a bad person like a criminal is a bad person.<br />
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The retired lawyer had a hard time getting me to describe what kind of work I wanted. Because I really didn't think that I could do anything. So he asked me to sit back, relax, and take a moment. In that moment he wanted me to dream. I should dream that if I could have any job in the world, what job would I have? With his encouragement I took a moment to dream. If I could work at anything, anywhere, then I wanted to work in an art museum.<br />
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He smiled. With a twinkle in his eye he said he would find me a job in an art museum. And that is what he did. I got a job at the Wadsworth Atheneum. The Institute of Living and the Wadsworth Atheneum are both in downtown Hartford, Connecticut. I was able to walk to work.<br />
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At first I worked at the museum as an exhibit monitor. There was a special room designed by an artist. It had boxes of sand on the counters. This sand had object in it, like little plastic cars, barbies, and plastic soldiers. The artist expected that people would come in and play in his sand boxes. This was the "art experience" - playing in sandboxes. I was there to make certain none of the loose knick-knacks in the sandboxes were stolen or that people did not throw sand or sweep it out of the boxes and onto the floor. <br />
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Once this exhibit had ended the museum offered me a new job. It was a mini-promotion. My new job was working at the information desk by the front doors. While working at the information desk I took entrance fee money and answering such questions as "Where is the bathroom?", "Where is the restaurant?", "Where is the Caravaggio?" and "How many Picasso's do you have?" <br />
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The experience of leaving a locked psychiatric ward and then walking across town in my high heels to work at a museum transformed me. The front of the Wadsworth is very old and looks like the front of a castle. The Wadsworth will forever be for me a palace filled with priceless treasures. And while working at the information desk, as I greeted the public and answered their questions about the museum's art, I became much more than just a simple mental patient. Becoming an ambassador for the museum transformed me into art royalty.<br />
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The newly discovered sense of pride filled holes in my tattered soul. <br />
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Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-86848075657396371702016-04-23T05:51:00.001-07:002016-04-25T03:12:17.769-07:00Visit From God<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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After God visits you are changed.<br />
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God first visited me at the end of February, 2015. He gave me a vision. On rare and lovely days he returns and visits again. But there are no more visions. When God visits there is accompanying euphoria. It is as if a drug has been injected directly into my veins. A drug that makes me high as a kite and I cannot move. My eyes are shut and bliss is all consuming. God only visits when I am alone. I am alone during the day while my husband is at work. And when the visit starts, I lie down. Rapture is not something to experience standing up. You have to be lying down while in the grips of rapture.<br />
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I know God had changed me because after his visit my parents can not hurt me. God made me a lot tougher. Or maybe, when I am closer to God, I am better protected. In April 2015 I spent Easter with my Father. Typically after a visit with with my father I am suicidal. Usually because of the distress I take extra medication in the car while my husband drives me home. My husband and I have fought because my husband wanted to ban me from seeing my father. <br />
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But Easter 2015 things were different. My husband noticed that when my father tried to bully me a bit, I stood up to him. My husband says that bullies back down very quickly if they are confronted. And at the dinner table, as we talked, my husband said I rarely made eye contact with anyone. My husband said that whenever I spoke I looked up at a spot over his head. There was a window behind and above him. So this was a window I looked out of. My husband said I seemed very much like an autistic child. And yet, the visit was fun. It was nice to enjoy my Dad. My Dad gave me an awesome painting he had painted. And I had no distress after.<br />
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Then in summer of 2015 I spent two weeks at my mother's home on the coast of Maine. Again, I suffered no distress from having this prolonged contact with her. What I knew, during my visit, is that I must display no signs of emotional vulnerability. For there is a pattern to mother's conversations with me. After God had visited me, I understood how thing work. God must have made me aware of what was going on. If I doubt myself, or show any signs of weakness, my mother attacks me. Her voice becomes very hard, condemning, criticizing. If my mental defenses are at all lowered, then this will be the moment that she emotionally tries to destroy me. Perhaps, that during that summer, I was so close to the vision of union with God, that there simply were not many times of self doubt or emotional uncertainty. Mom and me were good because I was stronger than I have ever been. Mom collapsed in her bed in the hour before I was to leave because she did not want me to leave. I brought her tea in bed and hugged her.<br />
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So what exactly happened, when God first visited?<br />
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I was in bed and could not make art. Because I was very worried. The worry had left me exhausted. It was morning, and I was exhausted. There were thing happening, out there, in the far world. Strangers were looking at my art and judging me. My art was at the mercy of their opinion.<br />
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In the preceding year, 2014, all my effort had gone into making a ten piece series of large oil pastels. My goal was to create a ten work portfolio to submit to the New York City art gallery Ricco Maresca. Ricco Maresca has for decades represented the schizophrenic artist Ken Grimes. They are open to representing artists who have disabilities. But Ricco Maresca is elite. My husband says they are Harvard taste and I would be better represented by M.I.T. taste. In truth, I am a little risque for Ricco Maresca. But there are so few galleries that offer open submissions. Ricco Maraesca was at least open to reviewing a portfolio by an unknown artist. <br />
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On the day before God visited my husband had submitted my art to five New York City art galleries who all promote Outsider Art. Emotionally I could not represent myself so he had to represent me. I was just too frightened of them. Yet I knew I needed them. A gallery is a place to sell art. I wanted to sell art. So I needed to find a gallery. The terror of their judgement was killing me. Ultimately all the five galleries would turn my husband away.<br />
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So he submitted my art on a Sunday. And on a Monday morning I lay in bed consumed by hope and terror. <br />
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The rapture was so sweet that there was no alarm. I didn't fight being swept up. And up, and up and up my emotions went into ecstasy. When I closed my eyes, I saw in my inner vision a view of the earth from outer space. And everything was enveloped in Love. Me, the earth, all the creatures below and the empty space between the planets of our solar system, all was filled with Love. It was God. God is the fabric of the universe and God is alive with Love. The idea of an independent self is mostly an illusion. So much of who we are is an expression of God, that there is almost no room for a self. We are vehicles. We are vessels. Not just human beings. But a dog. A dog is the manifestation of God. A coffee table. A coffee table is the manifestation of God. All dense matter. All empty space. All are alive. The Universe is alive. And its awareness is that of Love. <br />
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Now before this February visit from God, in global news, there had been much alarm over Russia's invasion of Ukraine. One the BBC, one article I read asked if this would be start of World War III. Personally I was scared. President Obama was at a European conference and he then said that his primary worry was a nuclear missile detonating in New York City. This remark occurred a day after a journalist asked, in an internet article, "Why is the eastern seaboard at the highest nuclear threat level?" After hearing Obama's remark,my guess was that there was a Russian submarine off the New England coast and Putin was threatening New York City. Putin held New York City as nuclear hostage in order that the United States to stay out of the conflict in the Ukraine.<br />
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So this is what was on my mind, besides waiting for the galleries in New York City to respond. Those were my worries. And about these worries, the Universe had a message to convey to me.<br />
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In my vision, up high above the earth, the Universe showed me the coastline of New England. Part of the earth was dark, with the light of the cities, and part of the earth the sun lit up. I saw where I was, and I saw where Russia was. And then I felt, I heard, I understood, I was told this: "Everything is O.K.". If the human species is foolish enough to destroy itself, and foul its planet with nuclear detonations, still, everything will be O.K. In part this is because on the other side of death there is the rapture of Love. What I experienced that moment I would again experience after death. All creatures return to the universal consciousness of Love after death. It does not matter to the Universe whether I live or die. Because, the message to me was, "Everything is O.K." It matters not the Universe the whole of humanity's history. For in the cosmic eye, our troubles are less than blink, and our whole evolution is less than a yawn. The earth is small when viewed from the vastness of space. And humanity is small in the arc of the existence of the Universe. I must understand that whether or not the art gallery Ricco Maresca was interested in me, still, "Everything is O.K." <br />
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God chooses when he will visit. I have tried to summon rapture by working on art to exhaustion. This does not work. Sometimes so much time passes without rapture that I think, "It was good while it lasted, but I am now on my own and God will not visit again." And then to my surprise the rapture and touch of God returns.<br />
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In writing this and remembering the vision, I am now at the edge of rapture. Often at night before sleep I send out a prayer, "I love the Universe". When I say, with my inner voice, "I love the Universe" yes, then I feel the edge of rapture. If I can say wholeheartedly "I love" then usually a taste of cosmic love returns to me.<br />
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I love God. </div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-47590473621542999722015-11-25T05:29:00.001-08:002015-11-25T08:32:10.337-08:00Clear Headedness<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Before I make another post, I want to update people on my health.<br />
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1. I no longer say things that don't make any sense.<br />
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2. I no longer think things that don't make any sense.<br />
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Several years ago my posts were describing a new phenomena. It was a worsening of my illness. Naturally I was alarmed, and I described the few incidents.<br />
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Since taking hormone replacement therapy for perimenopause the advancement of my illness has stopped and I have reverted to a much calmer place of peace of mind. While I still have episodes of torment, well, I've always had those going back to childhood. But most of the time now I am in a place of contentment.<br />
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Estrogen protects females from schizophrenia.<br />
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I am wearing an estrogen patch on my hip right now. I have been using hormone treatment for the last year and a half.<br />
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Two bits of information made me seek hormone replacement therapy. The first was a study by Japanese scientists I discovered online. The Japanese found that schizophrenic women needed less medication during menopause if they were taking hormone replacement therapy. Schizophrenic women who entered menopause without hormone replacement therapy eventually needed more medication. This indicated to me that mental illness was exacerbated by menopause, and protection was given by hormone replacement therapy. The second thing that made up my mind was an anecdote by my medication nurse. She is near retirement, but when she was young she worked as a nurse in a psychiatric institution that warehoused the mentally ill. I asked her what they did with female schizophrenics who had difficulty during perimenopause. She said the hospital put them on hormone replacement therapy.<br />
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In all, I did a lot of research about perimenopause and menopause on the internet. I was starting to have classic signs that my body was changing and nearing menopause. There were some scary first person accounts of husbands who watched helplessly as their wife's personalieties changed drastically. While these women still were able to function in society, their behavior could be described as mentally ill. Then there were the reverse stories from women in menopause who felt more confident and more serene. However, it is cold hard fact that the suicide rate for women is the highest along the entry point of menopause, and that the divorce rate for couples is also the highest near the entry point of menopause. Evidently, it is a time of great emotional upheaval.<br />
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My best friend is 53 and entered menopause when she was 50. She is paranoid schizophrenic. During perimenopause she described her cognitive abilities as sharpening, and the feeling that she was becoming very wide eyed and perceptive. "I am thinking the best I've ever thought" was a comment she frequently made. During perimenopause she only needed a slight increase in her anti-depressant medication for sudden depressive episodes and crying boughts. When menopause was official she rejoiced. However, this last year her schizophrenia worsened. It was heartbreaking to watch. She became terrified and tormented by paranoid thoughts. Her pain was profound. Her world was so very dark and cruel to her. I have known her for about 25 years and she has never been so unhappy. And I thought, like the Japanese women in menopause who are unprotected by hormone therapy, she is going to need more medication. And that was the outcome. She is now on more medication. Because of this medication increase she has very little energy. She is very sedated. But I understand, and she understands, that there is no other way to live. She has to accept the medication because she could not survive the Hell-On-Earth that her delusions made her live through. Her voices are still very cruel, they tell her cruel stories of how people are whispering behind her back insulting, demeaning, and mocking her. Every morning she reads the Bible and prays. She tells me that the one prayer, said every morning, is she wants God to help her ignore the voices and not react to the viciousness of other people. Pretty much, she thinks the voices are accurate. She feels people giving her stares and negative attitude every day. But she prays that she not react. That she can ignore them. Even, perhaps, to smile at the people who hate her. <br />
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Do people know that a paranoid schizophrenic would pray, every morning, for such a thing? A mind assaulted by persecution wishes to turn away and be quiet.<br />
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My new physician is an older woman. She entered menopause when she was 40. And she has been on hormone replacement therapy for 21 years. She told me that research done by Duke University proposed that estrogen delivery by the patch, as opposed to a pill, does not create health complications like cancer. My doctor said that breast cancer runs in her family. Yet she has no intention of stopping the hormone treatment. I told her that she must feel the benefits of the hormones outweighs the risks.<br />
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Her advice to me, after hearing the story of a worsening, then reversal of my illness, is that I stay on hormone treatment for the rest of my life. </div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-60513911349160214332015-11-04T03:53:00.000-08:002015-11-04T03:53:20.596-08:00My Brother and Me<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Who will want my work? I sent these two pictures to my friend. He said to me, "Who is your audience? Is it psycho killers and the criminally insane?"<br />
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As a contrast to my art, here is my younger brother's art. He is quite well and does not have a mental illness.<br />
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My brother and I artist wise, don't even seem to be on the same genetic tree. </div>
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You can't choose your camp. But most artists fall into into one of two camps. You either live in the mountains, or you live in the valley. Either the sunshine of the soul, or the darkness of the soul. As for my bright colors, they may suck in your attention, lure you with the lusciousness of bright color vibration but don't be fooled.</div>
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My brother is on the side of light and good and peace.</div>
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I am on the side of darkness and chaos and energy.</div>
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He calms.</div>
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I frighten. </div>
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He is quite happy with life.</div>
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I have profound episodes of torment.</div>
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Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-48925513146776065562015-05-07T05:37:00.002-07:002015-11-08T03:15:04.346-08:00An Artist's Evolution Part I<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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I started making art in a psychiatric institution. The ward was locked and I lived there for two years. I had my brother and sister drive me to this hospital when I was nineteen. I rather thought it was like a hotel where you could check in and check out. But once they had me, they didn't want to let me go.<br />
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When I arrived I could not read. As the year before I had been reading Emmanuel Kant and Henry James, some of the most difficult philosophical and literary text ever devised, not reading really bothered me. I had to have something to do to pass the time. Since I was new to the hospital my mental state was unknown to the staff. So movement and privileges were severely restricted. I asked my mother to bring me two things. Artist's plastic modeling clay and the largest box of Crayola crayons she could find. I wanted as many colors as I could get.<br />
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What I fashioned from the modeling clay wasn't much. It was one shape, then destroyed in my fist, and another new shape. I don't think I take naturally to sculpture. But the crayons were my joy. I didn't draw with them at first. I suppose my mind was too destroyed at that point for drawing. What I did was make crayon rows. I simply arranged the sticks of color. An orange crayon next to a blue crayon next to a green crayon next to a red crayon. Each crayon tight touching the next. My premise was that in a line of fifty colors there are some harmonies of sequence that work better than others. It is rather subtle to say that a melody is arranged of deep notes, loud notes, and quite notes when you are considering strict linear contrasts of pure pigment - but that is indeed art. The compositions I arrange today on my sheets of paper using oil pastel pull the eye in circular and diagonal movement. I am in no way an abstract painter today. But when my mind was stripped bare and hardly functional, my artistic talent could only be in terms of fundamental color interplay. And pretty much, if I must be honest, my biggest challenge in my contemporary work is in terms of color interplay. You do not know the oodles of time, really countless, that I have complained to my husband "This work is a disaster. The colors are all wrong." I love color more than I love chocolate.<br />
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My crayon rows were done while I was sitting on the floor under a table. In our main common room there was a table next to the window that held potted plants. While underneath, people didn't bother me. It felt safe. And at the time, I didn't wish to walk. I preferred to crawl from room to room. All that crawling wore out the fabric in my pants and made my knees red. Sitting under tables was cool too because people would come and have interesting conversations and not even know you were present. I enjoyed listening to secrets and gossip. <br />
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As I started to recover I tried to read. I had my mother bring in all my children's books she had kept as mementos. The patients were my audience. I remember reading "The Little Engine That Could" about a train climbing a mountain to a man who had both wrists heavily bandaged from a suicide attempt. We sat on the floor together, backs against the wall, shoulder to shoulder to look at the pictures in the book. I remember him being very happy but a bit bewildered having this story read to him. And every night, before bed, I read one new Chinese fairy tale from my illustrated Chinese fairy tale book to my roommate. This made her grow very fond of me.<br />
<br />
Then I started drawing with the crayons. And a morning ritual developed. I wake early, so this was done while most everyone was still asleep. I would go to the end of the hallway where there was a large window and sit on the floor in front of it. Usually it was still dark outside. I did five scribble drawing. They were done very fast with no conscious guidance. Too slow and I would be "thinking". I didn't want to "think" while I scribbled. What fascinated me was that no two drawings looked the same. Day after day my scribble trove grew, and never ever did I repeat myself. I viewed the scribbles as a direct product of my unconscious mind. For if I was not consciously guiding the scribbling hand, what was? And why should the product of the unconscious mind be endlessly original? Then, like with the reading of children's books I started pulling other patients into my service. I would show a patient my scribble trove. Next it was explained that I was collecting scribbles, and I wanted to see their personality in a scribble. What the patients who participated did was illuminating. I realized that there were indeed new ways, with new people, of scribbling. Each person had their own scribble style.<br />
<br />
The patient who was most ill was non-verbal. Even if you could force him to talk, (rather, I didn't force, I sweet talked) - what came out was a classical word salad. Words grouped together that had no attachment to one another. There was intelligence in his eyes, total awareness, and I can only assume that he knew it was impossible for him to communicate verbally. Probably he was exasperated or embarrassed with his disability so he preferred silence. To me his scribble effort was the most frightening. It was just a tiny grouping of a few lines in the center of the paper. This he gave me after a lot of my coaching to try, just try. My scribbling was expansive and energetic and covered the whole paper. Next to me was impoverished and limited. I tested him again and again to see if he could improve. Nope. If ever a scribble could look hopeless, his did.<br />
<br />
After the children's books, I moved on to short magazine articles. It would take an entire year of healing before I could read my first book. That book was "Rock Star", a torrid love affair by Daniel Steel.<br />
<br />
Eventually it became clear to staff that I was odd but totally harmless and they let me use scissors. I cut colored construction paper. There was a bulletin board that the doctors said I could have to decorate. I remember doing a monster scene that was reminiscent of Miro abstraction, but with eyes and mouths. I wanted then to go bigger. I stared decorating the wall next to my bed. Just put rolled tape on the back of the cut out paper and it will stick to the wall. Never did I think I was making art. I was just making. For the fun of it. To escape the violence, the hopelessness, and the tedium of the hospital. Mental escape while you are a physical prisoner. Staff eventually said that my wall in my bedroom had so much paper on it that it was a fire hazard and I had to reduce it to a third of its size. In tears, I destroyed it all. It had been a popular landmark, patients standing in the doorway to look because no one was allowed to go into someone else's bedroom. What did it mean? they would ask me. Nothing, I said, it meant nothing.<br />
<br />
As my skills in reading improved, I tried to write short one page stories. And I started drawing in proper. I had not drawn since kindergarten. I would make a small monster in pencil, and then when the lines were corrected and I got I wanted, I went over the pencil with a ball point pen. A patient looked at a collection of about fifteen small drawings of absurd little impossibilities (for none of my drawings could have ever existed in nature) and said it looked like something he saw in a book. A book of what? A book on an artist.<br />
<br />
It took everything out of me to create a sentence or to sketch a tiny two inches by three inches monster. There was no creative flow. I know now, as a mature artist, what it is like to be in creative flow. But in the hospital, my concentration would not permit the linking together of moments in my mind. In every sentence I wrote I remember struggling over the order of words. I wrote and re-wrote sentences. Linking sentences to form a paragraph was the hardest because the thoughts jumped abruptly from one sentence to another. Like my shattered mind, my paragraphs also were shattered. But I had time to edit endlessly.<br />
<br />
Letters to friends and family were written on brown paper bags ripped up into an uneven shards. Pencil is just visible on paper bags, readable, but with some eye strain. My Uncle apparently was very alarmed at receiving his paper bag shard in the mail. I doubt it was alarm over what I said, it was the oddity of the physical manuscript.<br />
<br />
When my sister came to visit me during her spring break from college she brought her college boyfriend. He was an English major and wanted to be a professional writer. I shyly let him read two one page stories. One story was about a beast named Misery and the other story was about a tiny thimble sized King who God smites. Obviously I was just echoing my current condition in life. <br />
<br />
My sister said her boyfriend claimed, after reading my stories, that he might as well give up writing. My sister said he really was in turmoil. Maybe he was a bit jealous of me? Why did my writing make him despair? Perhaps he felt that a woman in a psychiatric institution should not produce writing that was superior to his own. No doubt he considered himself quite sane. And someone whose sanity was in doubt should not get away with producing evidence of superior talent. <br />
<br />
This fellow's reaction to my writing was the first time ever I considered the idea that madness can produce brilliance. Not everyone's madness. But yes, it is so, in the case of the rare few. I love, love the work of the Victorian painter Richard Dadd after he went mad. Before, he was only so so. Before he was romantic and a technical virtuoso. But after the breakdown he went places no sane mind would venture. They say that artists in the artworld haven't been inspired by Dadd that same way that musicians and writers have. I think sane minds loath to break rules of reality. Our eyes are constantly giving us visual reminders of what reality is. Questioning the sanity and rules of the eyes is hard to do. I know in this era of modern art all the abstractions seem to point to the artist's mantra that reality doesn't have to impinge in artistic creation in the least. But the best painters, in my taste, make a poem out of reality. They make reality rhyme. They make reality into a song, into a taste. But they hang onto something essential and then add the spiritual. Dadd's spiritual was demonic. I don't mean this to mean evil. I mean it as the opposite of law and order. My art too is demonic. A very early oil pastel drawing was once shown to an immigrant baker of bagels. He called it "devil's crap". I don't think he knew much about art. But he was keen to his senses. <br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-40574489425775683592014-02-12T07:23:00.001-08:002014-02-12T08:29:12.511-08:00De Kooning's Alzheimer's; My Alzheimer's Drawing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
The title of this oil pastel drawing is "End of Life". When I was
designing it I didn't know what it was about, story wise. And I didn't
know what I was doing, nor what I was drawing, nor why why I was drawing
it. For a while there, I was really disturbed by what I was making.
