Giorgio Di Chirico Went Bad

I don't want a life like Giorgio Di Chirico's. Look at the first three paintings, and compare it to the fourth. The fourth looks like it was painted by a different artist. But they all are Giorgio Di Chirico. What changes is his age and his ideas about what it took to be a good artist. I wonder, and I worry, that my best work was created ten years ago when I was ignorant and naive. In Di Chirico's life his best work was created when he was young. When he tried to become a great, serious painter, he ruined himself.

What many many critics have noticed is that his early works had poetry and creative vision. Like him or hate him, the first three paintings are unique for their time and were like nothing done by anyone else. But the fourth painting, it looks like it was painted by a professional artist, of this age or of any age. It is bland. It is technical. It is boring. It has nothing new to impress the viewer with, and nothing to impart in terms of feeling; it is mild, run-of-the-mill, ordinary, and totally without any power to shock or bring us to a new state of mind. It is simply, the back of a woman's head with the hair painted very carefully.

Sly shock, and unexplained unease is exactly what a good Di Chirico painting can do. The early works can make you say to yourself "Why, I've never seen a painting like that before!" The fancy brushwork of the later painting is absent. What is present is a feeling, an uncertain worry that we are in the presence of something dark, threatening, lonely, and perhaps, even majestic. A city scape full of shadows, pillared buildings, and very little that is human. Just a hint that humanity is near in the midst of deserted silhouetted buildings in a declining hour of daylight.

A young Di Chirico was part of the Surrealist movement. During 1913 he first exhibited his work at the Salon des Indépendants and Salon d’Automne in France and his work was noticed by Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire. By 1914 he had sold his first painting and through his contact with the Surrealist leader and philosopher Apollinaire he had contracted to sell his work through the art dealer Paul Guillaume. Di Chirico is revered and reserved a place in history for the work he did from 1909 to 1919, called his metaphysical period. As the surrealist movement developed the artists who belonged to the movement were aware, and profoundly affected by Di Chirico.

Yves Tanguy wrote how one day in 1922 he saw one of De Chirico's paintings in an art dealer's window, and was so impressed by it he resolved on the spot to become an artist — although he had never even held a brush. Other artists who acknowledged De Chirico's influence include Max Ernst, Salvador Dalí, Giorgio Morandi, Carlo Carrà, René Magritte, and Philip Guston.

In the autumn of 1919, De Chirico published an article in Valori Plastici entitled "The Return of Craftsmanship", in which he advocated a return to traditional methods and subject matter. This article heralded an abrupt change in his artistic orientation, as he adopted a classicizing manner inspired by such old masters as Raphael and Rubens, and became an outspoken opponent of modern art.

De Chirico was disappointed that his new style received less critical acclaim than his old style. As a painter he believed that he had reached a new level of growth and maturity. His self view, and the view of the critics who only saw a loss of poetry and power, were askew.

I can understand his puzzlement because he truly believed that with age and study of the masters before him, came improvement. He never seemed to realize that his power lay not in imitation, but in being true to something pure and mysterious inside. Sometimes for financial gain, since his early work was so in demand, he would create a painting in the old style, and retro-date it. And, as a sign of his growing frustration, he liked to disclaim paintings that were his in private and public art collections as being other artist's forgeries.

From what little I know about Di Chirico's life I am taught a lesson of self-delusion. It is very important as an artist that you cultivate vision over technique, and not be in a position to compare yourself too much to other artists. My own fault is looking at what has come before me, and despair because I lack a traditional art school education. I can't make paintings that look like historical art because I am not clued into the techniques that created them. As a self-taught artist it is most important that I experiment and develop my own style. Vision is more important than technique. Inventiveness is more important than looking like other artists. Its easy to say, but it is difficult to live so very apart from mainstream likes and opinions. As a human being I long to be accepted by others. But as an artist I have to be prepared to walk a road where I am somewhat incomprehensible to myself.

Last Summer I went on vacation and happened to buy in an antique store a used book, in pristine shape, on paintings in the Louvre. Recently I started to go through this book and I was aghast. None of the paintings (except the earliest, pre-Renaissance) looked like anything that I do. Here I had in my lap the history of painting through the centuries and there was no place in it for me to fit. The book ended somewhere in the 1800's. Upon reflection, the young visionary Di Chirico would not have fit either, but as he aged, he tried in vain to fit into the style of the artists of history. Alas, I understand his motivation. A move away from what makes you unique to what makes you comprehensible and accepted.

In an early self portrait Di Chirico inscribed in the painting, "Et quid amabo nisi quod aenigma est? - "What shall I love if not the enigma?" and his early paintings embodied this moody mysterious questioning. His paintings don't have answers in them, usually, they provoke more questions.

All my appetite, at this moment, is to recapture the energy and the freedom of my earliest work. I made art when I didn't know what the rules were. I didn't know what art was supposed to look like. I was in love with pattern and the brilliance of color. I didn't use reference books, like I do now-a-days, to draw the human form correctly, or to draw animals so that that they look "real". I imagine that I've grown as an artist but I secretly wonder if I'm deluding myself.

I want, as an artist, to believe that my best work is AHEAD of me, not BEHIND me. AHEAD is jubilation, BEHIND is a grind and a sense of hopelessness.

It is very hard to be sane, on medication, yet to have in you the illness of schizophrenia. The schizophrenia wants, I think, to be heard. It wants to come out and make something that is on the face of it, crazy. But I've gotten so good at being sane. I've had eleven years of being out of a hospital and on a high dose of anti-psychotic medication. I've had eleven years of working toward recovery. Eleven years of relative stability. Days of steely self control - whether by my will or the will of the medication.

Sometimes I think my art can't help itself - it will be crazy on its own. Medication doesn't mask everything, it doesn't leave you creatively dead. My art will deviate from the norm despite my bumbling attempts at being a serious, mature artist. But on a bad day I despair and think that I've outwitted and outmastered myself. I worry that I've rejected the gifts of mental illness. Yes, mental illness brings with it creativity and energy and craziness. In my schizophrenic soul, I delight in expressing craziness.

I want to make art that is dazzling and has an obscene overabundance of movement.

During the cold months of this winter, when the only room that is heated to a comfortable temperature is my bedroom, I want to lie in bed and draw directly from my imagination. Drawing upon drawing of interior mental drama. Drama that mimics reality but is not gleaned from magazine photographs or other artists drawings in books.

Drawing that contains in it something that is schizophrenic.

I say this, as if I were to say, drawing that has in it something of the deadliest poison.

For in our modern, industrial forward looking world power America, craziness is a form of social poison.

Ken Grimes

These are all very large scale paintings by the painter Ken Grimes. Because they are so big, and the digital reproductions are so small, it is hard to measure their impact on the viewer. But they really do catch your eye. Especially since they are usually much much bigger than your body.

I met Ken Grimes at a benefit for a social clubhouse for the mentally ill in Connecticut around 2002. Artwork was being auctioned by mentally ill persons and persons who were self-taught. I had an oil painting there that a dealer had attached with a suggested price of $1,200. It sold for $100 to the one person who bid on it. A little disappointing. However, the dealer narrated to me later that when the winner's name was announced she jumped up and down and that her friends hugged her. So she really wanted my painting. Its nice to know it went to someone who appreciated it.

I had talked to the bidder while wine and cheese were being served during the silent auction. She is a therapist and I think it appealed to her to have artwork done by an authentic schizophrenic. I asked her if she did anything creative, and she said that currently she was trying to find a creative way to hide her trash cans so that they didn't look so ugly. I remember warning her that her husband might no like the painting - it was of two monsters and I tried to make them as unsavory and disturbing as possible. I thought that living with my painting would be a little unnerving. But she said that if she won she would hang it in her living room.

Ken Grimes was selling a relatively small giclee print that had a suggested price tag of $1,500. I thought "wow, and that isn't even an original".