The violence and darkness of the subject matter didn't bother me. I was
disturbed by internal variations in my normal sensation of creative
flow. In this drawing, somehow, my creative process was less
satisfactory.<br />
<br />
However, its final phase, the story is
very straight forward and clear. The drawing is a variation on the
Greek myth of the three fates. The three fates were women who dealt
with string and the timing of one's life. One Fate to spin the string,
one Fate to measure the string, and one Fate to cut the string. So a
person's lifeline was created, you lived it out, and when a Fate cut the
string, you died. The black string in "End of Life" is perhaps less
about measurement and more about the assent from earth into the
afterlife. A journey is taking place. A transference. Movement from
the Earthly plane (why, there's green grass on the ground) to a more
celestial plane (the cart is flying through the blue sky). Note the
baby saint, or Jesus, in the womb of the winged Billy Goat. Is it a
symbol of rebirth? Is it a symbol of the destination of Heaven? Is it a
symbol of a plane of existence that I'm at loss to depict in a
drawing? I don't know, but somehow, I get a good feeling of hope from
my pregnant, cart hauling, aimed upward, winged Billy Goat. He isn't
the goat that is associated with the Devil, no way. Maybe its my own
personal spin on drawing an angel. An animal angel.<br />
<br />
Where
there is flesh of the Godly Fates I used a lot of pink tones. Where
there is flesh of those that have died, I have used tones of green and
blue and brown. <br />
<br />
I asked my husband, "Why are their
holes in the women's breasts?" and without hesitation he replied
"Because they lack the milk of human kindness."<br />
<br />
But my
husband does not understand why all the dead people's faces have unhappy
looks on them. "Sometimes you say you want to die" he said to me. "If
you want to die, shouldn't the faces in death be happy? Because you
got what you want?" He continued on this line of thought. "I think
because the faces look unhappy, you really don't want to die, even when
you say so." <br />
<br />
I got a notion that repeated itself to me
while planing and executing this drawing. I kept thinking that the
drawing was different from preceding work. And that the difference was
because I was showing early stages of Alzheimer's.<br />
<br />
Now,
reality check. Do I have any sort of problems with my memory? No,
absolutely not. Still, I kept telling my husband, like a broken needle
on a record, "It feels like I have Alzheimer's when I draw." Do I know
anyone with Alzheimer's? No. But what I was trying to express, I
think, was that my thoughts felt blocked and slowed down. Schizophrenia
is a type of dementia, but I wanted to say that while making this art I
felt like I had dementia on top of dementia. Creative flow felt
altered, and not in a good way. It was my husband who pointed out to me
that during the Christmas season I had gone up, a tiny bit, on my
antipsychotic medication. Just one extra 20mg pill a night. The holiday time is a former time of
hospitalization. Its hard to remember, but I think I've had two
hospitalizations right before Christmas. So its a kinda a danger zone.
And since I was doing so well on the higher dose of medication I just
kept on taking the increased dose. More medication all throughout January. During the
planing and execution of this drawing. "Your probably really sensitive
to how the medication alters your creativity." My husband said to me.
"It must be that you don't like the way the medication affects your
creativity."<br />
<br />
I have seen art transformed by
Alzheimer's. I think there was an unconscious reason I picked this
disease to describe how I felt.<br />
<br />
A
couple of years ago I read a very good and detailed biography of the
abstract expressionist painter Willem De Kooning. When De Kooning was
at his best his work has intense energy and vitality. At the end of his
life De Kooning had Alzheimer's so bad he stopped speaking. I suppose
that's part of the normal course of Alzheimer's. At this point in his
life, when a paintbrush was put in his hand (oh, they were trying to get
him
to paint right up to the very end, he was so bankable) - all he would
paint on canvas was a circle. The story of his art was all there for me
to see in pictures in the book - early art training, decades of
artistic searching, the mastery and breakthrough, and eventual pictorial
dementia. I HAVE SEEN AN ALZHEIMER'S PIECE OF ARTWORK. WHEN I SAID MY
WORK LOOKED LIKE I HAD ALZHEIMER'S, I WAS SENSITIVE TO A SUBTLE
ALTERATION THAT MIMICKED EXISTING ALZHEIMER'S ARTWORK. I BELIEVE THIS
WAS BECAUSE OF A SMALL INCREASE IN ANTI-PSYCHOTIC MEDICATION.<br />
<br />
When
De Kooning was good, he was very good. I especially liked his series
of Women, who were ugly sexual goddesses (sometimes with teeth!) that
dominated and made a strong subvocal statement to the viewer like "I
exist! I am solid! I am all woman! If you have sex with me I'll eat
you whole and spit out your ribcage!". The museum that I worked at in my youth had two de Koonings.
One was a delicate, somber, semi-realistic man relegated to the wall of a
staircase (not an esteemed position). The other painting was done
after fame had arrived, in signature abstract expressionist style.
This painiting was far more advanced, in power and scope, and was one of the lynchpins of the 20th Century art wing of the
museum. So, in a way, I've had the several year experience of live
contact with a massive, impressive de Kooning in addition to any of the
illustrations of his work that I've seen in books. <br />
<br />
When
Willem De Kooning started his abstract expressionist style of painting
he pretty much became a success overnight. He had been known in the
artworld, lots of artist buddies, but not yet much noticed or talked
about by the art critics.
The trajectory of his talent proves to me that for some artists, they
must spend decades of searching before they find the style that exudes
power and creative grace. Van Gogh is another other example of an
artist who trained and searched before he became a master. Most people
agree that Van Gogh was a creative genius. Yet I own a two volume
complete set of reprints of his work, and for the first ten years
he was painting he was nothing more than an average painter (sometimes a
horrible painter!). Early Van Gogh had some definite flops. A Van Gogh
flop? You bet. For some artists, it takes years of practice and
dedication to get to the point where they exhibit the unearthly powers
of a creative genius. At the end of his life Van Gogh made a
masterpiece every day. You can be born with talent, maybe even genius,
but not many are genius prodigies, obvious and known at a young age.
Often there is a learning curve before the artistic miraculous happens.
In America the myth is that fame and fortune happens virtually
overnight (on American Idol?) and we forget that for some creative
stars there is muckcrawling and unrewarded practice for a long time.
Slogging away in darkness before the light shines. And when that light
shines, the artist truly becomes themselves. Unique and like no other.
That's when the art world notices the talent; when the artist breaks
with history and finds a signature style.<br />
<br />
De
Kooning had a wife named Elaine who the biographer that wrote my book
didn't like very much. If you encounter her on Wikipedia, they seem to
be very nice to her. They name her among the greats of the abstract
expressionist movement. I think this is a weird lie - I've never seen
any work by her. I prefer to believe the author of my book. He never
pays attention to her art.
The DeKooning marriage wasn't much of a success. They both went on
to have affairs and stop living with one another. Yet they never
divorced. Elaine liked being married to a famous artist and she
especially liked big money. She was a mouth piece in the art world and
high society promoting her husband's work. When he started showing
signs of dementia, she covered it up as best she could. She got him
assistants sworn to secrecy. She moved him permanently out of New York
City to an isolated studio Willem had designed and built the country.
Elaine did not want the high prices his works commanded to deflate.
Afterall she was his wife and entitled to a large share of his income.
Elaine promoted the visual change in Willem's art as a next step in the
evolution of a master painter. It was true that up till then
DeKooning's
trajectory had always been one of evolution. At a point in
the 1980's the look of De Kooning's work definitely changed. The
abstraction in the paintings became very fluid. Looking a bit like it
had been smoothly poured in patches. Much different from earlier paint
that was broken,
gestural, interwoven, fast and furious. In late De Koonings forms of
color floated serenely. The
colors were all separated from one another. There was new peace and
order in the paintings. The dementia phase work was wholly abstract,
with no subtle reference what-so-ever to any object in reality. In my
museum's De Kooning there was a pair of lips. A lot of abstraction but a
definite nod as well to a red pair of feminine lips. The
late De Kooning canvasses were still interesting - that's probably why
the value held. De
Kooning's illness was relegated to rumor - but a definite departure in
style had occurred.<br />
<br />
I swear that half way through this
drawing, when all the white of the paper had been eradicated by a first
layer of oil pastel , I felt such a violent rejection of my creation
that I wanted to destroy the artwork. What stopped me was all the time and effort that had already gone into the piece. I did
reason with myself. Feeling violent disgust toward my own creation is
something I've wrestled with before. Artwork has been destroyed, much
to my later regret. So no matter the dark impulses I was feeling I had
to finish it. I can't do much about my perception of my artwork.
However, I can suspect it. I don't trust it. One day I can like a
work, another day looking at the work fills me with self loathing and a
feeling of failure. Usually when I finish an artwork, and I look at the thing done,
it makes me feel crazy. Completed work seems so energized that my
sensibilities can't tolerate it. That's always a current
reaction to any work done on low dose of anti-psychotics. I like it, but I can't bare to stare at it.<br />
<br />
I
know that the disease of schizophrenia alters self awareness, and most
importantly, self perception. I don't have problems with grandiosity.
Instead I can be visited (this usually doesn't last longer than a day or
two) a rather horrible sense of self regard. I recently had a day of
darkness when I remarked to my husband, "I am shredding myself. Cutting
myself up inside and making me bleed by self condemnation. What a
horrible, unnecessary thing to do to oneself."<br />
<br />
When I
finish any piece of artwork I take a picture and email it to friends and
family. The support, and liking of this drawing has been strong and
positive. My mom really liked it. She asked that since it seemed to
her to be so creative, had I recently gone DOWN on my medication? (There
was so much irony and humor in this question I almost didn't believe I
had heard the comment correctly.) However, I will make one small
observation about my Mother. She likes works done on a lot of
medication. She is distinctly troubled by low dose medication artwork.
I think they confuse and alarm her. She has said to me, with all intended kindness, "I'm trying
hard to understand your new style." I have noticed that the art she enjoys
living with, decorating her home, is light, happy, simple, and
straightforward. Mass media art. My
artwork that she owns is mostly crammed into the smallest room in the
house. This room used to be a pantry for canned goods. My brother's
realistic painting of three potatoes has a place of honor over the table
in her large kitchen. So a picture of three potatoes is what my
mom prefers to look at. I have been directly asked by my mother not to
gift her anymore artwork. <br />
<br />
If you want to compare two
works of art on two different doses of medication (and make your own
opinion about the effects of medication on art), compare the picture of
the last post to the picture of this essay. They were both done on the
same size of paper, 22"x 30". You can click on the image to see it enlarged. January's post drawing is
the paper held horizontal. February's post is the same paper held vertical. Last month's
drawing, "Love is Complicated" was conceived on 60mg Geodone. I was
happy with it when it was finished. This month's drawing, "End of Life"
was conceived on 80mg of Geodone. While as a honest critic I see
"End of Life" has solid elements of innovation, composition,
and meaning, - I still feel a much looser and less passionate connection to it. I
feel its me, but too, it isn't me. And for some reason, that pisses me off. <br />
<br />
When
I went up on
medication several things happened to my personality. I became less
critical of my husband. Whenever he said something I disagreed with
there was less of a tiff. More medication meant a more serene,
agreeable me. And formerly, every night, I had felt a darkness.
Sadness, despair, and hurt once the sun went down. Mornings were good,
but evenings, right before
I took my daily dose of medication medication (with dinner - food
activated the medicine) were often horrible. On the
higher dose of medication my mood stayed more constant and pleasant.
And on the
higher dose of medication there has not been one incident when I said
things that make no sense. No more "everyone in the world is laughing
at me", no more "everyone in the world wants to kill me", and no more
strange observations like "I think I'm made out of sugar and onions."
What did happen each month, on both doses of
medication, I lost the ability to speak. It really doesn't matter how
much medication I'm on, occasionally I will loose the ability to speak.
There are ways to communicate, but never with words. And even on
oodles of medication I've gotten to the point where I could not speak
or move, frozen in place. Usually that happens after a period of
tremendous stress and physical activity - sensory overload. So no
amount of medication can prevent
the occasional occurrence of catatonia.<br />
<br />
Actually, there
is a lot less catatonia on low medication. But there is a lot more of
what my husband calls "the scalpel". This is critical thinking that
will not tolerate any lies, fabrication, or long winded stories in
conversation. Low medication Karen wants the truth, straight forward
and
simple in conversation. I'll cut with a scalpel to the chase.
No head
games. Once the scalpel is out, I will not tolerate head games. I
think this includes a diminished ability to appreciate humor. An
increase, perhaps, of concrete black and white thinking? More
medication and I'm much more light-hearted. Less medication and I'm
more mean, critical, sarcastic and biting in conversation. My husband's
dreaded "scalpel". <br />
<br />
My
marriage was smoother, and happier, this past month while I made this
artwork! A noticeable difference! However, my consistent distress over making artwork that I did
not feel for some reason emotionally attached to (the complaint of
Alzheimer'! Strange wonderment - it feels like I now have Alzheimer's!)
caused my husband to make a sudden pronouncement last weekend. "Go back down to
60mg" he said. "Its ok with me."<br />
<br />
So now I'm on day 3
at 60mg. I'm drawing everyday, planning my next piece. But I think too
I'm a little weirder, meaner, more unhappy person. I got an email from a male
friend yesterday. "You keep talking about boobs. What is it with
boobs?" Ah yes, the return of obsessional thinking.<br />
<br />
But I'm happy again and feel connected to my drawing.<br />
<br />
I feel a dawn and rebirth of things not of this world. But all said and done, the drawing on this post is still very odd.<br />
<br />
I never stopped being the DEADLY SERIOUS IDIOT.</div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-66573873002793466802014-01-16T12:51:00.000-08:002014-01-16T12:52:34.177-08:00A Schizophrenic Love Drawing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<br />
The images for this drawing came completely from my unconscious
mind. I didn't look at photographs or other artwork for inspiration.
First I drew separate images in a sketchbook. Then I assembled them
into a whole. I made my separate sketching form a narrative. This is not a straight
forward realistic story. It is a symbolic story. And it feels exactly right and true. I call
this 22"x30" oil pastel drawing "Love is Complicated". It is a story
about me, my life, my marriage. And what the condition of love feels to
me. It took about a month to make. Click on the image to see it enlarged.<br />
<br />
The man is my
husband. He is pregnant with a saint in his belly. I think very highly of my husband. He has traits of a saint within him. And he can be an arrogant dickhead. But most of the time, he is happy and nice. He tries to be good.<br />
<br />
The girl is me, lovingly
entwined with her inner beast. People do have layers to them, the outer and the inner. The gun, the potential shot, the erect penis, the
hole that is essential to every woman, animal passion, both man and women smiling, - this is
all very sexual imagery. I think I see in this drawing the state of my marriage bed. In schizophrenic art I don't usually see much sexual imagery. Hardly any nudes. No reference much to any type of relationship between people. I assume that this is because sex, and schizophrenia, don't go well together. My two best schizophrenic friends have had sex in the past, but currently, they do not. One has been celibate for over twenty five years. The other would like to have a girlfriend. But he is in a very isolated living situation. And I don't know if his nature would ever be able to weather the complications that emotional intimacy brings. He has never had a long term relationship or been in a romantic relationship where the emotion of love is present. I think the illness brings with it a sense of isolation to the sufferer. Usually the isolation is self-protective. <br />
<br />
I notice that I'm not built well to sustain strong emotions. After experiencing a strong emotion sometimes I am catatonic for a bit. Other times the world get really dark. I am always emotionally fragile after sex. Sex can be happy and passionate in our marriage, but on some level, it always wounds me. It doesn't matter that the only emotion that was present during sex was love and passion. I still emerge wounded. Not on my outer manifestation, but inwardly. <br />
<br />
The pink bird bites its claw and makes the shape
of the eternal circle. The bird cannot fly, it is shackled and earth
bound. I think the bird is a symbol of the Love within my marriage. The love between my husband and I is eternal, a trap, capable of flight yet going nowhere, rather pretty,
purposely self consuming, very self absorbed. So my loving marriage
is complicated. I think my husband and I do not have a lifestyle that most couples have. As much as possible, we are in retreat from the world. We are very sensitive to one another and small mishaps, small criticisms, can easily wound. At our worst, we have both felt "gutted" by the other. We currently do not understand how a harsh remark can so easily damage self esteem. Are we both, in separate ways, equally fragile? Are we so intensely hooked in to the other's psyche? We do not call ourselves soulmates. But we would like to be with each other until we die. It will be hard for the one who remains.<br />
<br />
I have been assured time and time again by
others who have had long term successful marriages that marriage
requires hard work. Easily, love is both painful and sweet.<br />
<br />
In
the last conversation I had with my father he asked me, "Why are the
mentally ill so obsessed with their illness?" No doubt he was thinking
of me. But the best schizophrenic art, I think, like the self consuming
suffering schizophrenic, turns inward into the depths of the psyche for
subject matter and form. My schizophrenia on a daily basis falls into patterns of wellness and relapse. I move from hour to hour feeling well or not well. This scenario can easily happen - a fun active, productive morning, and then an evening where I can't move from my bed and proclaim with anguish "I am in hell and life has no meaning". But I'll be well again and chipper the next morning. I make art when I'm not suffering. But no doubt, even when I
feel normal, psychotic thought is denaturing and re-arranging logical
thought. Highly creative and schizophrenics can and do make unlikely
connections. That's the footprint of psychosis. I don't think that this is a comfortable drawing. I do not think that this a drawing that a sane artist would make. And most certainly, I don't think that this drawing has anything typical of the romantic, social, ideal of Love. It has more in common with the workings of the unconscious mind than what has been produced during the course of art history by artists expounding on the theme of Love. Nobody likes to think of Love as I have portrayed it. I'm out of the social norm. And frankly, I have no interest in depicting the social norm. That would be a very boring image for me. And it would feel as though it were a lie.<br />
<br />
Some
schizophrenics paint landscapes. Landscapes with realistic looking
grass, trees and flowers. But for a schizophrenic, especially one not
medicated, such subject matter is rare. What most schizophrenics want
to put in their art is an interior landscape. A reality from within. A
genesis of unconscious conclusions and ways. In order to make a
picture we don't look out our bedroom window. We look inward to what
the disease makes us obsessed with. <br />
<br />
It is scary how dependent I am on my husband. </div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-12505384551665258772013-12-13T10:19:00.000-08:002013-12-14T02:57:12.728-08:00Christmas Delusion Card<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
I had a choice this Christmas. Do I send my family politically
correct Christmas cards? I could choose to draw an angel. Angels are
harmless, bring joy, and are politically correct. Or do I follow my
strong creative impulse and draw pregnant beasties for Christmas? Goats
with horns with the sainted child growing inside their belly? When in
doubt, and most certainly with my husband's Evangelical Christian
family, send an angel. But my brother and my husband's boss asked for a
pregnant beastie drawings. They were the only people I trusted enough
to ask which version they would prefer. And my husband wanted a
pregnant beastie for a Christmas Present. I've taken pictures of his
gifts - threw in an angel Christmas Present just to be nice. He is my greatest fan. Frankly, I had more fun
drawing pregnant beasties than angels.<br />
<br />
I had a problem
with some slight insanity one evening. I emailed my friend that I was
going to drown. Not that I wanted to drown, just that I thought it would
happen. I did say that drowning didn't make any sense because I
wasn't going swimming,(it being winter), and that anyway I am an
excellent swimmer. And while I was not worried that I would drown, nor
did I think it a possibility that in reality I would drown, however, I
had to assert, (say it out loud) that most certainly I was going to
drown. So I told my husband a couple of times that I was going to drown
and then I sent an email to my friend. My sign off on that drowning
email was this separate line;<br />
<br />
"The Billy Goat is pregnant."<br />
<br />
That
single nonsense sentence the next day turned into an image for the
Christmas cards I was in the process of making. Now, I have enough
sense to know that there are members of my family, especially on my
husband's side, who would probably stop talking to me if I sent them a
Christmas Card with a pregnant Billy Goat. My husband did have to point
out to me that the Goat is an old symbol of the devil. I likely
already knew that. However, I was not thinking about the devil or any
symbol when I wrote "The Billy Goat is pregnant". It just came to me.
And I wasn't trying to be funny, or creative, or playful - I think I
meant it quite literally. In some weird way it was true when I wrote
it. And the idea followed me into my art. Do I know any Billy Goats?
No. We live near a town. However, I know schizophrenia tends to make a
person a concrete thinker. There are many signs in my conversations
with my husband that I talk literal sense, and have trouble, with
understanding abstract insinuations. The pregnant Billy Goat was so
real to me that I felt compelled to draw it. I guess this is art
expressing a psychotic thought.<br />
<br />
Cliches drive me
nuts. Cliches are commonly used phrases that make no literal sense.
They only hint broadly at things. You are supposed to know the secret
meaning behind a cliche. I especially hate it when what is meant is
really the opposite of what is literally said. Social stock phrases
make me so confused. When my husband uses a cliche I'll stop him and
say things like "that doesn't mean anything" or "your talking garbage"
or "this is empty talk". At first he said that everyone at work talks
with cliches and everyone gets the insinuation of the cliche user. So
normal people can process this type of communication and not get
confused. I understand I'm other. Usually when I get confused in a conversation I also get angry. I
hate it when my husband says to me "this funny thing happened at work".
I say wait! Do you mean this is ironic, and something really sad and
pathetic happened but you are instead calling it "funny"? That happened
just yesterday. My husband stopped a very confused co-worker from
being taken advantage of by her health insurer. And he wants to call
this near disaster "funny"? Apparently people do this all the time,
call horror stories, "funny" and my husband has gotten into the habit. I
hate waiting to listen for humor and instead get this story of pathos,
the woe of the human condition. It is not funny! It is usually
sad.....................so why should I get so angry when I am misled by
the inherent vagaries and flip-flog meaning of social remarks? I guess
being being confused is really scary to me................my husband
says I think in black and white terms and have trouble understanding the
grey areas of morality. Sins are, I will admit, complex, with layers
of meaning and intent. When my husband says stuff that are half truths
or mis-directions I pretty much know. I catch tone of voice maybe? And
I'll nag until I get honesty from him.<br />
<br />
Once my
husband said to me "you are the most honest person I've ever met". And I
said oh honey, don't put me on a pedestal, it isn't something wonderful
and elevated, - its just schizophrenic brain damage.<br />
<br />
I
can't play a lot of the social games that other people play. One day my
husband came home from work and told me that he had an odd sense that
day that everyone around him was either lying and telling falsehoods to make themselves look good, or else living
in delusions in which they were mistakenly lying to themselves. Of course he
wouldn't have been in that frame of mind if he wasn't married to Mrs.
strick-litteral-translation lady. <br />
<br />
If I had used a
pregnant Billy Goat instead of an angel from most people I
would get no compassionate pass for artistic whimsicality. Nobody would say
"oh, she's just an eccentric artist with a mental illness". Rather, the Christians in my family would probably talk amongst themselves and come to the conclusion
that either I was possessed by a devil or else worshiping the devil.
And they might fear, really fear, who their son or brother had married.
Worst case scenario I would would be immediately shunned. Best case
scenario they would think I would need some powerful prayer and holy
healing. I have had, in the past, a schizophrenic friend say that there
might be a demon in me because of my artwork. But normal people too
believe in demons.<br />
<br />
Christmas is a time when people take
what is correct, and what is not correct, pretty seriously. Don't mess
with Christmas traditions! No alternate interpretations! A shop owner
here in town put in her shop window a scantly clad plastic model seated in the lap of a red costumed Santa. The town told her to
change her window. A grown woman in Santa's lap was politically
incorrect. Only children in Santa's lap are politically correct.<br />
<br />
Even people who get an angel probably think I'm deranged for not drawing a "realistic" looking angel.<br />
<br />
Its hard to draw with oil pastels. They are fat sticks, smooshable, and blend easily.<br />
<br />
A
lot of people think you are only making good art if its realistic
looking art. My art for these cards looks pretty childlike I think.
Oh, and I've read an expert who said it is incorrect that schizophrenics
draw like children. He wished to elevate and dignify schizophrenic
art. Are schizophrenic people sophisticated?<br />
<br />
Ha! I'm sure as hell not sophisticated when I say I'm made out of sugar and onions.<br />
<br />
Nor am I sophisticated when I say that they are hiding chocolate in underground missile silos.<br />
<br />
And when I yell, "The rats are coming, the rats are coming!" obviously, someone has to be really, really nice to me. It can't be good if the rats are coming.<br />
<br />
My
pregnant Billy Goat would communicate directly to the unconscious mind
because I think it came directly from the unconscious mind.<br />
<br />
But Christmas is so codified, that tampering with tradition is tantamount to evil. One can only be creative with Christmas in the narrowest of terms.<br />
<br />
But I'm not an evil schizophrenic, I'm a pretty innocent schizophrenic. Its just that an image with a psychotic source is so powerful, and speaks so swiftly, that it can disturb mightily. ESPECIALLY AT CHRISTMAS!</div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-59747545306940754732013-11-11T07:49:00.000-08:002013-11-11T09:40:05.929-08:00New Weird Thoughts<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
This is all I can post of the painting I just finished. You can't
have the painting in its entirety. I'm giving you chopped up pieces of
the whole. Click on them to see them enlarged. They're pretty detailed. I don't think Google would like my images of animals having
sex. Edited out are two dogs having sex (the groom holds the leash of
the male dog - look at the groom smirk - he knows whats coming. The
bride seems serious, maybe a little incredulous. She hasn't a clue or
notion about what carnal lust is). Two monkey's having sex, and of all
the impossible things, a lion and a crocodile having sex.
Inter-species sex? No, its gay sex! You can see both the yellow lion
and the green crocodile have pink penises! Of course what exactly I
painted is the most primitive rendering. What am I capable of? Not too
much in the way of depicting reality. Its not like I copied a
photograph of animal's copulating. But the painting was about marriage,
sex and relationships. I titled it "The Virgin's Fate". It amuses me
that both my mother and my husband's mother were virgins when they
married our fathers. My mother's parents even picked out her wedding
gown. They were Lithuanian Lutherans, very European, very old school
traditional. They made my mother look like Cinderella, even had her
wear a rhinestone encrusted tiara. My father was in medical school and
didn't want children at the time so they used birth control. But my
husband's folks were game for the whole wet, squirming, bundle-of-joy
consequences of their honeymoon. My husband was born almost exactly ten
months after the marriage day. <br />
<br />
Well, when I started
this whole long journey of lowering my medication my medication nurse
made horrible predictions about what I would turn into. Most things,
almost all things, have not happened. She doesn't know me that well. She absolutely has not been with me since the start of my journey of mental illness.
She was merely extrapolating from what she had seen happen to other people in my diagnosis group.
But I am unique, my schizophrenia is unique. This diagnosis covers a whole variety of types of people, with
varying severity of illness. Schizophrenia has to have room in it for people who are atypical. <br />
<br />
Recently my medication nurse offered to
lower my medication to one 20mg pill a day. A miniscule amount. That shows how well she thinks I am doing. I
currently take 60mg Geodone. Theraputic dose of Geodone starts at
120mg. One thing she said in her predictive rant when we started the lowering of my medication is that psychosis will
come. It may take a year, two years, even three years, but it will
come. She said its part of my genetics. I think that the little
medication I take is protective against psychosis, and more importantly
to me, mania. If psychosis will come, so will mania, if I'm unprotected.
I met a bi-polar woman who was protected against mania only by
antipsychotic medication. She thought it was very weird that she was
not being treated by any of the classical mood-disorder drugs. But this was the approach of her doctor, and the
antipsychotic meds did stop her mania. I've been on the mood stabilizer Depakote and I hated it - and I wasn't even creating art at the time.
So I rather take an antipsychotic and just prevent the mania from ever developing. When I did experience mania, usually it was very mild. When I discribed it to a professor in college he said that I was having religious experiences. But long ago, before my first defining breakdown, I noticed that it was rhythmic. The hypomania started and stopped. But eventually there was the breakdown where I had
full-blown psychosis and complete inability to sleep. I'm glad I've go no
signs of hypomania. I believe that is due to the Geodone
antipsychotic. I'm not lowering my antipsychotic med for this reason, and now, for another reason. I have had totally new, weird thoughts.<br />
<br />
It always happens when I'm under abnormal stress. I will have an insistent, weird thought. Three separate
months, three separate weird thoughts. They don't last longer than a
day. A textbook psychotic thought. Maybe. It seems pretty much like
what one would find in a textbook. At the time I know that what I'm
thinking is ridiculous. Outrageous. However, there is real emotional
distress accompanying these close brushes with psychosis. Even when its
recognized as nonsense, (and I know weirdness when I see it - I've
always been a keen observer of my own madness), the weird thought is
hard to bear. Once, to stop the thought, I took extra medication. That
worked very well. The two other times I normalized after a good
night's sleep. <br />
<br />
The
first weird thought happened during an August vacation. We go to
Maine, to a little fishing village where both my father and mother have
separate homes. We stay with my mother. She has an apartment over her
garage. While visiting my mother I feel obliged to inform my
father that I'm in the same town as him and arrange a visit.<br />
<br />
Historically
I've been in the worst shape after visits with my father. For many,
many years after each visit I became suicidal. Its not just me. In the
nineteen nineties my sister did not talk to my father for three years
because he made her feel suicidal. Now their relationship is ok. She
likes to call him for medical advice. Mom says she affectionately calls him "Daddy-O". I think she's one tough cookie. Its cool to see a sibling heal and strengthen that much.<br />
<br />
In
the past, after a visit with my father, while traveling home in the
car, I would dope myself with medication. While traveling I would
still would feel suicidal for a bit, but I was so zoned out from the
meds that there was an air of "who cares about anything in life?". Now
on less antipsychotic medication my father does not make me feel
suicidal. I just feel terrible, torn up inside. And I can't stop
re-living the visit. Obsession. Last Thanksgiving I talked about the
visit for about three days straight and my husband said "enough, I have
no more sympathy for you. I don't want you to ever see your father
again." How does my husband deal with my father? He falls asleep.