Here's his bio that his gallery has written for him;

"Is a man a closed system or is something added that possibly might come from outside the solar system?" (Ken Grimes). For Ken Grimes that "something added" first manifested itself in the form of a science-fiction B-picture that he saw during his adolescence. The film, which depicted an ever-growing, brain like, alien creature, was to be what Grimes considered his first real exposure to alien intelligence.

Grimes was born in New York City on July 16, 1947, a day that correlates—the artist is apt to point out—with other significant world events, including the first moon landing and the first A-bomb detonated in Los Alamos, New Mexico, in 1943. When he was still very young his family moved from Manhattan to Westchester County, a suburb of Tampa, Florida, and back to New York City again before settling, when Grimes was six years old, in Cheshire, Connecticut, where he still resides.

Grimes's grandfather, a semiprofessional magician and inventor, left a long-lasting impression on the young Grimes. The artist was first moved to deal with the paranormal, creatively, by an extraordinary circumstance. He discovered that the same time he was working at a public lottery in Cheshire, another Ken Grimes, sixty-two years old and living in Cheshire, England, won the largest soccer pool in history. This as well as many other coincidences have become part of what Ken refers to as the "Coincidence Board."

Since the Cheshire, England/ Connecticut coincidence in 1971, Grimes's paintings have gone through a number of media and styles, but he has diligently maintained a theme of alien intervention, space signals, synchronicities, and government cover-ups. He paints only in black and white, which he maintains is the most direct way of showing the contrast between truth and deception. These bold white-on-black graphics have become more iconographs than pictures. Sometimes a written statement will take up most of the piece, as if to remind us of the painting's true purpose.

"The sooner we start a pattern of global awareness and formulate a response to side affects, the easier it will be to make the transition between a human-centered view and an alien perspective," Ken Grimes.

I don't want to paint like Ken Grimes. However, I admire the creativity in his work. Rather hypnotic. And I know that he, like myself, has dedicated his life to producing artwork. I had lunch with him once and he told me that he lives like a monk. He wasn't being light with me, I think he thinks of himself as being particularly withdrawn from the world around him. Which is a necessary trait if you are going to produce art of consistent quality and live with a serious mental illness. You have to make strict choices with how you are going to spend your time and what, exactly, is going to deplete your precious reserves of strength.

Today I feel as weak as a kitten. My husband is home from work with a cold. I wonder if it isn't something more than a cold since he is alternatively freezing and sweating. Mostly he's sleeping. He's got a bad cough too. Me, I just has some strange nausea this morning and then this persistent weakness in all my muscles. Tried to read a book on Mark Rothko but I found that I couldn't concentrate. So I watched a stupid movie. The remake of "Arthur". I thought that there was a bit of chemistry between Arthur and his nanny, Helen Mirrim, but that there was no romantic chemistry between Arthur and his lady love. Also, I think that when I'm physically ill I lose most of my sense of humor. Or else there was nothing really funny in the movie to begin with.

It is obvious that my husband can't walk the dog today. So later I'm going to attempt it. What I really need is a shower. Since I've been in bed all day long, it will be very telling how much energy I have trying to stand in the shower. My husband took a shower this morning intending to go to work and he said he could barely stand, he was so weak. And as soon as he got out of the shower he started sweating. I'm thinking he has a fever.

My brain being fuzz, and my body not quite something that I could claim as my own, I didn't paint today. I predict that it will take all of my energy just to take a shower. Poor dog, I predict she won't get a walk. But my plan is shower, rest, rest some more, and then take the dog around the block. By then the moon should be out.

The drama around taking a shower or not is something that happens on days when I don't have a touch of the flu, something that is my schizophrenia. My therapist has earnestly asked me, why is it so hard for people with a mental illness to shower? He said he got a whiff of one of his clients who he gave a ride to in his truck, and he was glad his dog was sitting between him and his client. And I said that from my perspective, it is the radical change in the environment which is a shock to the system. You go from being dressed, to naked, from warm to cold to warm, from dry to wet - and the last is borderline traumatic. Dry to wet. Not all mentally ill people have trouble taking showers, but I do remember in high school taking a shower every morning before school and it was easy. So for me it was easy to do before the onset of my mental illness. But now it is hard.

But when I do shower, I pat myself on the back and count it as a victory. An achievement. Proof of my strength of character.

Everyone measures their accomplishments according to different expectations. We all carry different rulers in our hip pockets. If I'm going to love myself, not just like myself, I have to give credit when I do something courageous. My best friend R. is paranoid schizophrenic and she has no problems taking a shower. In fact, she feels gross if she doesn't shower every day. She fears she smells. I too care about my presentation to society, and that does get me in the shower. But I swear, the only word I can use to describe the accruing of will power, focus, and building of internal pressure that occurs in the five minutes before I get into the shower is courage. I need personal courage to shower.

And even though I'm physically ill today, along with my husband, happily the forecast is good, all the intentions are in line, to shower soon. Very soon.

Textbook Opportunity

This image was done in 2001 and is titled "Electricity Makes You Float". It has been selected by an author of a college textbook on psychology to use in her new book. She wanted an image of artwork done by a schizophrenic. I don't know how certain it is that the image will end up in the book, anything could happen. But the photo editor and I have been emailing each other almost every day last week. The publishing date is Oct/Nov and the print run is 50,000 books.

Today I got an email because the author had some questions for me about the source of my creativity. Basically I was asked to explain the image. Happily there is a story attached to this drawing. Here is what I wrote back. I have been informed that my email was forwarded to the author.

I remember where I was on Sept.11th, 2001 when the Taliban attacked New York and Washington D.C. I was coming out of the shower and I turned on the television and there were these images of the world trade center in flames and the Pentagon in flames. The caption under the pictures read "America Under Attack".

I could tell immediately that there was going to be large loss of life. I dropped to my knees in front of the television and started crying from sadness and fear. As the news story developed I learned the story of how airplanes were used as bombs. I must have seen the twin towers collapse.

One of America's response to Sept. 11 was to hang the American flag on your house. I would drive down the street and see on front porches and in windows everywhere the American flag, a symbol of national unity. It felt really good to see all those flags. I wanted to be part of the people. I went to the store to buy an American flag but they were all sold out, so I thought that I could paint one on board and hang it down from the side of my window sill, facing the street.

Problem was that my imagination kept on distorting the American flag. I knew how to paint it straight but I felt compelled to add colors, bend the lines, add or subtract stars. I thought to myself, "if you don't get the flag right people will misinterpret it as disrespect. Better no flag than one that looks psychedelic."

At the same time as my imagination was distorting the American Flag I started having a psychotic fantasy. I thought that I could shoot rays of energy from the palms of my hands and blow up buildings. Somehow I identified with the Taliban murderers, and thought that I was as powerful and destructive as they. Of course the exact opposite was really true, I was feeling small and powerless and scared. People were doing things like buying survival supplies, we all wondered if another attack was eminent.

Since I couldn't draw the flag right, I instead drew a picture of a woman with rays of energy coming out of her hands and feet. She is me. I was a little influenced by the artist Jean-Michel Basquiat who sometimes draws the figure showing internal bones. You will notice that coming out of the woman's mouth are drops of blood, she is injured or sick.

Being a schizophrenic who is on medication, I can identify psychotic thought and isolate them and stay sane. I knew the thought was untrue, a fantasy born of trauma, even as I lived with the twilight possibility of it being true. Making this picture helped free me of the obsessiveness of the idea of having superhuman powers. Its like taking a dark, sick thought and putting it out there into the brilliance of daylight, and daylight cleanses you and releases you of the hold it had over you.

Making this image was part of my personal process of healing after the horror of September 11th. It is one of the most personal, and intimate art objects I have ever made.

I am glad the author chose this image.

I added that if the author had any further questions to me I would be happy to reply.