Like, is there such a thing as pathological sleepiness? My husband does
not wish to be conscious around my father. So he dozes, anypalce,
anychair, everytime.<br />
<br />
During the August vacation my
father invited me over for lunch. I medicated myself an hour before
hand with an extra antipsychotic pill and a tranquilizer. At the lunch
table I felt a vale of dopiness disconnecting myself from my father, and
I thought to myself, it is a good thing I'm zonked, otherwise I would
have so much anxiety. I look at my father and I wish to scream, how
could I eat my lunch? But I did eat lunch. After lunch we moved to
the sun porch. My husband fell asleep. My Dad and I talked about art.
I relaxed. I remember saying that all my heroes in art were mad and lived in
insane asylums. Then I said say what you will about my art, (I'm not
certain how to rate it at all in terms of good or bad or beautiful) -
but at least it is honest. Where did the boast about honesty come
from? I do not know. But it felt right at the moment. My Dad said
that this word honesty, in connection with art, he had read several
times in books. He does not know what it means. Could I explain what
it means? To have honest art? I couldn't explain. Probably to
discuss this term, and its application to art, I would have to reveal
too much about my creative process. And I know what my father thinks of
my art. I know the truth. He thinks I'm a sad case. Maybe even as
much as a painful embarrassment. I had a therapist tell me once that my
father will never be proud of me, no matter where my art goes or what
good things happen to it. The only emotion that possibly can be
summoned, with artistic success, is jealousy. The therapist seems kinda mean. I rather view my father as a complicated person. Capable of many feelings on many levels. But knowing that probably my art upsets my Dad, do I really want to try to put myself in a virtuous light? It
would seem like a battle that I've already lost. I know I'm rejected
because my art looks different from mainstream art, and because my
father is art school trained and I am not, and because my father seems
to lack the ability to recognize creativity in art.<br />
<br />
His
inability to recognize things that are creative is a new discovery and
it explains a lot. I have a term for people who are bushwacked by
fame. I call them fame fuckers. My father is a fame fucker because he
only can tolerate and judge as successful art that has critical
acclaim. The lightbulb went off in my head when two vacation's ago he
handed me a post card with an artwork on it advertizing an art show.
Dad said, "He's good, isn't he?" And he told me that the artist was a
former dean of an art school who now is independent and very
successful. I believe I heard envy and esteem in my father's voice. He
likes good credentials. But the picture on the postcard was horrible.
Totally boring. A small boat in a large body of water. No real
content, no color surprises. A field of emptiness with a poorly
rendered object in it. I assumed at the time that the original artwork
must have been very delicately tinted and much was lost in the printing
process. It puzzled me why an artist would pick a work that reproduced
so poorly. And then I realized that my Dad liked the image because the
artist was successful. A fame fucker. Unable to judge quality for
himself, and giving quality where it is not deserved via the uplift and
aura of fame. This is intellectual distortion and bushwacking of
judgement. Creativity is delicate. It's presence more like a
fragrance. I think I rather stay safe, and was silent after my father
asked me to explain artistic honesty to him. And so he took the break
in the conversation as the perfect moment to say "Well, I'm going to go
paint". He stood. He smiled, and he walked away. And that ended the
visit. He had not seen or talked to me for nine months. I did feel,
at that moment, the sly sensation that my father was running away from
me! I felt like I was too much of a goofball to be taken seriously and
perhaps, I did not have the ability to talk about art like my father's
other artist friends. I know he has a lot of artist friends who visit
his Maine cottage, stay overnight, and go on painting trips with him. I
must not be able to talk about art like a normal person. And I think socializing with me makes my father nervous. He can never predict what is going to come out of my mouth. I once heard from a nurse who worked with him that during a meeting he went totally ballistic when another doctor called him eccentric. He yelled and left the room. On a gut level, he hates eccentric.<br />
<br />
The
next morning I woke early. And this idea was in my brain. "My parents
attack, kill and eat me". They do this and somehow I am reassembled, I
survive, only again, at a future date, to be the living victim for them
to "attack, kill and eat me". It seemed to be a pattern that has been
going on my whole life. Torture, death, dismemberment, and
regeneration. Perhaps the criminal punishment of Prometheus chained to
his rock, having his liver eaten daily by an eagle? What Chronos did to
his children? To put the little Godlings away and keep them down. (How I love Goya's savage painting of Saturn eating his child).
A very primitive notion, this, the parents killing and eating their child. A myth of death and rebirth in the collective unconsciousness? I
started to cry, woke my husband, and held him tight, repeating over and
over that my parent both want to "attack, kill, and eat me".<br />
<br />
That
day we went to an antique store. In degrees, my agitation died down.
The next day we spent driving, traveling home. I then said to my
husband that I remembered what I thought the day before, however in the light of a new day, its
degree of insistence and reality was so diminished that I could not
comprehend why I said what I said, or believed it was so impregnated with reality.<br />
<br />
The
second weird thought occurred in early October. My husband and I had
had three fights within the space of one week. After a fight I always go and sleep on the couch in my art room. After most fights we work things out in the morning. My will husband take the time to reconcile before he goes to work. After a good nights rest our
emotions are so much calmer. And it is far far easier to say I'm
sorry. For both of us. But after the third fight he made no attempt at
reconciliation. That day, quite suddenly, in the middle of the day, I
emailed my friend. All I wrote is "Nobody loves me, I'm persecuted, everyone wants to
kill me". Naturally my friend did not take me at my word. I had never written such a thing.<br />
<br />
It was so strange to think that everyone,
every living being on the planet wished to kill me. When the thought
first came I ignored it as best I could. I believed it rightly preposterous.
Having absolutely no basis in reality. Six hours later, still thinking
this thought, my spirit began to flag. Even imaginary ill will is still
ill will. And one small human being can not stand against the notion
that nobody wishes them alive. "Everybody wants to kill me" had over
the six hours become an obsessive mantra. I didn't hear a voice say it,
but my internal imagination repeated its body of meaning again and
again and again. Eventually it frightened me (was I now starting to
believe that there was some truth in it? Not that I would be attacked
by guns, but that everyone wished me dead) and I took an extra
Geodone pill. After about 40 minutes the thought completely
disappeared. Like magic. The Geodone definitely put me in a medicated
haze that felt mildly uncomfortable. My husband came home from work and
we ironed things out domestically. I had a good nights sleep. And a
very productive day painting for many hours the next day.<br />
<br />
The
last weird thought happened last week, the first week of November. A
specific unusual situation had been left unresolved. I did not know
what another person was thinking about me. Their opinion seemed to
matter. I could only anticipate a negative solution to the encounter. My email buddy said that the universe had a plan for me and I had to just flow with the plans of the universe. Good advice. But at night I would obsess. My husband listened to me go on and on on the same topic and eventually he asked rather angrily what kind of solutions I
could come up with to counteract my obsessive thinking. He wanted me to
problem solve (he wished me to shut up) because I had become unpleasant company. And
then suddenly, the pressure of worry and not knowing disappeared. I
thought I knew what was happening. I was being laughed at. This is
how another person sees me. They laugh at me. No mystery. I had this
bit of incredulous awe that I could see what was happening far far
away. A stranger was laughing at me. Well, it was a relief not to
obsess anymore and I fell asleep.<br />
<br />
The next morning I woke
and my perceptions had altered just a little bit. Before my husband
went to work I told him that now I thought that the whole world was
laughing at me. Everyone in the world was laughing at me behind my
back. I could see the pattern that I liked to generalize an idea
to include the whole population of the world - be it killing or laughing. And I
could see that it was again, preposterous and a figment of my
imagination. It absolutely made no sense that anyone should be laughing
at me. I said to my husband, you wanted me to stop obsessing over my
trouble, and the trouble has disappeared, but it has been replaced by a
psychotic idea. You can't suppress the mind. Last night you wanted me
to change. Well I've changed. Maybe a part of me listened to your
angry admonishment. But do you think the change is in a good direction?<br />
<br />
It was easy to promise my husband before he left for work that if the
thought that the whole world was laughing at me did not go away and if
it built in any sort of intensity, then I would take extra
Geodone. For peace of mind. It worked well with the other weird
thought the month before. But I wanted to draw before I took the
Geodone. Take advantage of a mind unfettered before chemical chains are
applied. I felt the winds of creativity sweep through me and while it
was hard to draw, (I almost had too much energy and distress to focus) I
am very very happy with the new form I invented. It is heavily ironic
that so much distress produced something that will be so very valuable
for the painting I am planning. Amazingly, drawing for three hours
cured me of the thought that the whole world was laughing at me. When I
was finished my morning stint of drawing for the day the thought had
completely disappeared. <br />
<br />
But I was still a little restless. So I walked to a local cafe and had a bowl of homemade soup.<br />
<br />
Most of the time my life is predictable. But I seem not to react well to stress. These new, weird thoughts are a sign of my mind breaking down. And then when they go away my mind is much healthier. And happier. My schizophrenic best friend who hears voices has a lot of weird thoughts. Like constantly, she obsesses over weird thoughts. Weird thoughts torment her. Why must the weirdness be tormenting?<br />
<br />
I understand that weird thoughts go with the territory of a schizophrenic type diagnosis. </div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-40364009137578463712013-10-17T10:39:00.000-07:002013-10-17T10:39:18.853-07:00In Pursuit of Creativity<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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"PARADISE", 2010 <br />
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"ADAM, EVE, AND THE DEVIL", 2012<br />
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<br />
"TEA TIME", 2013<br />
<br />
I am schizoaffective, badly disabled, and I have devoted my life to
making oil paintings. Two years ago I started lowering my antipsychotic
medication for health reasons. I believe that my art changed. I
believe that I am more creative on lower medication. Seeing my art
change has
motivated me to stay on very little medication despite some serious
mental discomfort from symptoms of my illness.<br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />I feel that I am closer to insanity, yet more creative. I have shown you work to compare.<br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />"Paradise"
was created on a high dose of anti-psychotic medication. Two anti-psychotic medications in fact. The planning
of this work was difficult. I struggled to find images. I found the
final product slightly unusual, but mostly bland.<br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />"Adam,
Eve, and the Devil" and "Tea Time" were both created as my medication
was cut drastically. They both are at a point where I have dipped under therapeutic level of only one antipsychotic medication. They are both twice the size of "Paradise". As I
planned these pieces the creative ideas came much more quickly to my
mind. Newness of form, newness of concept, appeared in my mind like
magic. I could "see" images in my imagination with clarity like never
before. I could paint twice as many hours a day. Probably I like the
highly detailed style in these low-dose medication artwork
more because I sense a pulse of chaos in them. I sense energy. It is
the chaos and energy of a mind that has been released to much more of
the madness within. I am now much more fascinated with my creation.
Pleased as an artist, this reinforced in the identity of being an artist
and boosted self-esteem. Freed from the foggy high dose of
anti-psychotic medication my whole life, as I lived it day to day, was
filled with more energy. I felt sharper and smarter. My husband noted
that my ability to articulate ideas, and have critical thinking,
drastically improved on low dose medication. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />Socially I
became more withdrawn and isolated as the medication was lowered, slowly, bit by bit. My
emotions became more volatile. My husband had to adjust to a person who
was in his words "less childlike", who slept less, was more emotionally
fragile, and who saw more reasons and causes to be distressed. I no
longer cared about attending
social events in my town and there are days at a time that I never
leave the apartment. I lie in bed a lot, unable to stand other than to go to the bathroom. Family interactions affected me negatively me more
than ever and I obsess over emotional hurts in the past and the
present. However, I believe that isolation and obsessiveness are
necessary to create works of art that are different and unique from
mainstream subject matter. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />Often, in
American review of Outsider Art, European schizophrenic artists who
lived in insane asylums of the past are held up as examples of purity of
vision and masters of creativity. It has been noted by an New York University professor in a paper that she published on-line for her class, that the schizophrenic masters were not
on medication. Her thesis is that schizophrenic artists today who are on medication
are incapable of creating work at the level of quality of past non-medicated schizophrenics. Some schizophrenic artists who are put on anti-psychotic medication can't create art at all. I believe that a lot of
American schizophrenics do create art, but I have noticed myself that it is often not with consistency or
idiosyncratic vision. Vision that is bizarre and obsessive don't happen much to modern day schizophrenic artists. I believe that they don't labor long on their creations, their
delusions are not fueling the subject matter of the art in a subliminal way, and modern schizophrenics will expend a lot of energy participating in the little
happinesses and diversions of mainstream society because of the medication they take. I believe that more happiness means less top quality art. This is not true for a normal artist, but it probably is true for a person with a severe mental illness. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />When
I was young, I lived in a mental institution for two years. I can
testify that the conditions of life in the old style hospitals where
humans were warehoused was so boring, that any mind that had the
creative impulse would WANT to create, would be MOTIVATED to create,
because LIFE WAS MONOTONOUS AND DULL. What modern day medications give
is a normalization of social interactions and connection to reality.
Now, to me as an artist, I find that these medical gifts of drug induced
health divert my attention away from art making activities. So I
reject most gifts of medication and exist in a twilight state that
parallels in condition, both mental and physical, of what I experienced
being institutionalized young. My life is simple. It has to be moronically simple in order for me to have the concentration and motivation for what I make. <br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />I don't make art for fun. I am not expecting life to be fun.