My worst fear is that the textbook makes me into a nameless schizophrenic person. In my very first email to the photo editor I said that if they used my image I wanted my name as artistic credit printed. I stand by my image and I must further stand by any psychotic fantasies I have, even if they are ignoble and seem to be the stuff of comic books. I don't mind that my illness is revealed in detail. Detail is what the hungry open minds of the young college students need. Yes I get crazy, but there is too a very human response to loss and tragedy, I mean, don't you want to know that a schizophrenic wished to display the American flag along with her neighbors? Patriotism and deep Empathy are lovely human traits of this schizophrenic. Craziness is just one dimensional, the symptoms of schizophrenia are just a small slice of the total person.

And isn't it miraculous how a delusion turns into a neat work of art? Not a totally naive work of art either, with the artist giving credit to being inspired by the work of another more famous artist. Yes, I have a several books in my library on Jean-Michel Basquiat. I've studied Basquiat and seen originals in museums. So this schizophrenic is influenced intellectually by other artists.

Nice to know that a schizophrenic can be an intellectual. The college kids need to know that as well.

For instance my current neighbor was very surprised when my husband told him that I was schizophrenic. We had lived next to each other for several years, I am a friendly presence, and yet he was shocked because he said "I thought that all schizophrenics looked like homeless people." Probably thought we were witless as well.

I don't know what version, if any version of my story makes it into the textbook. But I am sincerely happy that I was given the challenge to write it all down and translate what is in my head to words. I'm just happy I wrote that email to explain the work of art.

My husband thinks that all my works of art should have stories attached to them. Some simply don't. Some are just combination of images with multiple themes. My husband always asks, so what is the story going on here? And if I say "There is no story" he frowns and kind of shifts his weight unhappily. My husband feels that if a painting doesn't tell a story it is a failed image. Yes, he is very narrow minded. And while in his own fantasy world he thinks he would make a great art history teacher I think he would be a flop. Great categories of art he would dismiss as "not art". His favorite pieces of art? Late Renoir nude bathing beauties. They are like happy porn candy to him.

But my darling husband (who in all honesty happens to be my greatest artistic fan and usually stanch supporter) is right about one thing. If there is a story going on in my artwork my creativity gets a boost. Even better - if I feel a need to make an artwork, an urgency, a statement to put out into the world, the end result is a little bit better.

Oh, I like to make a pretty picture. Half of every effort I make is just to put into this world a pretty picture. The fly in the ointment is that I don't consider sex and violence as detracting from a pretty picture, while to most people's sensibilities, they do. My mother for instance. Any trace of sex or violence completely turns her off. She likes the things that underpin and support sanity and happiness. On her advice I did once even paint over a decapitated head rolling around on the ground with a purple pansy flower, but having done this, I looked, and felt that the painting was now too boring and to my sensibility, unbalanced. In most of my work, at the least, threat is in the air.

My mother once bought a painting for over a thousand dollars and then said she was going to place it in a safe. It was too upsetting to put on the wall. But it was a good painting, "museum quality" is what she said, and she wished to possess it. Only, she didn't want to look at it or have any of her friends look at it.

The human heart is a funny thing.

If I were to name one of the most joyful forces in this world I would say color. I can paint disturbing things in beautiful contrasts of color. Its a trick to the eye! Can you forget what the images stand for and be seduced and made happy by the color?

I think I like color better than chocolate. And I often crave chocolate.

But color and sex are a dead heat.

And lastly, I would like to add to this list of favorite things, my dog enthusiastically licking my face. She is limited in ways that she can say "I love you". But there is a purity in the love of an animal that has no equal, and injects straight into your veins, a wonderful lift of emotion.

I think that I could survive much sadness simply by the companionship of my faithful dog. She is earth medicine, life medicine, and a road to sanity. By simply being a dog she helps me to be a balanced human being.

Turtle Time

I would really like to get a turtle tattooed on my arm. On my inner arm, where the sun shines less and the skin is pale and thin and hairless.

My step-sister has a lot of colored tattoos and she takes really good care of them with sunscreen. One whole arm is covered with design. After many years the lines are crisp and the colors haven't faded. If I get a tattoo I'll have to put sunscreen on it everyday.

My step-sister's mother got a small rose tattoo on the back of her shoulder. She tans a lot, and the sun has completely destroyed the tattoo and it really looks awful. Like a dark smudge on her shoulder. So I've seen the difference between careful preservation and unthinking exposure.

There's a reason for a turtle, and a turtle on my arm. People wear watches on their wrists to see what time it is. Like wearing a watch, I want to be able to glance down at myself and know what time it is. Glance down, and remind myself, its turtle time! Time to remember to live my life as slowly and as deliberately as a turtle.

I've got an artist's pen and ink drawing of a turtle and it isn't a cute turtle, its an ancient looking turtle. Like a prehistoric dinosaur turtle. The picture says that this is a turtle with wisdom and hardiness.

The pace of society is simply too fast for me. When I try to enter the stream of normal social activity I get fatigued. Not sleepy, but emotionally drained. And after I get emotionally drained I suffer symptoms of schizophrenia.

I've been draining myself completely. Yesterday in the shower I was saying, again and again out loud, "dear God help me". When my husband came home from work all I could do is lie on the sofa and say "I'm sick. I'm sick. I'm sorry. I'm sick." He rubbed my feet and gave me extra medication.

I've come to the conclusion that I keep myself invested in living by throwing myself against a challenge every day. Usually that challenge is painting. I push my limitations and use all of my concentration on a project. I'm a person with schizophrenia who has trouble concentrating. Not all schizophrenics do, but I do. And frequently, I lack energy. So to commit myself for two to three hours most mornings to using the best of my concentration and decision making skills to paint is really rocking the boat. If I wanted to live safe and easy I wouldn't be making paintings.

It did not come natural to me being an artist. Over time its become important, but at first my true love was writing. I only started making art seriously when I was 28, oil painting at 30, and even then, there have been year long stretches when I haven't made any art and threw myself instead into a writing project.

My drawing skills are nothing special. My technique is fundamental and untutored. Do I get the medium of oil paint? Not naturally. Not intuitively. I'm no savant. I'm no prodigy. All I've got on my side is determination. I try. I try hard. Not the same kind of trying hard of an art student or professional artist because usually they don't have schizophrenia. I try hard as a schizophrenic. Someone who is thin skinned and mentally impaired. Hey, I don't shy away at that description. Its accurate.

There's a way that the owners of art galleries like to see their stock. The end product is what is judged. A work of art stands alone and is compared to other works of art. That's the way to run a business. They don't care to give you extra points because you are a schizophrenic artist. Unless of course your schizophrenia affects the creative process and the result is something outrageous to the eye. Being schizophrenic is like being Chinese. So you come from a foreign land they say. But can you paint? Does your background and culture get into your art, affect it, and make it look different from other art? Because what we are looking for, as gallery owners, is something that stands out from the average.

Turtle time informs me of a a lot of truths because I've got fixed in my mind Aesop's fable of the tortoise and the hare. The race that was run between the tortoise and the hare that the tortoise won.

The rabbit had all the gifts. He was a natural winner. Long lengs, long strides, abundant energy, easy time running, he felt confident. What in comparison did the tortoise have? The tortoise only had single minded determination. He had focus and willpower. He probably lacked humor. He was in a race where he looked ridiculous, against a being that nature had given all the gifts of speed to. Meanwhile, he was squat and short legged and carried a heavy burden on his back wherever he went. But he must have said to himself, "My God, I'm going to try. I'll set my mind on the finish line and let no other thought cross my path. I'm in a good mental space. I'm committed. Eventually, I'm certain, I will cross the finish line. I'm going to give this race the best of what I've got, I'm going to give it everything that I've got."

Meanwhile, what did the hare say to himself? It must have been all self praise. His greatest defect wasn't physical. His greatest defect was attitude. He relaxed and played and had none of the seriousness of the tortoise. How the hare must have laughed at his opponent! "You beat me, you best me, that's against the laws of nature! I can tell before we start this race who is going to win and who is going to lose. Silly tortoise, you are delusional. You shouldn't even try. For every one effortless bound I make, you have to make four painstaking shuffling steps. I'll be gone, ahead, and out of sight before you make the littlest significant progress. Eat my dust!"

Of course pride went before the fall. But what about the pride of the tortoise? He had just as much a strong ego as the hare. Remember, he pitted himself against a superior opponent. He dared to dream. Or else he set his goal singularly and committed every last drop of strength to that goal. He could not have foreseen the silliness and inconsistency of the hare. The one promise that the tortoise could make to himself and keep was that he would finish the race. That alone was a huge challenge. Maybe for the tortoise to come in second, just to cross the distance, was a win. He wanted to do something extraordinary, not perhaps win, just run the race.

If I get a turtle tattoo it is going to be in a place that I can easily see and it is to remind myself of a philosophy of life. Withdraw and hide when you have to. Keep it slow and easy. Stay committed and single minded. Turn a blind eye to the creatures that nature has endowed with special gifts. Don't envy them, don't be discouraged by their ability, just focus on what you can do and what you feel is possible. And sometimes, as Aesop's fable promises, you will win the race. The outcome is very uncertain, but as a turtle, it is your duty to simply give the race your best effort.

As a turtle, as a human, you will sleep well knowing that you have given life your best effort.

The only trouble with getting a tattoo is that I'm afraid of physical pain. For instance, I loath going to the dentist. I've fainted having blood drawn. And I've fainted having my knee examined. Kid you not, I was running regularly with my boyfriend and had a sports related injury. Just a heavy handed manipulation of a hurt knee cap was more than I could take. To say that I'm a chicken is putting it mildly. I have no tattoos, I don't know what I will be able to endure. It is best, therefore, to get a small tattoo somewhere else on my body to give myself a taste of what I'm in for. The worst thing in the world would be an unfinished turtle tattoo on my forearm.

Of course there are some tricks. I could drink before getting the tattoo or take extra narcotics. I took extra narcotics when I had my nose pierced and joked heavily with the fellow that put the needle through the thick middle part of my nose. We got along like gangbusters. Not much terror after the drugs, just flying high spirits. Alcohol puts me is a place of bliss too. I'm a very happy, floating kind of drunk. The problem with alcohol is that it interferes with my medication and for several days afterwords my mood is off, I feel fragile and depressed.

I'd have to really, really want the turtle to go through with all the pain. And I'd have to save up my money as well. I want a fellow artist, someone with natural illustrative skills, to put permanent ink in my body. If someone is really good, they are going to cost extra. Wouldn't you research the doctor who was preforming plastic surgery? See what his other patients ended up looking like? Yes, I want someone who has been making tattoos for a long time and has artistic ability that surpasses my own.

When I own artwork, I like it to impress me. I'd like to think, "I could never draw that turtle as well!"

Instituting turtle time in ink on my arm takes pause to think about the endeavor first.

To The End

Saturday painted for three hours. Painted blades of grass in four different colors and the combination thereof, two types of green, yellow and blue. Tiny brushstrokes. Places of sunlight, places of shade. Looked beautiful when I finished. Had to paint a section that was bound by other colors and textures - sky and rock surrounding the grass. A little slice of my canvass. But the whole little slice had to be done in one whack because there was the lovely process of wet paint blending with wet paint. Wait a day and the colors wouldn't blend right. Too much drying would have occurred.

After I stopped painting I felt dizzy. And I couldn't get out of bed. And then I binged on food. Couldn't stop eating. Had no willpower.

Sunday had a horror of painting because I had depleted myself so badly the day before. I compromised on Sunday - take a shower. And then again laying in bed, this time wet and nude, it took several hours before I had the energy to dress myself. The effects of the three hours of painting were still being felt even after a good nights sleep.

Monday painted again. And today painted again. But each time I painted in small bits, never exceeding two hours.

Will be busy with therapy appointment and a social luncheon the next two days, but when I return to painting I plan on painting again a large section of grass. Same colors, same brushstroke style, same consideration of trying to get as much done as possible while the paint is wet. If I don't finish my section, and I can't imagine finishing, the day after is free to try to get the section finished. It will be a two day push to paint while the colors are mixed, wet and blendable.

I would rather paint than go to therapy or go to a social luncheon with some nice people.

I'm all about focus right now. The painting is almost finished. This state of being almost finished drives me into a frenzy. A very quiet internal frenzy.

I've cut my therapy back from once a week to once every two weeks and I may try to find someone else to lead peer support so I don't have that obligation. I don't go to church anymore so that I can paint. The service is during prime mental focus time.

I'm terrified that if I whittle down my life too much I'm going to be lonely and bored. But I'm so driven to paint, every day I can't paint seems like an inconvenience, unless, the schizophrenia has taken over my mind, in which case, I just watch movies.

Paint, paint, paint every morning. Damn the mornings when I have other obligations and can't paint.

Evenings its my obligation to walk the dog, since we don't have a yard in which for her to run and play. But I like walking the dog because it gives me exercise too.

Paint and walk the dog.

Damn all other obligations.

Insanity Defense

I followed with horror the news from Norway when the bomb exploded outside government buildings, and then, the shooting rampage on a campground island. Now more information about Anders Breivik is emerging. Since he is in solitary confinement with only access to his lawyer, the information is filtered through the desires of the lawyer. This lawyer's paramount desire is that his client is deemed insane. He wants us to think that the way the man sees the world is distorted to a large degree, and from what I've read, it is. Anders Breivik is narcissistic and incapable of remorse or empathy. However, his behavior and crime was carefully planned over as much as nine years and other parties than his lawyer says that this cold calculation does not meet the criteria of someone who is psychotic. What fueled the crime, - hatred for a minority and self promotion, - or deluded state, an impulsive state, where the man is so out of touch with reality that he can't be held accountable for his actions?

It is my experience that sane minds distort reality. I have relatives who think that fossilized dinosaur bones were put in the earth by God to be a mystery to mankind, since the world is only so many thousands of years old as according to the Christian Bible. The dinosaurs could not have lived hundreds of millions of years ago because the earth wasn't around then. Actually, I don't know how old the scientists say the earth is or exactly how old the dinosaurs are, but I trust their scholarship. I trust that humans evolved from animals and were not planted in the Garden of Eden. But, like my fundamentalist Christian relatives, I don't completely trust scientists.

One of the worlds premier thinkers, Stephen Hawking, recently called the belief in life after death a "fairy tale" and he finds no science to back it up. Since I believe in life after death, having only some rumors and religious assurances (as well as the near to my heart case of my husband who believes some of his dreams take place in heaven) - having in short the flight of fancy of human brains to back me - I believe in the afterlife. I know I could be mistaken. But psychotic? Insane? For believing in heaven? No. At the worst I am mistaken.

So clear, rational thought is not so easy to attain as some would hope for. Deciding for yourself what is real and what is not real, with all the experts and voices of the world clamoring for attention, is a process. Picking your beliefs often depends on childhood experience, your parents, who in the news persuades you the best, and what your natural inclinations are open to. You were born with character and personality, little nuggets of self that wish to express themselves, and they do by influencing what you eventually believe or disbelieve.

I would purpose this further test case of the Norway man some are calling insane. If Anders Breivik were put on anti-psychotics I think that none of his view points, or outrageous claims would change. He would not view his actions with remorse and horror, he would not change his political views that his nation is being ruined by the immigration of Muslims, and he would still believe, that the best people to give him a psychiatric evaluation are the Japanese since they have, according to Breivik, the best understanding of honor. Put him on anti-psychotics and he would still insist that he be seen in court wearing a uniform of the Knights of Templar, and he would still refuse to have his mugshot taken. His cruel and absurd world view runs deeper than psychosis. Anti-psychotic medication does not have an impact whether or not I believe in heaven, whether or not I believe in dinosaurs, and whether or not I have a sense of what is good and decent and humane.