I make art for the sake of creating beauty. Life for beauty. Not life in the pursuit of happiness. There's a difference.<br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />I feel I was freed when I drastically lowered my medication and gave up on
having any semblance of a normal, well rounded life. And then I became
an artist to the bone and core of my being. I have embraced that my
insanity is both a creative gift and a tormenting burden. That's just a
fact of my life, like my eyes are brown. I have an off-kilter
mentality and I'm not going to dull it down with medication. I take
just enough medication so that I'm not too tormented and try to kill
myself.<br clear="none" /><br clear="none" />Yes, making this choice is serious business. But my life is my own to do with what I please.</div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-41686575545132288362013-08-01T14:06:00.000-07:002013-08-02T04:41:59.438-07:00Art School Disaster<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I took an art class at a local art school.<br />
<br />
After four sessions I had to quit. I had to be able to tell myself that I was free, and could, if I wish, never return to class. I had to be able to say, that although the sessions continued for all my classmates, for me it was over. To say this to myself then gave me peace of mind.<br />
<br />
Four classes was all it took, a two hour session of independent studio art on Monday and Friday, to lead me to total disintegration. My husband and I had hoped that I would adapt to class, that I would adjust, that I would habituate myself.........................but instead, in the end, things almost wound up with a hospitalization. Or something worse. The end of it all.<br />
<br />
I didn't really see it coming. On the day of my fifth class I had trouble dressing in the morning. This is a bad sign that my thinking is off. For example I changed my clothing several times and took an hour figuring out which necklace to wear. An hour changing necklaces is extremely pointless and more importantly, mentally exhausting. It was a clue to bad things that I was well aware of. Usually dressing is very easy. <br />
<br />
I decided not to go to class because I couldn't concentrate after all the clothing changes, and I needed to concentrate in order to draw. I learned that if I'm not totally focused on my drawing my hearing becomes attuned to the conversations around me. And when I listen to the other students, well, their normalicy makes me feel like a freak. I get overly sensitive about my life and how I live it. It is hard to listen to the happiness in other people's voices. It is hard to listen to the places they travel to, to the ease in which they maneuver through society. Education, jobs, cities, my Lord, how people with healthy minds are on the go. Let me show you what I am dealing with. The lady standing next to me one day painted a bunch of carrots, the next class she began radishes. Her purpose, I hear her explain, was to go from vegetable to vegetable. The teacher's loved her. they spent a lot of time discussing the shading of these vegetables. Colors too. Lots of little stand-back observe huddles. Meanwhile my drawing had a lady wearing Marc Jacob's couture, squatting, lifting up her dress, and a stream of piss coming out of her. Dripping and puddle clear to see. In another part of the drawing a lady with odd growths on her spine holds a large gun to an angel's forehead. Beneath the gun toting Tilda Swinton (I used the actress's face), her skirt parts to reveal a box. Inside the box is a demon blowing what looks like a french horn, his tail wrapped around a peg coming out of one ear of a decapitated head. This head is dripping blood, echoing a little puddle of dribbled red just like the little puddle of dribbled yellow piss. Oh yeah, I'm a natural for echoing shape and concept. It just comes to me. Look, I said to the teacher once, how the bird head and beak growing out of the angel feathers on her back exactly mimics her naked breast!<br />
<br />
So I couldn't go to class because I knew that because of all the clothing changes my concentration was blown. And little by little the guilt crept in. The idea that because I missed class I was a failure. I wanted to go to class but my malfunctioning head wouldn't permit it. There is so much that I am not permitted. What should a failing person do? I thought maybe swallow all my tranquilizer pills. Go to sleep and die.<br />
<br />
I didn't really want to overdose, but my mind kept telling me that yes, I should overdose. So I then thought I should walk down to the pharmacy where I get my medication and give all my tranquilizers to them, let them have the pills, and ask if going cold turkey on the stuff that probably I'm addicted to will cause seizures or something and land me in the hospital. If they told me that taking back these pills was dangerous, that I couldn't possibly go cold turkey then I would just take my pills back and walk home. If anyone asked me if I was suicidal the correct answer is NO. If anyone asked me that I feared an overdose the correct answer is NO. If anyone asked me why I was trying to give my pills back to the pharmacist the correct answer is because they have a street value and I didn't want anyone else getting them. My only inquiry was what would happen if I simply stopped taking these pills, because I just don't want the pills. No more answer than that, I just don't want the pills.<br />
<br />
I did not go to the pharmacist. I called my husband at work. I told him I was thinking about taking an overdose of pills. He has nice bosses, they let him leave immediately. Inexplicably he stopped at the grocery store. He bought chocolate ice cream and raspberries. It was hard for me to understand this behavior. Shouldn't he go where the danger is brewing immediately? To my side? But apparently he did not believe that he alone could talk me out of suicidal behavior, that somehow eating chocolate ice cream and raspberries would be a greater inducement to live than anything he could possibly offer.<br />
<br />
At first it helped having him to talk to. After I stopped feeling suicidal I sank into profound depression. It scared me that maybe the next day I would wake being even more depressed. I didn't know if there was a bottom to this depression, it came over me so fast and sudden like a switch being flipped. So before my husband fell asleep I said that I've had my cry for help and it was heard. Tomorrow I will be on my own and I must make a terrible decision, do it or not. Really if they take all my pills away from me, or lock me up it isn't any good because there is a highway bridge nearby where two people have jumped to their deaths. The second one took three hours to die. But after a jump from such a height, death is certain. If any person's behavior pushes me too far, if they manipulate me too much, I know how to easily leave this planet. so, so many in the mental health fields have manipulated me in the past. But I'm all grown up now. I know the system, the choices, the outcomes.<br />
<br />
But soon after thinking horrid thoughts about the next day (by now my husband was snoring next to me) I had a new thought. The painting I'm working on isn't finished. I CAN'T DIE LEAVING A PAINTING UNFINISHED. NO MATTER THE GREIF, THE DEPRESSION, WHAT I THINK ABOUT MYSELF, I MUST WORK IT THROUGH AND ENDURE TO FINISH THE PAINTING. I MUST LIVE FOR THE PAINTING. THIS IS NON-NEGOTIABLE.<br />
<br />
So I went to sleep knowing that I wanted to live for one thing and one thing only. But it must be life. At least until the painting is finished. It is estimated to be a seven month painting. I'm probably in the fifth month. I did wonder if my attitude would be better when the seventh month rolled around. I tend to stagger paintings, so there is always one in the pipeline. That drawing I just described is a plan for a painting.<br />
<br />
The next morning I woke before my husband had left for work and I assured him that I would live through the day, and explained about the painting. It makes me feel terribly sad that I can't live for the love and need of another human being. My husband needs me terribly, and loves me greatly. I'm his best friend. Only I know all his secrets. On a good day I can see how this works. This thing of having your life interconnected with other people. That feels really good. But on a bad day, there is just the unfinished painting to live for the sake of. I must be a monster. Or at least terribly flawed. I've had about twenty years of therapy. Superficially I'm quite normal and connected to my family and the human race. But I'm afraid that this is all just very good cover. There are layers to me. Like my husband has described, I seem like anyone else, I can make very very nice conversation, except underneath, I'm twisted.<br />
<br />
So getting back to art school, what is traumatic about art school?<br />
<br />
I don't like people looking at my work as I make it. I'm too vulnerable when I draw. Everything is coming from a very deep place. It has to be made in private. Even the teachers saying nice things (what could they say? Only your arm holding the gun is too short. Nothing about the woman pissing except that her arms were correct and her shoes looked good), nice things are intrusive and freak me out. I know I'm drawing weird things. I've got eyes. One side of me the lady is painting vegetables, the other lady is painting from photographs of her grandchildren, and the other lady is painting a cat in flowers. Do I have a neon sign over my head saying this is the disturbed freak in the room?<br />
<br />
My private term for what exactly I am, my art style, my attitude toward life, everything summed up is DEADLY SERIOUS IDIOT. I tried explaining it to my husband and he came up with Cervantes character of the old knight riding a nag attacking with a joust wind mills. I guess he too was a DEADLY SERIOUS IDIOT. I'm not a primitive painter, I'm not a visionary painter, I am not an outsider art painter, I'm a DEADLY SERIOUS IDIOT.<br />
<br />
So, no more suicidal thoughts since I gave my self the permission never to return to class. Or maybe the suicidal thought died when I realized that I must live to finish the painting. Whatever the turnabout, each day I healed a little and the depression completely lifted - it only took three days.<br />
<br />
Now I'm back to normal.<br />
<br />
Been normal for several weeks. <br />
<br />
Whatever normal is.</div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-86444620755720162032013-05-30T15:46:00.000-07:002013-05-31T12:44:06.854-07:00Choose What Hell Looks Like<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<br />
<br />
So far this is my most complex painting. I'm certain that I couldn't have done it without lowering my medication. It is named "Tea Time". It took three months to make. If you click on the image you can see it better, larger.<br />
<br />
There have been some difficulties in being on a lower dose of antipsychotic medication. But knowing that I'm capable of doing pieces like this one, make me want to persevere. Art is an incentive. Enhanced creativity is an incentive. I like to work. Work gives me self esteem.<br />
<br />
I'm so disabled, there's nothing else I can do but art.<br />
<br />
I recently read an article that flat out stated that medication for schizophrenics alters their creativity in such a way that the classic art by institutionalized schizophrenics is no longer capable of being made by contemporary schizophrenics. What the institutionalized schizophrenics made was so unique, and so obsessive, and so detailed (all traits of Tea Time I believe) that little today made by medicated schizophrenics can compare. I will tell you how medication, for me, impaired creativity<br />
<br />
1.I was once satisfied with simpler compositions with far more empty or dead space. <br />
2. dumming down of intellect (my husband says I'm much more perceptive and aware on less medication)<br />
3. reduced powers of visualization (on less medication I can hold images much better in my imagination, work on them mentally over time ranging many months, and more images "pop" magically into being)<br />
4.and most importantly, I can now work 4 to 5 hours a day while on high dose of meds I could only work a two hour window. I've doubled my ability to concentrate on less meds. <br />
<br />
I know of no medicated schizophrenic that can do an oil painting of the complexity and quality of Tea Time. Oil painting is not drawing. It takes more time, more patience, and you must have, if you are schizophrenic, an abundant time of patience, physical stability, and obsessiveness.<br />
<br />
Obsessiveness is a quality that keeps you coming back to the one painting day after day, no matter how you feel emotionally, you work and work in fine detail, layer after layer of color until the canvass is saturated with pigment. In order to do a painting such as Tea Time and be mentally ill, with an illness so disabling as schizophrenia, you have to sacrifice a lot. Truely, your one aim in life has to be an artist. Your one goal day after day is to paint. Paint as much as is physically and psychologically possible until you are drained. I don't ask that life be fun. I don't ask that life be happy. I don't ask that life be pain free. And most certainly, I know, I don't try to fit in any shape or form into mainstream society.<br />
<br />
The best times are content times. Very little excitement, very little variation, a lot of isolation, - in fact I have wondered if I have not come full circle to the times when I was locked on a psychiatric ward for two years. My world has narrowed down to my paintings. What matters in life? Only that the paintings get worked on day after day for as long as I'm capable. Mostly I'm housebound. I'm happy that usually I'm well enough to read books. I think that from lack of physical exercise my blood circulation has altered. Frequently my feet are uncomfortably cold. This is a new physical phenomena. The amount of time I spend in bed awake is about 6 to 8 hours a day. My side of the mattress has a huge dent in it. Occasionally the only time I am capable of leaving the bed is to pee and eat. Sometimes I must gather all my resolve simply to dress or undress.<br />
<br />
Mad? Yes. But the only other alternative is medicated. And on more antipsychotic medication I am also made depressed and suicidal. A SIDE EFFECT OF A THERAPUTIC DOSE OF ANTIPSYCHOTIC MEDICATION IS SUICIDAL THOUGHTS AND DEPRESSION IN MY CASE. My husband backs me up on this. It is not only my observation, it is his too.<br />
<br />
Yes, on half theraputic dose I sometimes feel crazy. I tell my husband I feel crazy a lot. Not sad, not depressed, just that everything can barely be endured. My husband tells me I'm not acting crazy, and I'm not talking crazy, so he doesn't know what I mean. I guess I mean that I know that I'm greatly reduced to saying little, doing little, being little and while I know that life for most is big, for me it is small and narrow. But I know the alternative is simply more medication and poorer quality artwork. My medication nurse kept on promising that on more and more Geodone I would feel less and less depressed. She said the medication had a natural antidepressant quality. THAT IS NOT MY BIOLOGY. FOR ME, THAT IS A BOLD FACED LIE. GIVING ME MORE AND MORE MEDICATION MADE MY LIFE HELLISH. crying all the time. saying I wished I was dead all the time. Now I feel crazy but I don't cry and I don't feel worthless and sad and I rarely cry or wish I was dead.<br />
<br />
So now I'm whittled down to the natural hell of schizophrenia. The choice is only one hell or the other. But in the hell I chose, I get to make lovely paintings like "Tea Time".<br />
<br />
My husband recently told me that during his time as a mental health professional he watched a motivational video about a man who was schizophrenic and owned his own business. The man stressed that the success of this life was only possible because of medication. My husband said that uncomfortably, the man being glorified by the video about rehabilitation, looked half dead. I asked my husband, was he overweight? Yes, very, my husband said. But that wasn't what was so disturbing to him. It was just that he seemed to lack emotion, vitality, personality, - spirit. I said that probably he fit neatly into the statistic that schizophrenics die 25 years earlier then the rest of the population. After all, on medication, seventy pounds ago, I was once told by a doctor that I would die early of a weight related disease.<br />
<br />
I'm alive in spirit, I'm in psychic pain often, and I'm doing great artwork.<br />
<br />
And its really cool that I can fit into a size small dress. <br />
<br />
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<br /></div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-26700522403166951552013-05-14T11:50:00.001-07:002013-05-14T11:50:57.770-07:00Schizophrenia Necklace<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last week I wore my schizophrenia necklace in public.<br />
<br />
I
made the necklace over ten years ago. Haven't worn it in about five years. It is a gold chain with 14k alphabet charms attached. There are 13 letters in the word
"schizoprhenia" so it was pretty pricey to order the gold charms from
the jewelry store. However, I felt I needed a pride statement.<br />
<br />
Gay people have the rainbow.<br />
<br />
Cancer survivors have the pink ribbon.<br />
<br />
What could I have to express who I was and that I was proud to be me to the world? Or at least persevering under the conditions that I face.<br />
<br />
Not knowing if there is any symbol for schizophrenia, I made a word made out of gold. Pure gold shows pride, doesn't it? <br />
<br />
What can you wear to show that you are a survivor of schizophrenia? (or must it be kept a deep dark secret?) Is there
any sense of pride to be associated with this loathsome disease?<br />
<br />
You can say to yourself I'm not a disease, I'm so much more than a disease, and
yet, this disease inevitably finds some way of defining you. It is just knowing that being gay is part of your
identity or having survived cancer is part of your identity. These things aren't something that you choose, it is rather thrust upon you by fate. And so you go out into society having a unique experience on life that gives you a unique view on life. When it is a gorgeous warm sunny day outside and I can't get out of bed except to pee, being near catatonic and having something very wrong with my thinking process, isn't the disease leading my life by the nose? Oh, I think to my self, how lovely it would be to take a walk, but I can't because I'm so disabled and helpless (and diminished and small and fragile) that I can't get out of bed. <br />
<br />
I
know that the past three years spent with my former therapist we were working on unlinking me from the medical model that says I'm sick
and diseased. But if you suffer, as I have been lately, the mental
illness identity is thrust upon you. Your mind can twist and squirm and
rationalize things like "my mind is diseased but my soul is healthy" or
"I am not my mind, I'm more than mind, I'm soul too" or "I'm not going
to define myself as anything other than a human being". Helpful
thoughts, but what you are going through inevitably makes you feel at odds with the rest of the world. You know you belong to a large club, THE CLUB THAT SUFFERS,like rape victims or refuges displaced by a civil war, but you belong to a smaller subset, the club that suffers a pure form of torment of the mind. Caused by no one and nothing that you can put your finger on and blame. <br />
<br />
For a while people with mental illness adopted the purple irises like the ones that Van Gogh painted. I don't know if that symbol ever caught on and is still current. Personally, I think Van Gogh was bipolar rather than schizophrenic because his production rate was nothing like I've ever seen from a schizophrenic artist. I think mania fueled him. And there is a disorganization and skew of reality in the best schizoprhenic art that wasn't present in Van Gogh's art. He worshiped nature, he drew nature, he was very very sophisticated in his mature phase of painting in that nature, and its close analysis, was the subject of his art. Critical thinker, organized thinker, and mind put into the eye. Unmedicated schizophrenics in my experience can't produce at the rate and quality of Van Gogh, even if they had artistic training before the onset of their disease. And they aren't inspired by nature, rather, they express usually inner torment artistically. They are compelled to look inward rather than outward. But there are very very few examples to choose from in history who were both schizophrenic and artistically prolific and above all unaffected by medication. <br />
<br />
So I think the purple irises symbolize the suffer as mentally ill, but not specifically schizophrenic. I want to be specific.<br />
<br />
Today Van Gogh would be medicated for a mood disorder and or psychosis and his creativity would plummet. He would never produce the quality that of work which has made him famous. I do think if you kill psychosis you kill off the root of creativity, or at least the finer part of it. I've read that other's who study art agree. The golden age of art made by schizophrenics in insane asylums is over. However, usually the modern mentally ill person because of their illness believes that they are more creative than the norm. On or off medication. I don't know if this is an ego boosting stereotype that schizophrenics buy into. In my view, there is psychosis, and then there is poverty of thought. Both are active in the schizophrenic. No schizophrenic I know would ever describe themselves with such a loathsome phrase as poverty of thought, but this is honestly what I live with sometimes. My thoughts are so weak that I don't have the energy to speak. Or move. Or listen to other people talk.<br />
<br />
For about a year coming down on medication I felt very very good with almost no symptoms of mental illness other than the persistent inability to concentrate for longer than four to five hours on my artwork. My therapist would ask me "well, are you or aren't you schizophreic?" and i would say, "wait, we'll see." Once he said, you aren't schizophrenic, your just high maintenance. I suppose he was saying I was the type of demanding hysterical woman that some men do their best to avoid. Still, my mood the last year was good and I genuinely enjoyed life. I've had difficulty with concentration since I was nineteen and suffered the onset of mental illness, and sometimes I wonder whether or not what happened at nineteen that changed me forever was a simple old fashioned nervous breakdown with bells and whistles of psychosis and mania.<br />
<br />
And then I quit therapy for several reasons. 1) we could barely afford it 2) the therapist repeated the same advice and I got sick and tired of listening. He wanted me to detach from my emotions. He considered himself spiritually informed by Eastern religion, and he had this obsession that health was possible if you lived from the authentic self (code name for soul). But I was not to use words like soul or religion because frankly he grew up Catholic and had been traumatized by the religion and while he could not deny a fascination with all things religious, it was traumatic to him personally to use religious words or references. All he read were books by religious monks, nuns, priests and philosophy thinkers but he only felt safe referring to them as "spiritual". I called them religious books and he corrected me. I personally like to think that I have a soul, but even this smacked too much to him of religion, so he used the term "authentic self" whenever we were discussing things which were soul-like. He said you were only safe and sound identifying yourself as a human being - all else lead to some other vague sort of emotional ruin. Wife, artist, daughter, schizophrenic - these labels were all bad and led to distress inevitably, or so he promised. Problem at its root was that he was seeking and believed he had found a formula for sanity and he was rather trying in the name of healing to brainwash me with it. Didn't work. Had to rather flee from his therapy. <br />
<br />
I tried explaining that I was terribly attached and obsessed with my art while I was making it and this attachment was necessary for the process - since it is long and grueling for me to paint a painting. Right now I'm looking at making two paintings a year. You have to be really really invested in the project to stay focused and interested in one canvass for six months, day after day. I attach and I flourish at what I do where other schizophrenics flounder and fail. Also, I'm attached to my husband and my dog. Oh, I will suffer horribly to lose one or the other. However, my therapist made a specific point that he was not attached to his dog (which always lay on the floor through all therapy sessions) and said that he was in the process of detaching from his only daughter. This was for her sake and for his sake He encouraged me to detach from my husband, promising me that I could love him BETTER once I had detached. This smacks of Eastern religious gobblygook. Nuts to that.<br />
<br />
At one point he said that it would be best to sever contact from both my parents. They were toxic. And they do have a distressing effect on me quite often. But he wanted me to stop seeing them, stop talking to them. Detach. Even if this meant loosing my inheritance. He taunted me that I was selling my soul for a house. (now we pay rent to my mother, but our home is promised to be willed to us).<br />
<br />
I still think the parental bastards deserve endless chances. Stay away as much as possible when they totally rupture peace of mind, but return, always slink away and heal, then return. They are your parents afterall. You loved them unconditionally as a child. I believe that child inside hurts itself if it totally gives up on its parents. Lately I have realized that I am more moral than either one of my parents. Hoorah! Let them think I'm sick, at least I have ethics. It is rather a comfort to believe in your little ethical self. Especially when the self is rather tormented by mental illness.<br />
<br />
So I stopped seeing my therapist in mid February, and by now, mid May, I see that I'm having episodes of emotional torment that weren't present in February. There is decline in quality of life. Did I need therapy? Seeing someone once a week? Perhaps. I just emailed our local art school and asked for a partial scholarship to attend a summer adult open studio seminar that meets twice a week for a little over a month. I figured after ending therapy I became too much of a recluse and need to get out of the house more often. Only making art as the whole point of your life for me is a downward spiral. I need contact with other humans besides my husband. He's great, but I do remember once during my first hospitalization a ward nurse calling me a "social butterfly". Always, what I have enjoyed the most about being on a mental ward (and there isn't much to enjoy) was interaction with the other patients. The lunatics you observe and keep your distance from because they might physically attack you. Kid you I not, I've been attacked. Brutally. And they same guy that attacked me tried to strangle someone else. The majority of the patents in a hospital however, having been freshly traumatized by their mental illness, are refreshingly human and immediate and uncomplicated. And nice to talk to. But the lunatics, simply observe. You must practice self preservation in a psychiatric ward. <br />
<br />
I don't think at all for about two years now that I have been gradually lowering my medication have I ever thought to myself "Is my quality of life so poor that maybe I should think about ending it all?" When such a thought occurres, as they have recently I think ah ha! A sign that I am mentally ill and suffering. And maybe, just maybe, the ship is sinking on this low dose of medication and you are headed toward a suicidal crisis. Not yet. But there are now clouds on the horizon.<br />
<br />
But I'm generally not depressed. Tormented, yes. Occasionally tormented definitely. Why am I tormented? I don't know. But I did wear my schizophrenia necklace last week. So I know something is wrong with me. <br />
<br />
Once I stopped therapy the ship started to sink. But I'll be damned before I go back to that man. I don't care if detachment has led to happiness for my therapist and maybe some of his patients. I don't want to detach from life. Sleep on the sofa when my husband pisses me off, yes, not call a parent because I'm not in the mood to deal with their ways, yes, but I can't be a cloud floating through the sky, as he told me to be, over and over again.<br />
<br />
The cloud observes the sky. But it is separate from the sky. Be the cloud in the sky. Sounds simple, but it really doesn't help me. It helps a little, but i get the concept and I don't want to hear that form of advice again. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-34791689315934879682013-03-17T04:49:00.000-07:002013-03-17T04:49:14.155-07:00Drawing for "The Wedding Party"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
This plan for a large scale painting took two months to make. It is twice the size of any painting I've ever completed, 40"x30". The planning for the painting I'm co-currently in the middle of, "Tea Time" took two and a half weeks to plan and draw - so going for something much more ambitious at times scared me and felt to indeed sap me of all my strength. But its done now, and a light pencil tracing has been transferred to canvas. The transfer of the drawing took about 12 hours. Click on any of the images to see them enlarged.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtQbHUQSv3IP0Vthusi4dkQ0s427aBLAHGMH62z2HpkVfqgapPSw2t4wXdc9kMCj0HA7phjg5SORqMfJV468h69fnJcmIKpbnz5ut97ytmezOYQiesmFDb8Ol5X4EMAZP_eBNPD_H6uDk/s1600/marriage+red+total.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtQbHUQSv3IP0Vthusi4dkQ0s427aBLAHGMH62z2HpkVfqgapPSw2t4wXdc9kMCj0HA7phjg5SORqMfJV468h69fnJcmIKpbnz5ut97ytmezOYQiesmFDb8Ol5X4EMAZP_eBNPD_H6uDk/s320/marriage+red+total.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Here are some pictures reading the drawing clockwise. First we have the bride and the groom. The groom is holding onto the leash of two dogs, who are doing the very animalistic act which is planned for the couple's wedding night. The groom is smirking in anticipation. Behind the image is a repeating pattern. This pattern repeats in stripes throughout the entire painting, it is the flat painting's background. Pattern as background chosen over 3D perspective. I've done a small oil paint study of this pattern, a tear drop lobe with two wings on either side. In the study I was comparing subtle differences between thin and fat swirls. I'm going to use the top looping, the lesser intrusive and slightly more delicate patterning. There are three colors repeated in the background; cobalt blue, venitian red, and dark van dyke brown. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAc7ViEPhJYE4nepMDjPk58NlnGfKShxTiYP9bRS-rITWMZn5H4o6JeDvcHbMpXuJ8bYVYTJQg75ciTUvtB10E2iBLODyMPgypKag96E24FPC6wx-x2hqYNmlQjsP-m2dDJ7Boj1EufiA/s1600/marriage+oil+study.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAc7ViEPhJYE4nepMDjPk58NlnGfKShxTiYP9bRS-rITWMZn5H4o6JeDvcHbMpXuJ8bYVYTJQg75ciTUvtB10E2iBLODyMPgypKag96E24FPC6wx-x2hqYNmlQjsP-m2dDJ7Boj1EufiA/s320/marriage+oil+study.jpg" width="243" /></a></div>
In this finished tour of the drawing plan we see alternately two sainted monkeys having sex, a gay lion and a crocodile having sex, and then some guests at the wedding party; a pair involved in a seduction, a pair resorting to violence. Sweeping through the center of the drawing is the marriage bouquet, starting in the arms of the bride, then ending in the lower left hand corner with a baby in a blanket. I guess its pretty much my take on marriage. The sex seems a bit scary and grim to me, the party guests behave badly, and the only hope is the infant progeny that is the biological fruit of all the messiness that goes on in a marriage.<br />
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If you wonder at all the chaos in the drawing, what with the patterned background and the little stories ranging round the center of the bridal bouquet (there are real lilies and roses drawn from flowers bought at the local grocery store, well, I added some boils to the lilies, mixed with imaginary plants and flowers and general shapes of hoopla inspired from real biological forms found in nature), and I have to conclude that all the messiness (tightly planned and controlled chaos) and frenzy and what promises to be sheer riot of color is a result of "horror vaccui", the hallmark of some schizophrenic art. I believe that horror vaccui is Latin for "fear of empty space". I didn't choose horror vaccui to be present in my work, it just seemed a necessity. I note that the lower my dose of antipsychotic medication the more prominent this phenomena is in my art. It is pretty much absent on high doses of antipsychotics. Currently I'm on a drug, but it is at half therapeutic dose. When I say that I can't help myself and the insistence in my art toward insane pattern and overlap and detail, I mean it, I can't do art any other way. Its my muse, it calls to me, the higher the energy level the more excited I become internally. Horror vaccui isn't what I particularly want, but it seems to be what undeniably pleases me the most.<br />
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Here's an example of two artists which are used as classical models for the argument that unmedicated schizophrenics tend in their work toward horror vaccui. Both works of art are museum quality art. I had some problems loading them into the blog. The second drawing is by Adolf Wolfli who was locked up most of his life in a Swiss insane asylum and died there in 1930. The first drawing is by a contemporary British artist Nick Blinko, who is only able to draw when he is medication free.<br />
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I am rather proud to be a schizophrenic who paints in oil rather than makes finished colored drawings. My drawings are only a beginning means to an end - I don't consider them works of art inthemselves any more than an architect would prefer his sketches for a building over the built in stone and glass building. Creativity is fun at times, but in my art there too is much simple labor and hard work that are a necessary and (frustrating, pain-in-my-ass) part of the process. Oil paint is a long and labor intensive processes the way I do it. But to my eyes the finished product looks like princess jewelry ripe for a wall of a collector to hang on. What I hate about drawings is that there must be a piece of glass between the artwork and the viewer, and I think, the glass is a barrier, perhaps only psychological, perhaps not that big of a deal to most, but a barrier never-the-less that oil paintings avoid.<br />
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Famously Alfred Hitchcock would claim that all the creativity and fun was in the planning of the shots of his movies. The actual filming and working with the actors he felt was dull and boring. I don't hate the realization of the artwork as much as the planning process, but certainly, with the first you get a seat of your pants feel of flying and then a slow down, where creative decision still must be made, but at a far less frequent rate.<br />
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I rather envy the commercially big artists who have a stable of artists to execute their ideas. All the big artist need to is come up with ideas, and he has talented grunt labor to execute the ideas. I read in an interview with Jeff Koons that if he were to personally paint one of his paintings it would take him six years for one canvass - but with over a hundred and forty artists in his employ, how much more is he able to produce every year! Still, the paintings I saw in production for that article looked like glossy indulgent crap. At least my horror vaccui painting will be sincere. Primitive, mad, but heartfelt.<br />
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I'm hoping that I can finish this painting in four or five month's time. I have no idea, I've never worked at this scale before. Probably at some point the painting will hook me and I will start repeating a well worn and favorite prayer; "Dear God, please don't let me die until I've finished this painting."</div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-68521930586762752772013-01-20T08:52:00.000-08:002013-01-20T13:08:38.452-08:00Am I schizophrenic?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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These four are bits and pieces of a much larger drawing. I draw the paintings before I paint them. Someone typed into the search engine "do schizophrenics plan their paintings?" and ended up being referred to my blog. I liked the question. Of the two living schizophrenic artists I know who have been represented by a New York city art gallery I only have definite information on one. The fellow who paints in oil plans his paintings. The other who draws in pencil I do not know.<br />
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However, ten years ago when I helped design a large scale show of art by mentally ill artists at a clubhouse in Connecticut it was rather clear that most artists there did not generally plan their paintings. One schizophrenic might have. He had been an art professor at an art school before he got sick. I read an interview in the New York Times with a schizophrenic artist who said that he thought abstract art was the best medium for a schizophrenic...................and to myself I thought yeah, it doesn't make you work too hard, just have fun and mess around with the paint. But I'm all about the work ethic. I've never ever painted abstract, and in my youth I had a lot of trouble appreciating abstract art. But I have tried. And in fact, just several weeks ago while researching a new, hot outsider artist who paints abstract, (he's new but he's dead) I saw one of his images and in a knee jerk reaction said to myself "that's beautiful". So there's hope for me and my evolving sensibilities.<br />
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A little under a month ago I lowered my antipsychotic medication once more, with the cooperation of my medication nurse, and I'm now at a dose of 60mg Geodone while a therapeutic threshold for this drug is 120mg. I have read schizophrenics having substantial relief of their symptoms at 60mg. However, I exhibit as far as I can tell no symptoms of mental illness - other than having trouble concentrating for long periods of time. My mood can be irritable, sad or angry, not nice things, but it all seems simply part and parcel of being a human being and in no way pathogenic. If there was a problem with my mood there would be a problem in my marriage and my marriage is going along swimmingly. There is no extreme in me. Probably the biggest oddity is my art and the subject matter of the images, but I look at a lot of modern art on the internet and from some sane artists who have been to art school and are showcased by outsider galleries there is nothing more shocking or odd about me than them. I don't have a normal head, but neither do I seem to have a pathological head.<br />
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So I'm wondering if I haven't aged out of my schizophrenic disease.<br />
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Is it up for debate whether or not schizophrenia is chronic? <br />
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My medication nurse is against me going off Geodone completely. She thinks because I was psychotic at 19 that I'm vulnerable to psychosis that that while off meds I might have several years of normalicy, but that psychosis will eventually return to me, as if I were a ticking time bomb. Its genetic she says, you have a genetic predisposition to psychosis and that never goes away. Also she believes that Geodone helps with depression. I'm currently not at all depressed, but I am on MAO inhibitors and have a long history of depression that leads back into childhood. Also I had episodes of mild mania around the times that I was psychotic. Theoretically the Geodone could also prevent mania. Mania is something I dread, as the treatment for it are mood stabilizers and those absolutely fuck creativity.<br />
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I'm also wondering if I was misdiagnosed. I never heard voices. I never hallucinated. After a year and a half being in a hospital and labled major depression with psychotic features there was one short interview with an expert and bam, I got a new diagnosis that stuck as schizoaffective. He said that simply while talking with me, while I was heavily medicated, he could tell the underlying illness was schizoprhenic in nature.<br />
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So maybe I talk like a weirdo.<br />
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My husband has said that I don't have a tact bone in my body. He says I miss subtle social clues and blunder. Since I don't know what he's talking about, and since I usually don't ever get embarrassed by anything I say, this blundering business is in his head, his reaction, and thankfully for my peace of mind, not in my own. Imagine fearing before you talk that you will blunder. That's something from my awkward teenage years, but I'm long over it. My husband isn't embarrassed by me, rather he thinks I'm cute. So for a long time now my ego has been telling me that he loves me for my wit and intelligence, but I have been newly informed that what he loves the most is my blunders. I'm still rather pissed that several months ago while I was talking my mother covered my mouth with both her hands in order to shut me up. All I had said to a third party was that in our kitchen our coat rack is very important to us because it matches our dishes. Which it does. The dishes are green jadeware glass and the coat rack has green jadeware glass knobs at the end of its hooks. Even my husband is puzzled why my mother covered my mouth. He thinks the episode was funny. But it was not singular in that I know that what comes out of my mouth sometimes makes my mother uncomfortable. She would never, ever, cover the mouth of any of her other kids. And hey, the pictures at the beginning of the post wouldn't be appreciated at all by my mother either. So I think there is something fundamental about me that my mother rejects.<br />
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Since I've come down a great deal on my medication I realize that in conversation with people I only have two options. One, I can say what I'm thinking. Two, I can think something and stay silent. But really I'm not built for any other mode of being.<br />
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The overall composition for this painting was initially planned late last August in a small, quarter size drawing. I showed it to my husband and he said oh, that's so schizophrenic. I told him that while I look at a lot of art by schizophrenics due to my relentless research about outsider art, he's seen relatively little of the real thing, by people who were institutionalized as insane for life back in the last century and before medication, so he really didn't know what he was talking about.<br />
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Still my husband sticks to his guns, and says that there is mental illness in my art.<br />
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I don't care. The bottom line is that I make art that is exciting to me.<br />
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And usually my life doesn't suck. Its pretty fun. Planning the biggest painting I've ever done is rather stressful to me, but as I've broken it down into bits and pieces, I always know what the next step is.<br />
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For at least the next week, maybe two weeks, I will be drawing the flowers of the bridal bouquet. It is a very large and flowing bridal bouquet. That ends with a baby in a basket. </div>
Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-37056277261711889612012-12-21T08:11:00.000-08:002012-12-21T08:37:34.424-08:00Adam, Eve, and the Devil<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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This painting measures 22"x28" and was the most complex piece I've ever attempted.<br />
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Sorry folks, but no matter what I did I couldn't get the last two detail pics to load in right side up. I'm a computer idiot. If you click on an image it will slightly enlarge.<br />
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Its a painting of an old biblical story, done in outsider art style. By someone with a mental illness. Does my illness show or is this just creativity? Schizophrenic art is known, for those that are unmedicated usually, to have an abundance of too muchness - crazy energy.<br />
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In the last week of finishing the work (which I loosely estimate as having taken 5 months to complete) I had two petite nervous breakdowns. Been doing so well in life that when I cancelled my therapy appointment because I couldn't get out of bed and drive to the office, my therapist said that I probably just had the flu. Since my only complaint was inability to move and weakness of body and mind, no drama, he said it wasn't certainly a schizophrenic breakdown. He did that therapy thing to me, "I'm listening, I'm listening, don't you believe I hear you?" which means "your simply being neurotic, but I'm not going to jeopardize our relationship by confronting you so I'll just appear to go along with what you think". But I did quite fall apart. No mental illness symptoms like in the past, no crying, no suicidality,no delusions, no mania, no depression, - my only complaint was that it was very boring not having a head to use. I understood that my concentration was fucked, couldn't read or watch tv, and later in the evening had a hard time talking or making eye contact with my husband. Nice husband served me dinner in bed.<br />
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Happily, after each day passed, I got a little stronger until my next breakdown.<br />
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So I worry, am I on a path to madness. Since its the holiday season had to cancel two dinners with couples from my husband's job (one dinner with his boss, sorry boss, my wife just had a petite nervous breakdown she isn't up to drinks and dinner) and can't travel to Maine for Christmas in a fishing village by the sea. Mom is coming down to see us and sleeping on our couch Christmas Eve. She thinks my father at Thanksgiving had so traumatized me that it is now absolutely necessary I have no further contact with him. Petite nervous breakdown is solved in her book. What she doesn't realize that for a while there before she came to visit I had nausea anticipating our meeting each evening leading up to the event, and after one visit ended, hyperventilated and lost feeling in my fingertips. On better terms with mom now, but my therapist has made commits about how she is a toxic person and at times abusive (exactly what she calls my father, a toxic person, and so she says, you must not have toxic people in your life. Oh the irony.). Too bad I love very much this wounded, bullying person. And she needs me to love her too. The drama isn't all my parents fault for who they are. I'm convinced that I'm way too sensitive and take on the emotions of others on a deep, unprotected level.<br />