Gabby Giffords appeared recently in Congress to vote on the important debt limit legislation. It has been nearly seven months since she was shot in the head. Jared Loughner who shot her and killed others in his attack has been declared mentally incompetent to stand trail. The court has had some back and forth with the mental health facility Loughner is incarcerated in. Apparently he was medicated against his will, and while the prosecution believes that if he were medicated he would be fit to stand trial, a judge recently ruled that he cannot be medicated against his will. In one news article I saw that Loughner had been diagnosed as schizophrenic, and after reading his behavior in the courtroom (making meaningless remarks out of turn, rocking back and forth in his chair) I believe the diagnosis. This is a case where I believe that scientists. If they say he is schizophrenic this is a true diagnosis and he isn't merely being canny and imitating crazy.

I almost feel that the prosecution by demanding that he be forcibly medicated is hoping that the drugs can force sanity and Loughner will know regret. He will see reality. The victims will have some sense of closure that the criminal sees what he has done. If Loughner is psychotic, and incompetent, the implication is that he cannot comprehend right from wrong and he is at the mercy of random impulses. I wonder, does he know the difference between alive and dead? Can he name himself a killer? In psychosis, any belief is possible, and beliefs can change like the wind.

I've been psychotic. When you are psychotic one of the things you believe are lies. I know now that I'm not the Anti-Christ, I know I'm not descended from Buddha, I know that my eyes don't shoot laser beams that kill people, I know that I won't turn invisible, I know that all the nuclear weapons in the world will never be turned and target the moon. But when I was psychotic and believed these things I believed them with a deep conviction that would sometimes bring me to tears.

I think that the worst fear of the prosecution who is trying to medicate Loughner is that any punishment won't touch him. He's beyond the opinion of a jury, because mankind is no longer his peer. If you sentence him to death, he won't know why he is being killed. If he is really sick, you can put him in a jail and he won't even know that he is in a jail. I've met a woman in a hospital on a locked psychiatric ward who was trying to figure out where she was. Was she in a restaurant? Where is the elevator she asked me? And she thought she knew me. I was on a bus with her going to KMart to buy towels. She had just been brought in and wasn't medicated. A schizophrenic friend I have can't even remember her hospitalization before she was medicated. She was so psychotic the function of memory was denatured.

Since Loughner was medicated, and then rejected being medicated, it must have been unpleasant. I think that as a criminal he no longer has the right to rule over what is pleasant and unpleasant. But if I vote that he should be forcibly medicated because he has committed a crime, this opens a door for others to be forcibly medicated as well. As it stands you can forcibly incarcerate in a psychiatric hospital a person if he is a danger to himself or others, at least this is the rule in Connecticut. Incarcerate is different from medicate. And I know that doctors will lie to get a patient they think severly mentally ill incarerated. When I was hospitalized once the reason the doctors gave me for my being there was that I couldn't feed myself. This was a lie, I was perfectly able to find food, fix food. But they wanted me in the hospital and since I didn't meet the criteria of being a danger to myself or others they invented a false situation. Imagine the doctors pushing medication on a homeless person; is the homeless person a danger to themselves from being frozen to death? This is an easy argument. Most patients when they are told that they must take medication as a condition for release from a hospital take medication because they want their freedom. I took medication in part for this reason, but in part because my mind wasn't working properly and I knew it. The side effects from the medication were so horrible that I can't believe I stayed with the hospital's program. However upon being released from the hospital, it took me about six months before I realized that I had the freedom not to take the medication if I didn't want to. And I went off of it. I passionately believe in this freedom as a freedom along with a woman's right to choose abortion, freedom of speech and freedom of religion. How your mind works is your own business. Criminals should be locked up, and if convicted and freed, perhaps get mandatory medication injections. I was given the luxury to choose whether or not I wanted medication, and when I had horrible side effects, I bore these side effects of my own free will. It took seven hospitalizations before I took anti-psychotics at a level which would prevent further hospitalizations. I had to learn. But I was never forced. And life as an unmendicated schizophrenic taught me much about my illness and the necessity for medication. I didn't want to go into crisis after crisis - crisis is painful. The individual naturally wants the least painful existence.

I have a schizophrenic friend who upon hospitalization was forcibly injected with anti-psychotic medication and her memory of the event is on par with remembering a rape. She takes medication now-a-days, but it is of her own free will. Incidentally, she has three children and during the pregnancy was drug free. Most people can endure being schizophrenic and unmedicated, however, it is very uncomfortable.

As a person who participates in peer support meetings at a hospital, I've met newly diagnosed people who have just started taking medication. Almost all complain bitterly about their side effects. It is rare for people to take a psychiatric drug and have no side effects. I think that after a while you forget what it was like not to have the side effects, but this processes of acceptance sometimes takes years. I'm not being theatrical when I say that what I see in peer support, is people who suffer because they are taking medication. The reason they continue the medication (although some press their medication provider for change, or simply cut medication doses unsupervised) is that they have a memory of enduring a far worse fate at the hand of their mental illness unchecked. The medication makes life easier, even if they have to endure ringing in their ears, shaking hands, trouble waking in the morning, or in general, feeling the haze of alteration in thought, being doped.

For me I have not yet found the perfect medication. And I suspect it doesn't exist, because my illness, mostly negative symptoms, is not well controlled by medication. My illness is stronger than what medication can cure, and I can never be like the majority of the population in terms of what stress I can handle.

But getting back to the insanity defense. I have no problem with locking up an dangerous schizophrenic for life. Especially if they are not on medication. Schizophrenia itself will torment the criminally insane quite well. I think in Norway Anders Breivik will not be found insane, or at least, he will not be found to be schizophrenic. But I don't know. The important point is that he is removed from the general population and his will is limited. The comforts of life are limited as punishment. I suspect he is sane enough that he will go to jail and not a psychiatric hospital. Killers, despite how difficult it is for gentler people to understand, can be sane and rational. Point is they have no regard for the sanctity of human life. Emotionally they are horribly flawed, and they don't seem sane. But then I think about soldiers who kill the enemy. You don't call a soldier crazy or emotionally flawed for doing their job. People can learn to shut off their empathy, they can be made into killing machines, and the people who train soldiers know how to manipulate the mind very well. My husband takes great pride in how dangerous American soldiers are.

I hope Jared Loughner is committed to a psychiatric hospital. I know that hospitals for the criminally insane are cold, hard places and pretty much indistinguishable from jail. As penalty for his crime, I hope Jared Loughner is never released. There has to be accountability and restitution made to the victims, and I'm afraid that there is a little bit of an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth savagery in me. Good, innocent people are dead, and their loved ones suffer by their loss.

Loughner will know a crumb of peace if he ever consents to being medicated.

Unmedicated Loughner is as much of a monster as Breivik.

But I think the two are two different types of monsters.

Kitchen Refrigerator

Finished all the leaves on my painting yesterday.

The kitchen smells today. Waiting for a new refrigerator to be delivered. My husband valiantly tried to save some foods, but alas, most of it is going bad. Therefore the smell.

I woke at 3;30am and had difficulty with the anxiety of the refrigerator delivery today. Fell asleep again, but the refrigerator was on my mind. They were supposed to call last night between 6 and 9pm and give us an estimated time of delivery. No call. So the store we bought the refrigerator from gave us the phone number of the delivery company and I left a message first thing as I woke at 8am. Someone nice called me back. He said he was glad I called, there was some ambiguity about our address. They are delivering the refrigerator at the end of the day and my husband should be here to help. I have a feeling that if I didn't call, the refrigerator would not have been scheduled. As it is, it seems they are tacking us on last thing.

My worries? Having a stranger in the house. Missing the delivery and not getting the refrigerator until next Tuesday, the next time the store will do deliveries. My husband measured carefully but maybe the refrigerator won't fit in the spot we have in our kitchen. And is it clear to this mixed up company that they are supposed to take away the old refrigerator? Mild worries, really. I'm especially happy that I talked to the delivery company on the phone - now they have made contact they want to call me while they are on their way to be certain everything falls into place.

We lost a lot of food. Frozen food that had to be thrown out. The dog yesterday got two meat meals. But for some reason she won't eat the chicken we have for her today. Is she full or has the meat already gone bad? Don't know. The condiments my husband hoped would last are going bad, I can smell them.

I know most people don't stress out over a refrigerator delivery, but I do. Must be the schizophrenia. I couldn't paint today nor take a shower. Worry drains me of energy. It will be a bad blow to our budget if we have to eat out until the refrigerator gets delivered next week, should we somehow miss the window of today. We live on a tight budget.

It amazes me how much our lives depends on a refrigerator.

It amazes me how much worry can diminish and derail me. This is a post onset of schizophrenia change in personality.

My husband says that every day I live with schizophrenia is a victory. Recently on the internet I've seen news about a woman who a year ago was pushed into the shallow end of a pool and broke her neck during her bachlorett party. She was paralyzed from the chest down. Now, a year later after a lot of rehabilitation she is marrying the man she had intended to before the accident. I told my husband about the story and he said "see, there are other nice guys out there. Her fiance loved her and stuck by her."

I tell my husband he is one in a million for loving me and living with the way my schizophrenia limits me. The illness now is a little bit more stronger since I have dropped the Seroquil and increased the Geodone. But slowly I am losing weight, and this is what I want. The times when my head won't work properly and I am reduced to lying in bed have increased. On most days though I still have that window of clear motivated thought in the morning in which I can paint. My therapist says that some schizophrenics don't even have that, so I'm lucky.

I have a friend who is bi-polar who used to be creative when she was manic, but now with the stabilizing medication she says she has lost all her desire to create. So she misses her mania because she misses making art! When I think of all the deliberation and dedication and determination it takes for me to create, I think she can still do it. Only before it was easy, with the energy of mania, and now it will be hard. There is little said by art enthusiasts about making art as it being a chore, or tedious, or mentally draining - all things I find making art to be at times for me. But usually the end product, the end vision of loveliness is worth it. I'm nearing the end of a painting, just a few more months and it will be done, and I'm going to have a party celebrating its completion. Just a luncheon for two elderly couples from church. I've never done that before, thrown a party for the completion of a painting. Of course when its done I'll post the picture here, and I can't say that its my best. But it certainly has been a very long haul. Its funny, the picture isn't religious based, but the violence and sexuality is very low key.

Anyway, elderly people have seen it all, heard it all, experienced it all, they are usually pretty tough. I've got a high opinion of elderly people. They are my heroes. I don't think young people are as much fun to talk to as old people. Young people are eye candy. But the old people I know really have their heads screwed on straight. They earn my regard with their wisdom. And old people usually couldn't care less that I have schizophrenia. They don't judge, or if they do judge, their criteria for what it means to be a person of worth is a little bit different from the younger crowd, who still have star dust in their eyes.

My husband and I have had a talk, what would I do if I didn't make art? I think I would probably take the dog up the mountain for a walk or take yoga classes. But in me is a work ethic that says you should try to do something meaningful and hard at least for a little time during your day. I'm a better person because I make art - its not great art, but its real art. Probably this is my ego talking. I've got a big ego. If it weren't for my high opinion of how I ought to be spending my days, I would love to take the dog up the mountain every day. Beautiful nature and my furry friend running around like a lunatic with her tongue hanging out.

Sometimes I think about being a poor, little old lady. My husband dead, me living on a small income. And I think that all I need is a small place in which to make my art. I'll try to make art until I drop dead. It won't matter how I age, even where I live. I wonder how people plan for the end of their lives. It makes the scary future seem better knowing that you will have something meaningful in your life to focus on until the end. Loss, poverty, loneliness, a body breaking down on you - all these things could happen. I suppose I anticipate the worst. And then I think that I will survive because I have art.

I didn't have art in my life today, but I'm hopeful that it will be in my life tomorrow, and the day after.

I've just talked to the mover who is driving the truck that my new refrigerator is on. I got a weird voicemail from the store that sold me the refrigerator. Had to call and check that the plan didn't hit a snag. The store told me the man delivering my refrigerator is the best man they have, and he reassured me that he is on his way.

So maybe tomorrow I can go out and buy milk.

Leaves

Painted seven leaves on Monday. Worked for three hours to do that, my absolute limit. Had a full and exciting day and then became catatonic at night. Literally, couldn't move or speak, sitting on the sofa with my arms over my bowed head like I was waiting for bombs to be dropped on my head. My husband lifted me, dragged me, and dumped me on the bed. I'm just too heavy for him, he isn't being callous. Then while I was lying in bed he popped a bowl of pop corn for me and after I had worked on that for a while, he brought me a bowl of cherries. And before I could eat, before my evening medication kicked in and dissipated the catatonia he kissed me a lot.

Painted only two leaves on Tuesday. Felt extremely fragile. The big accomplishment that day was taking a shower.

No painting on Wednesday, had to see my therapist and lead the mental illness peer support group. Strange loss of focus and concentration, it felt like I was on the verge of falling asleep all day long. Drank coffee at my therapists, have never done that before, and drank coffee during peer support group in an attempt to be present and upbeat. Coffee kinda worked. After peer support went for a walk with Cherry Blossom in the dark, rather thrilling. She had just started chewing on my husband's camera and his computer memory chips (don't know where she got them from) and managed to save the techi stuff before any damage. But she hadn't been exercised for the day, and my husband and I believed that was the reason for the bad behavior. Our fault, bad parents. While we were out with Cherry we saw all the night life spilling out of the bars downtown.

Painted five leaves today. On each leaf there is a total of six different colors that need to be either blended or outlined, that is why a leaf takes so long to make. Working with two different sized brushes - of course the one that gets used the most is the tiny brush. The average size of a leaf is larger than a dime but not larger than a quarter.

Total so far; 31 leaves finished, 22 leaves yet to go. So I'm over the hump.

Got an email from someone who liked all the pieces from my Zyprexa period. Rather dismal to think that you are less creative on a different medication. Making stuff now that is less appealing to the public. But I was 5 dress sizes larger on Zyprexa with no end to the weight ballooning in sight - and I had a doctor tell me I would die early because I was so overweight. Diabetes, heart disease or cancer - something would come along she promised. Thank God I read on the internet that Pam Wagner lost tons of weight by switching from Zyprexa to Geodone. Thus I asked to be switched from Seroquil to Geodone. Any dose of either Zyprexa or Seroquil causes my appetite to increase to a point where I can't control it. Geodone is a weak drug for me, and it has become apparent that I need maximum dose to live a relatively normal life. This means episodes of schizophrenia that can be controlled with rest and relaxation, no need for hospitalization. The craziness comes, I withdraw from life as much as possible, and then the abnormality and fragility passes and normal thought, behavior, and strength returns. Geodone gives me a pattern of sane and crazy where sane wins, sane takes up more hours of the day.

I'm running out of my Geodone tomorrow. Started the process to get more on July 5th, tomorrow will be the 15th. There was a mix-up by my nurse, and now I am waiting for the insurance company to ok an increase in the dose. It means they have to sell me more pills for the same price. They don't like this, so they make things difficult. They ask for special authorization from my nurse, in addition to her ordering the prescription. Even after she gives authorization it can then take several more days to process. I told the pharmacist that I am schizophrenic and I get suicidal without my anti-psychotic and that I was scared of running out of medication. The pharmacist promised me pills to tide me over. So today I'll call the pharmacy an hour and a half before it closes and see if the insurance company came through. If not I'll walk down to the pharmacy and negotiate for extra pills in person. Its a private, family run pharmacy, so perhaps the humanity potential and client treatment is something a bit better than what you would get from a big chain store pharmacy.