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So more about the painting. It was first designed as a drawing for a smaller canvas. Yes, more idiot that I am, all the detail when I first drew it was even tinier. Had the drawing enlarged 15% and extended the rays in the sky leading out of the tree and redrew the plants on the ground to make it fit a larger canvas. The rays were rather nebulous and blank in the drawing. But as I started painting them I first got the idea for the swirls, then later the angelic writing. Thats what all the tiny symbols inbetween the blue swirls are, angelic conversation about the big event that is transpiring. Hey, probably in Paradise angels are singing all the time. I figured the english language is made up of the alphabet, a series of symbols, so I would create my own alphabet. But I wanted the painting to be interesting, so it was important that none of the symbols repeat. For a while there I would wake each morning and for an hour of prime concentration, in a drawing book, struggle to make symbols that were new and different from anything else in the world. It would take about an hour to get a third of a page finished, tough going. Since the symbols were a late addition, it was fortunate that I had extended the rays in the sky from side to side to fit a bigger canvas - it made more room for angelic writing. I have enough symbols in my drawing book now that I could probably fill two more Paradise skies and still not repeat a symbol.<br />
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When I was designing the drawing the rays were a problem, blank though they were, because they had to be a width so that Eve's hair would not be bisected. I only knew that the rays would be different colors, and if her elaborate hairstyle (nod to Frida Kahlo) had a line going through it it would be pictorial disaster. So I got out transparent paper and made paper rays, to position them, and a ruler, to get the spacing even - it was all about math and the priority to frame Eve's hair just right. At that point I titled the drawing "All about Eve's hair".<br />
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I had the idea for the tree of life to have a pattern of leaves that were all original designs. I didn't look at any reference material to make this painting, no pictures of nudes, no plant life - so I know that what you get is my imagination doing its best to look real. Oh, one picture I did use was a 1940's Dior couture model for the Devil. Her dress is called "The New Look" and it was a revolution in fashion dressing. The devil is not innocent, so she is dressed in the best, while ignorant Adam and Eve are naked. I tried to do naked as well as I could. After being familiar with some outsider art nudes I know that the human mind isn't too clever when it comes to sex - most outsider artists butcher the human form because I think we are shy and don't "peek". Some outsider artists simply haven't ever had sex either. I know I've been around nudes, but I know too that I don't particularly "peek". The leaves in the tree are far more distorted than the human form, plant life seems to insist upon handling more liberties. As long as the primary color is green to suggest leaf life your good to go. I used all my tubes of green for the tree of life. I like to paint colors straight from the tubes, which my art school trained father thinks is very limiting. Bully for him. Maybe I'll grow into mixing more, since its been now pointed out at Thanksgiving that I am a fool. But you should see my collection of green tubes of paint!<br />
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I read recently an anecdote about the famous photographer Richard Avedon. A young man who was just starting in photography asked the master for his best advise. Avedon said that if you go into a photo shoot with an idea about what your picture will look like, and you get just such a picture, then your shoot has been a failure. What you want is the unexpected to happen, and an end product that trumps your expectations, for expectations are small when the creative process takes over. In the end this painting looked nothing like what I imagined it would. It morphed, it elaborated, it vexed, it veered, and then it really did turn out better than what I had planned.<br />
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I really liked the journey I took to make this painting. My only hope is in the future to go on more such wanderings. Planning mixed with inspiration would be an apt description for my painting style.<br />
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And maybe, just maybe I am a little mad.<br />
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Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-43797716112044323292012-09-05T03:23:00.000-07:002012-09-05T03:23:51.918-07:00New Painting, "Shot to the Head"<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDzRO9_s7G5ljwug7aSKGgTZo3-3K7WsuY51RnafSys-vXKUAcSZW4rv9FnLD8a4-jEpDiDkZNk2muyzQRqcPFqHHCdjBIxfLqjYzvAnKUW9wjJSK9sHGI7B-UEzkGxoB28U6FliCjLE/s1600/shot+to+the+head+final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDDzRO9_s7G5ljwug7aSKGgTZo3-3K7WsuY51RnafSys-vXKUAcSZW4rv9FnLD8a4-jEpDiDkZNk2muyzQRqcPFqHHCdjBIxfLqjYzvAnKUW9wjJSK9sHGI7B-UEzkGxoB28U6FliCjLE/s320/shot+to+the+head+final.jpg" width="262" /></a></div><br />
This finished oil painting is called "Shot to the Head". I am slowly working a more ambitious format. This canvas measures 22"x 24". Click on the image to see it enlarged.<br />
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The painting was planned by making an initial drawing while I was on two different types of antipsychotic medications. So it actually started over a year and a half ago. The pencil drawing plan was put away while I finished other oil paint projects. A lot of the small pattern in the piece, such as the swirling sky, the striated green ground, or the stripes in the cats, was added after I had come down on the antipsychotic medication. Everything in the original drawing is still there, except much is added. I think less meds resulted in a painting that has much more energy and interest than what was first visualized. <br />
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Also, a side effect of being on so much antipsychotic medication was a lot of suicidal thoughts, and in general, wishing I was dead about twice a week. Or so my husband claims I used to say with regularity, "I wish I were dead". Nowadays, on very little antipsychotic medication, that phrase never, ever passes through my lips. I love my life, I love painting. Lowering the medication resulted in the end to suicidal thoughts and the complete dissipation of depression. Naturally it was instinctive to plan a painting like this one if you are contemplating your own death. But if you are generally happy, like I am now, I don't know if it would occur to me to have such violent imagery. Never say never, I don't know what future compositions will contain, but if you are generally happy and content as I am, pictures like "Shot to the Head" don't enter your imagination. However, I am considering that I might suffer from PTSD, due to emotional abuse in my childhood, and the violence of that time, its horrid memories, and memories of years of anguish over having a mental illness, still effect me. I sometimes get so angry at people and the past in idle moments. I am still a very unsettled soul. Recently I remarked to my husband "I am content, yet I am tormented." So who knows what rabbit I will pull out of a hat when I draw and plan a painting. It might very well be a bloodied rabbit.<br />
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Always a driving factor in this painting's composition was the shot to the head. It is the first thing you notice. The woman standing on the ground in the black wrap has a tiny bullet hole in her smooth, white forehead, and blood splatter coming out of the back of her head. The red blood was intended to pop against a light blue sky and to be an emotionally dark counterpoint to the beauty and elegance of the rest of the picture. I think the garland made up of leaves and flowers is quite pretty, and the clothing the women wear is high fashion, inspired from pictures of models taken mid 20th Century. So while there is admittedly blood and gore, the painting otherwise is very static and still. It is a poised and silent, a one thousandth split second frozen image of an event.<br />
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And then there is the story of the piece of black string. It is gathered in a ball in the lower left hand. But unstrung, the black string winds its way around the trunk of the tree, makes it's way down the tree branch, drops to suspend the wooden plank that the woman in the green suit stands on, and then ties around the cat, lifting him up under his armpits.<br />
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The title "Shot to the Head" was intended to be more than just a literal description. It describes what this picture does to the viewer. It gives the mind a little jolt. It dazzles the eye. It shocks. It challenges. <br />
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I am so much happier with the quality of my artwork nowadays. I don't care much that it looks crazy. For a while there I was searching the internet with the google words "schizoprhenic art" and trying to find someone who painted like me. I wanted to find my tribe. But what I'm making doesn't look much like anyone else. I guess this should make me feel happy. <br />
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The first eye that I try to dazzle, excite and please is my own eye. <br />
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Everyone makes very personal art. Even if its just a vase of flowers. You make that type of trite picture because you think it beautiful.<br />
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My idea of beautiful happens to have a lot of color, a lot of emotion, and the "zoom" quality. <br />
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My art makes your eye "zoom" around the picture.<br />
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</div>Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-4186064188132870522012-08-19T07:30:00.000-07:002012-08-19T07:30:19.716-07:00Tea Time Drawing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHvBNOqnAa3gcoosmBf7P0jsOt76ksdJ6dn3W03XCCapm3hyeuEt0JgySwUJXK0S-A3rP9es0J5H7jCmVoshiXd8GrneUDqen5fsEclxd1FJ4kyUG3SSRUYXCwOq1xwUXa401aauEiyAM/s1600/tea+time+final.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="250" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHvBNOqnAa3gcoosmBf7P0jsOt76ksdJ6dn3W03XCCapm3hyeuEt0JgySwUJXK0S-A3rP9es0J5H7jCmVoshiXd8GrneUDqen5fsEclxd1FJ4kyUG3SSRUYXCwOq1xwUXa401aauEiyAM/s320/tea+time+final.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
This is a very complex drawing. Click on the image to enlarge. It is a plan for an oil painting measuring 22"x28". The largest size I can do which will fit on my table top easel.<br />
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The drawing was created in two steps. First I did a half size image measuring 11x14 so that I could get the basic ideas down - where the shapes went in relation to one another, how they filled the rectangle. The first idea I had for this painting was a naked lady serving as a table. On her stomach was a tea pot and cup and saucer. One hand supported her, the other hand is up in the air holding my version of a candelabra. My candelabra has a central image, a little drama going on between the candles and their crystal droppings. There is a tiny naked lady, slightly bent, vomiting water. Water flows in a stream from her lips like a classical fountain. She stands in a pool of water that is cupped in the center of the candelabra. When the colors are added the pale blue of the water, with ripples, will be I hope define the watery element.<br />
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In my small starter drawing I established first the human table and the figure in the chair. It mattered to me that the seated woman be clothed, as to contrast the nakedness of the table, and I picked some clothing details from a Vogue magazine advertizement. The shoes I had to go online and look for on the designer's website. This idea of having pants under a skirt is picked up this Fall season by several designers. The skirt pattern is not based out of anything in Vogue or by any contemporary designer. As it happened while I was creating the drawing (a process that took two to three weeks of working about five and a half hours every day) I watched an old black and white movie. It was Anna Karenina, staring Greta Garbo in the lead role. The movie, based on Tolstoy's classic novel, takes place in Russia before the revolution and the over throw of the Czars. So Garbo was 19th century aristocracy and she wore beautiful full length gowns. The ribbon and lace pattern comes from one of Garbo's gowns.<br />
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It was fun planning the chair the clothed woman is seated in. I have a book of animal drawings, and I looked for animals that were all a little bit different in their snouts. The chair will be upholstered in buttons and bulging fabric, probably a light cream color (the swirling background will be deep blues and greens) and the animal heads will carry with them all this cream color, as if they were upholstered too and created out of fabric - natural extensions of the chair. They may have subtle nuances of color, but definitely the elephant will be cream instead of his natural grey color, and so forth. The lightest elements of the painting should be the chair, the naked lady table, and the candelabra. <br />
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Where there will be the brightest pop of color is among the flowers covering the floor. I said to my husband that the simplest thing to draw was the naked woman's breasts, I only had to do them over twice. It is funny they were so simple, yet so essential, - when the final painting is first viewed I think the eye will land immediately on those breasts! But for the rest, well, I went through three of those erasers that you stick on the end of a pencil. I drew, erased, and redrew incessantly. Just the arc of the skirt was considered by millimeters. For this drawing it seems I have drawn arc after arc.<br />
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The trick to drawing the foliage on the floor was variety. There is some repetition, but I wanted large blooms and small blooms but above all variety in shape. Nature is a freak in how she invents, I wanted freakishness. A reoccurring trick was to alter the direction that the tips of the blooms faced. The floor is not a place where all natural things aspire up toward the sun. The stalks of the blooms may start by growing upward but there is the final tilt of the bloom, and I hope the eye is drawn back and forth - my aim is to dazzle and overwhelm the viewer's eye. <br />
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In some simple words I can sum up this drawing. Pattern. Energy. Life. Pathos. Beauty.<br />
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This drawing could not have been created on a higher dose of antipsychotic medication. Before I could only work two hours, even only an hour, before exhaustion numbed my mind. To my perception now, what I did before, was pretty simple. I made simple because I was simple. Drawing requires you to give it your all and invent creatively on a scale that is but pale comparison to the manual labor of putting oil paint on a canvas. The pencil moves quickly, the brush loaded with pigment moves slowly. Now on a low dose of medication I can work an average of five to six hours. Not only can I attempt more complexity, but I think the ideas flow quicker to me. I have drawn flowers to trim the bottom of a painting before, but never have I attempted such strange and diverse shapes nor have I been capable of picking up and adapting concept of form from source material in botany books. In short - what I attempted before on a lot of medication is impoverished in comparison to the complexity I am game to translate now. Lower the medication and I grow bold. It feels like I suddenly added IQ points to my brain.<br />
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At the height of my dose I was on 200 mg Geodone, now I rest comfortably at 80mg Geodone. Each time I stepped down my dose, by either 40 or more recently 20 mg, I experienced withdrawal. It would have been foolish to immediately assume that this was some natural illness suddenly making its appearance on lower medication. I have been warned in books that the grip of antipsychotic medication is so insidious that coming off of it is ripe with peril. The last time I went from 100mg to 80 mg was HORRIBLE. For several days, right before I was due to take my evening dose (when most of the med was gone from my system) I experienced extreme dizziness and the unpleasant sensation that my mind was filled with cotton. Thoughts would not form. I told my husband I had Alzheimer's. Also, I had problems with sudden surges of irritability and anger, lasting usually about two hours. This made me hard to live with as I found that nothing that my husband said pleased me, and everything seemed to incur my wrath. I quickly learned as marriage tensions flared to bite my tongue and say nothing when I was displeased. Now I am peaceful, happy, and my normal self, (and the marriage is good) but it was all rocky for about ten days.<br />
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No symptoms of mental illness have made any appearance. I have no depression, no delusions, no strange fancies, (unless you call my artwork a strange fancy, you are granted permission) no sadness or feelings of worthlessness, no suicidality, no paranoia, - only the flow and ebb of my days where I work in the mornings until I am exhausted and then I can do little physical activity for several hours. I work, rest, and then enjoy some form of quiet play most days. What is unpleasant is how I have the urge to overextend myself, and consequence is exhaustion, not of the body, but of the mind. Physically I'm effected because my mental fatigue is so great that I don't have much will to move about. So after work I lie in bed and watch a movie. Sometime in my past a doctor told me that antipsychotic medication would aid concentration and sharpen my wits but as I have learned THIS IS NOT TRUE. I have come to the conclusion that at the age of 19 I suffered a nervous breakdown where I had delusions and mania, but in the decades after (I am now 44) the greatest and lasting change to my brain was a reduction in my ability to concentrate. When I focus I focus intently, but the concentration does not last as long as it did before my nervous breakdown.<br />
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The question in my mind is how low can I go on my medication before either one of two things happen. The first is that mental illness symptoms reappear. At such a point I would immediately go back up on my medication to where I had been stable before. (I consider myself stable at 80mg). Is there a hiding, lurking mental illness masked and corrected by 80mg of Geodone? Am I a schizophrenic monster merely being held in check by a low dose of medication?<br />
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The second thing I wonder about is my concentration and level of energy. If I lower my medication and I LOSE the ability to concentrate for five and half hours then I would go back up on my medication. I LOVE TO WORK AT MAKING ART. EVERY DAY. I HATE DISABILITY. If I lower my medication and negative symptoms of schizophrenia appear or I couldn't work as long (some kind of unhinging of concentration) then probably I would go back up on my dose.<br />
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I have an appointment with my medication nurse in mid September. She was very reluctant to lower my medication before, but I hope to persuade her to lower me more to 60 mg. I am, as she observed in our last visit, competent, and with no current complaints in life, why not try? I read a statistic on another schizoprhenic's blog that 80% of schizoprhenic's relapse within two years if they stop their medication. That left 20% who successfully went off of medication. Could I be one of those 20%?<br />
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I greatly enjoy life and making the Tea Time drawing was a blast. It was fun, it was hard obsessive work, but it gave each day purpose and meaning to an extent that I have rarely experienced before.<br />
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Now I can't wait to have the drawing copied onto thin paper and transfer it to its waiting canvas. Then the paint! O Lord, how it will sing with color! <br />
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</div>Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-49828958424465600402012-07-03T12:15:00.000-07:002012-07-03T12:15:09.685-07:00Lower Med, Higher Global Functioning<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">Two weeks ago I lowered my Geodone dose from 120, which is minimum therapeutic dose, to 100mg. This is a tiny decrease. However, my medication nurse seemed to think that going under 120mg would have a drastic effect. She implied that there would be major changes, as the drug worked differently under minimum threshold.<br />
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She's right.<br />
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Much is different.<br />
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I am now painting twice a day. I paint, as usual, until I am tired and can't concentrate. On maximum dose of Geodone (200mg) this was a paltry two hours and then I suffered. I mean I suffered agony. My head felt psychic pain from being overworked, overused, and stretched to its utmost limit. Then I couldn't paint again during that day, I was finished as far as doing anything with art was concerned.<br />
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So high medication, great disability.<br />
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Lower medication, much less disability. Now during the morning I typically paint for three to three and a half hours and then I don't suffer. I am merely tired. None of this mental "pain" crap after thinking too much. <br />
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On the medication dose I'm at currently I paint early in the morning and then I do something else. I take a shower. I walk to the coffee house. I go grocery shopping.<br />
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This is so new to me. I believed, for years, that after I finished creative work I had to lie in bed with no stimulation what-so-ever, no music, no tv, no phone, no books, no movement. Just shut eyes.<br />
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I find now that this type of "down time" results in BOREDOM.<br />
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Then, as of late, in the early afternoon I'm ready for a second session of painting. I'm not fresh like early in the morning, and I tend to want to do simple stuff, but I definitely have it in me to create again. <br />
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There have been absolutely no psychiatric symptoms of a mental illness on 100mg of Geodone. No depression, no anxiety, no paranoia, and no delusions. No funny thoughts that seem weird. No strange conversational threads. And no sadness. The only thing that differentiates me from a non mentally ill person is that I grow tired easily and need to rest sporadically though out the day. But really, there is nothing to my perception that is schizophrenic or could be diagnosed as schizophrenic in nature. I'm a bit of a recluse, but I'm not exhibiting signs of being a mentally ill person.<br />