Several days ago my husband was complaining that with a planned walk with the dog I wanted her to do a half an hour down stay in the park. Its harder for the dog to process a command when there are exciting things going on all around, and the park offers more distraction then training in the house. My husband started explaining to me how valuable his free time was, and that he didn't want to waste half an hour in the park. We negotiated; a twenty minute down stay, then ten minutes. I took whatever I could get. But my husband was still peeved and he began to explain to me what all the over time he has been doing translates into extra weeks worked at his job. It was a guilt trip. First time he's ever done that. I started screaming that I was sorry I couldn't work, that I was sorry I was dependent upon him financially, and that I was sorry he had to work over time so that we can pay all our bills. After the screaming, which came on rather suddenly, my husband realized that no amount of guilt he could put on me could equal the guilt and self loathing I already feel. So he calmed down.

And we took the dog for a walk. Suddenly I started thinking that it would be a really good idea to put a bullet in my brain. And I told my husband my idea. It was so impulsive and so compelling that if I had had a gun I would have done it. Life appeared too complicated and too difficult to endure anymore. We walked for about an hour and by the end of the walk the idea and the picture of a bullet in the brain had disappeared. I guess the endorphins of exercise cured me.

This episode happened while on Geodone. I loath to think of the episodes that would happen should I stop the Geodone.

And my husband said that he discovered that the ten minutes in the park that we sat on benches and made my dog do a down stay was really very pleasant. He called it "quality time". We had nice conversation, it was fun to watch the traffic go by. So he isn't adverse to doing it again for a longer period of time.

Fight

Had a fight last night with my husband. Waited in the dark on a sofa in the kitchen while he fell asleep on our bed. As always, I have the option not to go to sleep next to him, after a fight I don't particularly wish to be physically near him. The dislike after a fight is visceral, I feel my skin crawl with disgust should my body touch his. I feel free and at peace sleeping by myself in the kitchen. Sometimes sanity and peace is just having your own small private space, all alone, by yourself.

Today during his lunch break he drove home from work to apologize, said he realized that he had been a little rough on me. During this fight I said the least, while he got rather excited and heated and talkative. Sometimes I felt like I was being used as a punching bag. But I'm really good at withdrawing inside of myself. I keep very still and look anywhere but at him. I think giving him no reaction at all is a little bit disappointing to him, but I was tired and thought that things had escalated far enough. After I said how I felt about some issues I had nothing more to say. Your feelings are true, you feel them and they don't lie. Feelings can become exaggerated and balloon in importance or they can fade or die away, but they are usually very legitimate. I think in most fights we try to change the feelings of the other person. We argue and try to be persuasive. But I think you loose moral ground in a fight when you don't stop and respect the feelings of the other person. I think the more I felt disrespected and trampled upon, the quieter I got.

I woke this morning feeling trapped in a marriage. The thing about a marriage is that there are just some things about your partner that you can't change, and that you have to accept. You can remind, nag, complain and be critical, but if you are doing this all the time it feels pretty miserable. You turn into a miserable person. Reacting to your partner keeps you chained to them, you have to say "I'm going to live my own life and let him (or her) do as they please." Really, the only person you have power over is yourself.

A current challenge to me is to keep myself separate and don't interfere in parts of my husband's life. For instance, it is best that I have as little to do as possible with his relationship with his daughter who just turned 25. She's coming over to the house this Saturday and I might take the dog out to the woods or go to the mall by myself, just to avoid her. She's been critical of me and never apologized for the negative things she said. I also feel critical of her and don't wish to say anything antagonistic. I know that I would feel better if she were a less important and powerful voice in my head. My feelings toward her are about as confused and conflicted as any feelings I've ever had toward another person in my lifetime. It's my burden to work them out and to come to some peaceful resolution all without involving her. If I involve her the outcome is clear; I will get rejected and vilified. She's had an abusive step mother before me and thus really doesn't like step-mothers. I've got some cold comfort knowing that my relationship with my parents when I was her age was horrible - and it was mostly my fault for being immature and spoiled. And oh yeah, I was mentally ill and barely medicated. But life tempered me, I grew up, I got from somewhere the idea to respect your elders. Don't know where it came from, but it finally arrived.

I've had a week of making no art. Today I didn't feel like getting out of bed, so I drew in bed. Made a picture. Its looks pretty immature and primitive, but it felt good making it. I think my head cleaned up while I drew.

I'm really in sorry shape. My husband's co-worker went on vacation for a week, and to be nice while he was away, he gave my husband keys to his motorcycle. My husband has been having fun driving it. Today my husband is borrowing a second helmet from a different co-worker, and I know, he wants to go on a ride with me when he gets home from work. Problem is, I can't imagine myself putting my arms around my husband and holding on. It was really nice that he came home and apologized, but I still feel repulsed by him. Its a sunny day out and I could see us together going for walk and giving the dog her exercise. I don't mind his company - I just don't want to touch him very much.

I look forward to drawing tomorrow. Eventually I'll get up the strength to paint again. And eventually I'll forgive my husband.

I just need a little time, and a really simple, slow and easy existence.

Mispoken Words

I made a political, social, and emotional mistake. We were talking in mental illness peer support group about people having a fantasy that if they could just find a significant other everything in their life would be swell and they would be happy. I said, "I've noticed this fantasy in both mentally ill and normal people." And the worker from a group home (who brings her clients to group and has an illness herself) fired back "Everyone here is normal. Having a mental illness doesn't stop you from being normal."

I realized instantly my mistake. She was right, you can be mentally ill and normal. That is obviously the way she feels about herself, and I'm glad she has healthy self-esteem. However, in my mind there is this distorted perception that I am far, far away from being normal. Having lost so much ability after the onset of my illness (remember, I wasn't disabled before onset, I had a rich, complicated, on-the-go lifestyle in New York City) I felt like before the illness I was normal, and now I am not normal. Its been 23 years since the onset of my illness and I'm still comparing myself to the woman I was before and feeling ambivalent about who I am now. I don't feel normal. My husband is normal. My mother is normal. I rub shoulders all the time with people who are full of energy and capability - the exact opposite of my disability. But because I suffer everyday from symptoms of my illness (mostly negative symptoms) I don't feel normal. I know people without a mental illness go through instances of suffering (loss, chronic pain, loneliness, disappointment, disease, catastrophic acts of nature and criminal mankind) but it feels really, really weird when your mind fails you. I experience vulnerability and the inability to think, even sometimes, move.

We had dog training class this week. I found out that I was doing one the exercises wrong. Now I had worked really hard on this exercise. But in class I was focused and talkative and worked well with my dog on the new exercises that would become our homework for this week. When I got home I had a little meal and took my evening meds and then sat down on the couch. Suddenly I couldn't move or speak. I was catatonic. My limbs stayed in position, my eyesight was stuck looking at a corner of the kitchen. My husband had to pull me up and half carry, half drag me into the bedroom and position me on the bed. I fell asleep with my contacts in, too exhausted to make it to the bathroom to take them out.

Then at 4am I woke up, wide awake, with a crushing emotion. I had failed the dog training exercise, and life was too difficult for me. I wanted to die. I wanted an out of existence that I'm not up to facing. I felt like a colossal failure as a human being. I started crying and woke my husband up. He said he would go into work late to stay with me. But then he told me that if he did this, he would lose his overtime pay. I said to him I would take a trilifon (old school anti-psychotic) and klonopin (a mild narcotic) together and medicate myself. Once the medication started working I got very sleepy and went back to bed. When I woke I felt fragile but in a normal frame of mind, not hysterical, not beating myself up, the self hatred was gone.

I think the schizophrenia makes some of my emotions too strong. Things get blown out of proportion. I told my husband that there wasn't one person in dog training class that knew or could even guess that I had schizophrenia. My normal act was so good. But it took a boatload of energy to maintain the state of normalcy, and after the class was over my nervous system crashed, making me first catatonic and then hysterical.