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I do notice that I have less desire to socialize and more desire to paint. Painting never bores me. And I'm never lonely painting, even though it is a most isolated activity.<br />
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And its too soon to tell, but I think my skill at painting has increased. I just seem to be more sophisticated with the paint. It could be the accumulation of years of painting. Or it could be that my ability to make complex decisions has improved. But I'm certain that I'm very very happy with the results of my creative effort. I tickle myself when I see what is being created on the canvass.<br />
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I'm going to stay at this level of Geodone for three months. Then, another 20 mg decrease. I'm operating under the premise of the book "Anatomy of an Epidemic" that states that antipsychotic medication cause brain chemical imbalances. Because the antipsychotic has altered the structure of my brain it takes time for healing to occur or else there will be psychotic like symptoms and relapse. The book suggests that being taken off antipsychotic medications quickly does not reveal an illness, it causes an illness. <br />
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I had the God damn presence of mind to stay at 120 mg Geodone for a fucking 6 months. At the end of this six month period my mind was still changing, becoming stronger - and I had the first experiences of working on art twice a day rather than just once in the morning. I felt myself healing, becoming a stronger more energetic and assertive person. A happier person.<br />
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My mom says I've got to change the voice mail on my telephone. It was made when I was heavily medicated. She says I sound now like a completely different person. But I don't know how to change voice mail.<br />
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I know I had a nervous breakdown when I was 19 and my brain dramatically changed.<br />
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But now I'm 44. I've got a different brain then the one that had the nervous breakdown. Who says that once you are diagnosed schizophrenic, you are going to be schizophrenic for life? Is it a permanent condition?<br />
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Anatomy of an Epidemic makes one clear point. As long as you are on antipsychotic medication you will be mentally ill and probably deteriorate. Over the decades your frontal lobes will shrink. The symptoms of your illness will continue and may likely intensify. The medication, in many ways is toxic. It chemically alters the brain and prevents healing from the mental illness from occurring.<br />
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If I have to stay at 100 mg that's fine with me. Oh, there was one side effect from lowering my dose by 20 mg. On day two on the lower dose, in the afternoon, I suffered an intense headache followed by scary dizziness. I couldn't stand, had to lie down. When I took my evening dose of Geodone the dizziness went away. And its never returned.<br />
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But as long as I feel fit as a fiddle and happy and normal I'm going to slowly, slowly, continue decreasing my antipsychotic medication.<br />
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Oh, I forgot to mention. I feel calmer on 100 mg than I did on 120 mg.<br />
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Feeling calm is the most wonderful, luscious feeling in the world.<br />
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I love mental health! <br />
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</div>Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-12155682704601108712012-06-09T11:41:00.001-07:002012-06-09T11:48:16.786-07:00New Drawing: Pregnant Woman and Peacock<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJ9sX9bHhS_WtPKENQnEn2nz5_te2b_VzdDNfQ5Kv9tJCOzg12bL4C_MVtSJWIdTJB4l52RjZdGHDqiZ3njsjz7do6YtLbz5EiAgv_2esXP_PziR_ci_8dB4U1Fdi9k2eJSG_TP8u0DI/s1600/pregnant+woman+peacock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlJ9sX9bHhS_WtPKENQnEn2nz5_te2b_VzdDNfQ5Kv9tJCOzg12bL4C_MVtSJWIdTJB4l52RjZdGHDqiZ3njsjz7do6YtLbz5EiAgv_2esXP_PziR_ci_8dB4U1Fdi9k2eJSG_TP8u0DI/s320/pregnant+woman+peacock.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This is a drawing I just finished today. It measures 12"x16". Click on the image and you can see it enlarged. I like the color, but I'm a little baffled as to what it all means. I suppose its just meant to be decorative. Would prefer that it told a story.<br />
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I know that when I started drawing it I was going through an intense, stressful series of days. The painting I had been working on had a lot of repetitive detail and I was horribly bored of doing the same colors in the same pattern again and again. I know that in the long run the detail is good for the overall look of the painting, (swirls in the sky, think Van Gogh's Starry Night on overdrive, during the daytime, a hundred light blue, purple and yellow swirls) so I was dying to be creative (instead of a craftsperson), and then wham, my home life seemed to head off in a new direction. I stopped for about a week making art of any sort. I was stunned. Events smoothed out, but I hoped that starting a new drawing would be a means to combat stress. The idea was that I find a new thing to obsess about and throw myself into. The drawing was a challenge that was personal and private to contradict the feeling that my life was big and fast moving and tumbling out of control. Control what you can. At the precise moment you feel powerless.<br />
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I was pretty lost for subject matter after I decided I would do an oil pastel drawing. My mind was giving me images of people with blown off heads, a lot of blood. Basic scenes of death and carnage. In fact, in a discarded drawing, I thought I was on the right path making a picture of two monsters tearing off a woman's dress. Monsters raping a woman. I felt really tormented and I wanted the characters in my drawing to be tormented as well.<br />
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So after a false start, I decided to go with practically all human. I knew I wanted the bodies stacked, compressed, charred, with contorted limbs. As it turned out the only figure that really looks upset is the middle male, he has the sort of "woe is me" look to him. My husband thinks the figure on top is sinister, he calls it a vampire ready to pounce and suck blood. In no way do I interpret that figure the way my husband does. The color and the pose were done for artistic purposes. Don't know where the peacock came from, but it does add something pretty in terms of pattern and I know it also functions as an arc that pulls the picture away from the stack of horizontal bodies.<br />
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Added last the pregnancy of the bottom woman. She had a small stomach in the initial drawing, and I guess as a happy sign of hope, I enlarged the stomach and added the baby. I find pictures of pregnant women particularly warming. Life was hard, but it was wonderful as well. Toyed with the idea that the fetus would be a monster, but rejected this notion. Done that before in early artwork.<br />
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On the first layer of color all the figures had nude flesh. I decided this was too boring. The hardest part of the artwork to correct from the underdrawing was the man in the middle. I had settled in my mind that the top person would be the darkest, but it took me a bit to reason out that orange and green would be the main theme on the man in the middle. At that point I also lightened up the pregnant woman with simple white, while leaving a lot of the color in her contour.<br />
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In my present state of mind I absolutely hate doing a background that is simple, without repeating pattern. I like layering pattern on top of pattern. What was weird about this drawing is the the flaw of its simplicity was present from the beginning. The night before I started the drawing I had been crying (from stress) and my husband had strongly suggested that my despair seemed disproportionate, or out of control, and that I take a trilifon. Trilifon in 2mg tablets is the old fashioned anti-psychotic medication I can take that hits me like a hammer over the head. I only take them in crisis, and they start to work after about 30 minutes. Haven't had to take a trilifon in well over two years, just been doing really well.<br />
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So I take the Trilifon and my tears dry up. The next morning I feel drugged. But it was the morning I've planned to start the drawing! And the entire composition was created in a two hour time period at one go! This rarely happens. Drawings take days to compose, the elements creep out my unconscious mind bit by bit and I don't see where things are headed until the whole is almost done. So I don't trust the quality of a drawing that is composed so swiftly. Instead of thinking, "my, how I've grown as an artist" instead I think, "oooh, the drugs stifled my creativity and if it came out fast, it came out diluted and boring".<br />
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My negative attitude about an artwork being weak because it happened too easily brings to mind another artwork by an artist I can't name that I saw in an art magazine at the library. Been going out in the afternoons, after an isolated morning of doing artwork, wanting to be around people, and trying to enhance my art education. I think you can learn by looking, looking, looking at art. Our library subscribes to three art magazines. Galleries take out ads for their current exhibitions, and guess what, they usually buy a full page reproduction of the best piece of their featured artist. I simply flip the pages and go from one contemporary art work to the next. Occasionally I read the articles. But most of the education comes from looking at images and thinking about them. The thinking doesn't go anywhere, its mostly just absorption. And the occasional "shit, he's so fantastic. Out of my league."<br />
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There was an article on this artist who recently committed suicide. I would guess his age was late 50's or mid 60's. He was obviously really smart and his work tended toward the conceptual. He had been collected by museums and was working really hard (and I guess drinking hard too, and struggling with depression) before his death. With the article was a photograph of a black and white wooden birdhouse he made. The title of his artwork was "Catholic Birdhouse". Typical birdhouses have a hole in the middle and a peg sticking out for the bird to perch on. This birdhouse looked typical, but it had two holes, and two pegs. The bottom hole was large and printed underneath was the text "the easy road". The top hole was a lot smaller than the bottom hole and was ringed by smears, as though the bird preferred it but had to really squeeze to make it through, and in the process, had lost some feathers, flesh and blood. The text under the small hole said "the hard road".<br />
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Such a simple piece but so evocative. It said that we wish to enter home (due to the title home can be construed as the Kingdom of God) through loss and suffering - this is "the hard road". Of course the irony is that either hole, large or small, would have brought you to the same house, the same place of rest and safety, and there was no need for the bird to take "the hard road". He seemed to freely choose it. Maybe because of his Catholic upbringing.<br />
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Simple art that makes you think. I said to my husband when my drawing neared completion "is it creative, is it different?" And he said to me, "have you ever seen anything like it?" And I thought and then said no. The drawing of the figures was easy, but over the course of several weeks I have really struggled with the colors. So by the end, there was some tough finagling to bring this drawing to its conclusion. I despaired because I thought the road was too easy, thus mistrusting it, but it turned out to have its challenges. And having some challenges, I was satisfied.<br />
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Now I return to painting my God damn sky with one hundred swirls. I anticipate that when I finish just the sky I'll be so sick of painting that I'll do another drawing.<br />
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Long live the creative challenge.<br />
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</div>Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4795191973728869942.post-18589997923683197022012-05-17T07:30:00.001-07:002012-05-17T07:32:10.248-07:00The Scream Defended<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhg-NkbsBAJthR6ccTCokzJcOiSXQw3U_my3rEIqhYVdEFrbK9DDH0ib4U6heTNGHZUZljdIXG52_g1aSGJiySxUhMd84jrMbvvcF-8svbEegIT0vm2TPAieI2JxPyYH8y_wOXHc6FwBM/s1600/munch+scream+detail.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhg-NkbsBAJthR6ccTCokzJcOiSXQw3U_my3rEIqhYVdEFrbK9DDH0ib4U6heTNGHZUZljdIXG52_g1aSGJiySxUhMd84jrMbvvcF-8svbEegIT0vm2TPAieI2JxPyYH8y_wOXHc6FwBM/s1600/munch+scream+detail.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAwxGXHlnXBZ2xYlFal6lPXQnZSLVU9ie7kpB0tR4-5czu5PsUDrn6BCEXkqTpZJAwqO2-pANWTf0WoGk9VXqt1RHEXDILZpOMRJnYUrbvaqGDPgq_UKRBtipIxMnlhzciJ_C3EWLpJNQ/s1600/munch-the-scream-at-sothebys.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAwxGXHlnXBZ2xYlFal6lPXQnZSLVU9ie7kpB0tR4-5czu5PsUDrn6BCEXkqTpZJAwqO2-pANWTf0WoGk9VXqt1RHEXDILZpOMRJnYUrbvaqGDPgq_UKRBtipIxMnlhzciJ_C3EWLpJNQ/s320/munch-the-scream-at-sothebys.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
There are four versions of "The Scream" by Edvard Munch as well as a lithograph. Two versions were painted and two were done in pastel all between the years of 1893 to 1910. Two of the paintings and one pastel drawing are owned by Norwegian museums.<br />
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Recently the only version in private hands came up for auction at Sotheby's. There are several detail that make this version very appealing to collectors. According to Sotheby's it is the most colorful of all created. And as importantly, it is the only version that is preserved in its original frame. This frame, designed by Munch, has on it a poem he wrote about the experience which gave him the idea for the image.<br />
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<b><i>"I was walking along a path with two friends - the sun was setting - suddenly the sky turned blood red - I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence - there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city.</i></b><br />
<b><i>"My friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety - and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature."</i></b> <br />
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This version of "The Scream" sold for 119.9 million dollars, and if prices are adjusted for inflation, it makes it the eighth most expensive work of art ever sold.<br />
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There is no doubt in my mind that this work of art is an expression of inner torment. Inner torment, or any emotional state is not so easy to express in a work of art. You can feel an emotion strongly, but to get that emotion symbolized in an image so that others feel what you are feeling is a difficult feat of communication. My father says that that this work of art is so disturbing that if you took your thumb and placed it over the screaming figure that the landscape alone would communicate anxiety. My father paints landscapes, and so he would recognize a landscape that held in it something supremely unique. This is the landscape of Munch's memory, perhaps distorted by his anxiety, definitely re-created to communicate his mood. The red of the sky get redder because of its juxtaposition against the blue of the sea. And it is not red that we have reflected in the sea but emptiness, a bone color that divides and surrounds the undulating red waves in the sky.<br />
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I see compositionally that the diagonal line of the hand railing teleports the background red sky directly into frontal space. The sky, the viewer, and the screaming figure are all linked by the hand railing. And I think that any time you have such a bold diagonal running through the picture frame it runs the unnerving risk of dividing the image. And an image usually such divided creates psychic disturbance because we want harmony and balance in the picture, and this is usually achieved by interrelatedness and repetition. One spot here is like the other spot there. That promise of continuity soothes our awareness. As we are told by Abraham Lincoln that "a house divided against itself cannot not stand", an image with a bold dividing line threatens to scatter the parts. In this particular image it is the overreaching sky that is not interrupted but instead flows from edge to edge that saves us from the severity of the hand rail projected almost straight at us. And of course theatrically what do we have at the end of the hand rail, as if it were the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow or the essence to anchor and mend the division of parts, - is a little man screaming. There is a slight reference to death in his countenance - he has no hair- as if his skull were exposed directly by the knob of bone beneath, skin stripped away. Blue lips echo the shape of his head. And the hands are clasped to either side of the face, as if, in body language the screaming man is saying "all this is too much for me, I'm overwhelmed, I withdraw, I try to save the parts of me that have not been stripped away by my experience."<br />
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As an artist I also notice that that the image isn't precious. And what I mean by that is that it has been done swiftly and emphatically without a slow and methodical process and too much attention to minute detail. Perhaps there were plans and rough drafts - I wouldn't be surprised - but the final product deals in essences and bold simplicity. This pastel could have been drawn in a day. I find it fascinating that the artist repeated the same image in different mediums during a seventeen year span of time. It is like being haunted by the exact same re-occurring dream. This dream is trying to express something vital to the soul. <br />
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In the analysis I read about the sale of this work, is that the price went so high because the image has become an icon in our culture. Mention to most intelligent people the name of the artwork and in their head they see a vision of what Munch did. It has been repeated and repeated on mugs, tee-shirts and referenced by other artist's artwork. Does it stick in our minds because it is repeated by popular culture or is the repetition an homage to a fundamental fact that at one time or another we have all felt like the little screaming man in the artwork? We identify because locked in us all is that terrible place of an inner scream. And the artwork validates for us our experience, it says, humanity is united in the extremes that we must submit to. Some of us submit and endure, others go under and self-destruct.<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;">Not all experts in the art world have good things to say about"The Scream". </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Rachel Campbell-Johnston, The Times's chief art critic, is not a fan. The Scream's popularity, she believes, derives from a tendency to regard artforms prefixed with adjectives like "edgy", "dark" and "disturbing" as somehow superior to those which are light and joyful.</span></i></b><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> Indeed, she draws an analogy with a teenager listening to overwrought, depressing music in their bedroom, before learning as they grow older to appreciate a songwriter like Bob Dylan who deals with subtler, more complex emotions.</span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"The Scream is almost childish in its directness," she says. "That's why you see it in so many university halls of residence. What you get out of that painting is not something that deepens over time. </span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto;"><b><i><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">"It appeals to an immature taste. As you get older you want something different - art that transforms the everyday rather than goes to the extremes of human emotion."</span></i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">But I have to disagree with Rachel Campbell-Johnston. Some people - the strong ones - have no fears of the extremes of human emotion. Me, being schizophrenic, I have no choice sometimes but to live with crippling dark emotional states. I live with them, let them wash over me, and in time, have even an edge with them because they are familiar and recognized as just me being me. Recovery from schizophrenia has evolved from a state of wanting to do battle with darkness (kill the sickness) to acceptance of darkness as something that ultimately won't harm me (there is no sickness, just altered states of being). In order to survive to maturity with this illness I had to absorb it. Yes, at times, there is a little man screaming inside of me. But I know that given a bit of time he will stop screaming and other little men will step into his place. There is the one that basks in simple sunshine, the one that is addicted to bright colors in art, the one that delights in giving and receiving love. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">I will tell you what I think. If you are sensitive to pain, this is good, because you will be sensitive to the absence of pain. If you know deep sadness, you are capable of experiencing profound joy. There is a spectrum to the emotions and a life lived with passion does not deny the currents that flow under our exterior, rather, these currents are identified, examined, and absorbed then disbanded in an ever flowing circle. I think "The Scream" is embraced by the masses not because the masses are immature, but because most people feel secret kinship with its message. We move on as adults to a place, hopefully, where adversity and pain does not cut us quite so deeply, but you would be a fool to think this is merely because we deny or suppress or (God forbid), never have anymore the negative experiences. We simply handle unhappiness differently from when we were young. Artworks that express only subtly and beauty are appreciated but so is the crude, the energetic, the shocking in art. Ideally as the individual matures he or she broadens, strengthened, and is still delighted by what is new and different.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">Sometimes we want warmth, sometimes we need a pin prick.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;">If you fear or scorn authenticity in all its wild audacious variety (and "The Scream" is above all about authentic human emotion) then some part of you is being sorely suppressed. To your detriment.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12pt;"> </span></div></div>Karen May Sorensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14436905322393073250noreply@blogger.com3