My therapist says I have to detach from my emotions and watch myself experience them. He says that over identifying with any emotional state is not good. That the self isn't defined by any one thing - it is beyond definition. So to say, "I'm an artist", or "I'm a therapist" is dangerous because this is not the real you. Also saying "I hate myself, I'm a failure and I'm sad" isn't you either, and you have to detach. This is the latest advice that he keeps on giving me. Yesterday I said to him "so are you losing patients by giving them this advice, because what you are asking is a very difficult thing, I think you underestimate the power of mental illness and how real it seems" and he said that it was none of my business whether or not he was losing patients and that self is bigger than mental illness. Then I said, "Oh, you are asking me to pull a John Nash". I've read his biography two times and in it Nash claims that he simply using his rational powers made choices between was was real and what was delusion. "No, that's not it" said my therapist, "all your emotions are delusion." Which is a statement he makes about every time I visit, and I don't know how many more times I can hear it. I'm an emotional creature. So I'm to consider myself a false creature too. My therapist reads a steady diet of religious mystics, from all religions. Priests, self-help gurus, and nuns. All people who claim that they have found a higher reality.

And still, even after telling me he would do it that very weekend, my therapist has failed to bill me. I've been seeing him for over a year, once a week, for free.

I've got two good natured, big-hearted eccentric men in my life. My husband and my therapist. I guess I'm really lucky because life isn't dull. Fate keeps putting in my path the most marvelous, odd, special, under-the-radar people.

As far as my artistic path, I'm coming to a cross-road. I'm going to continue working on the oil paintings that I've been doing, and finish them all. There is one nearing a final stage, two smaller ones in beginning stages, and one that exists only as a precise drawing on paper. I figure I've got the next six months scheduled. But then I'm also going to work on paper. I've worked in oil for about 10 years and I can't do in oil the same expressive, free work that I do with oil pastels on paper. I'm happier with my strongest work on paper, and paper really lets me be more creative. For some odd reason I don't have the same hesitation and restraint about color when I'm working with oil pastels that I feel with oil paint. And I can't get the same effects with oil paint that I can get with oil pastels. I've had ten years to catch up with oil what I did with pastel and it never happened.

The consequences of changing from oil to paper are unpleasant. The gallery where I've shown my work was only interested in oil paintings, they didn't want any of my work on paper. So I might not have a gallery to show in. Framing works on paper, the correct way, with matting, is expensive. I don't want to make my own mats or frames. And I hate reflections in glass, I love that there is no barrier between an oil painting and the viewer. Then there is this - I'm going to have to "go to school" and relearn the techniques of using oil pastels. I'm not as competent and sophisticated as I once was. Yes, once I really rocked with oil pastels.

My friend asked me if I was bored with oil painting and I said yes, I was. So there is that - a new direction to spice things up creatively. Looking into the future I see having more fun. But whether I'll make things that are better, I don't know.

If you are having fun, shouldn't the end product carry in it some of your glee?

Hair Cut

The first thing the stylist did before she washed my hair for a hair cut was massage my scalp. Oh, it felt sooo good! I shut my eyes and let her fingers dig and move round and round. I haven't gotten my hair cut in probably two years, so it falls long down my back. It was too long. Or maybe it was simply too unstyled, wild and free. I started feeling like the crazy lady when I wore it down. I tried putting styling gel in it to make it manageable, and it tamed it a bit, but mostly I only felt comfortable when my hair was either up piled on top of my head in a bun or pulled back in a pony tail. A nice thing when its hot, exposing the back of your neck, but today it has rained, and yesterday it rained, and the forecast is for more rain tomorrow. What perfect weather to let your hair down.

I told the stylist to give me bangs, cut off two inches all around, and add layers. My hair naturally wants to curl, and with some pieces cut shorter in layers, there is more curling going on. I told her that I was thinking about getting it cut really short, a drastic change, but then, I might end up going home and crying. So instead, just a little shorter and I wait a month to see if short is what I really want. But the results of her cut were superb. I'm wearing my hair down and it looks elegant. Lots of waves. They are really afraid to give you heavy bangs so what little bangs she gave me (even thought I said as she snipped with the scissors "more bangs, thicker, heavier") get swept to one side.

We went walking yesterday in the rain. My husband's co-worker gave him an enormous umbrella as a gift, and my husband, me, and the dog in-between all fit under it. We cover the sidewalk. We did get a little damp, as the rain drips off the edges of the umbrella and down your back or outside arm. But we need exercise, and the dog needs exercise. That morning, having gone noplace because of the weather the day before, Cherry Blossom pulled a vine out of a plant, chewed it to pieces, and pulled back the edge of a large rug, chewing on the edge of that. I didn't get angry. She has to take her frustrations and her energy out some way. The dog trainer said dogs don't get ulcers from stress, they instead act out in bad or destructive ways. "A tired dog is a good dog" we learned.

Painted the body of a huge bug yesterday. Not the wings yet, they are going on last. The body has to dry before the wings. It had been a while since I had painted. But I do confess, I fell in love with what I was doing. It was so pleasant. The bug had already been painted once, but now, I was shading with the color, creating a really round and interesting form with patterns of light and dark. I'm starting to think that the more patterning of light and dark the better. I painted only a little this morning, being nervous about the hair cut. It is pleasant being so close to town, I could walk to my appointment. In fact, I can walk to the bank, the grocery store, the pharmacy, the library, the dentist, my physician, and my medication nurse. The only one who is a half an hour car ride away is my therapist. For a while he was looking at an office downtown, but it was in the same suite as his daughter's therapist (I guess his daughter gets therapy!) and he felt that that would be a little weird and infringing on her private space.

Tonight I'm going to have a glass of wine. Last night my husband wanted to eat at a bar (they serve good fried fish) but I nixed that idea because I had just eaten a large bag of popcorn and wasn't hungry. Told him he would have to wait a day to go out. Now I've skipped lunch, and I'm ravenous. My husband was disappointed that I wanted a small supper yesterday, but I said it wasn't my fault - if he wants to eat out he should call me from work and tell me not to eat anything. He keeps trying to put responsibility on my shoulders, at first he told me that I should be the one to call him for permission before I ate late in the day! I got mad. This lecture came after another little lecture that I should shout at him while he is going to the bathroom to go faster if we have someplace we are supposed to be - or else he is going to take his sweet time and read his book while he leisurely poops. Again, not my responsibility to nag! He's got to be responsible for his own hunger, his own bodily needs, and not have me interfering with them. He wants to be an irresponsible child and I'm supposed to scurry around and make certain plans fall into place. My husband is a dreamer and will naturally take the easiest course of least resistance.

And I'm not going to nag at him to train the dog either. He watches me put in the effort to train her, maybe he will get motivated through observation. Cherry will get trained, it just puts more responsibility on me if I am the only one doing it. In one instance, the trainer wants in a weeks time one hundred repetitions of a command with the dog. I ask my husband before he goes to work in the morning to do two. Just two. I know I can't ask more. I won't nag and make my husband train the dog. Bottom line is he doesn't care. He wants a dog that performs well and makes him look good, but he thinks somehow this will come naturally with Cherry's good nature and fine breeding. But it will come, I think, because of my hard work. I don't mind too much. My husband at his job is noted for being a hard worker, his boss values him for his work ethic and his willingness to be a team player for the company. It boggles my mind how the dreamy man I know can become so focused and motivated when he's on the job. I think the key to the success of my marriage is to give him freedom to follow his own blissful paths and private pursuits when he isn't on the job. So he works a 9 hour day to pay all our bills - is it so much of a stretch that I train his dog for him? Isn't that a small way of my giving back? Me who has just taken a day off from painting to get my hair cut?

After I got my hair cut, I was feeling so good that I went next door to a second hand clothing store. But this isn't any thrift store. A lot of the clothing has the original store price tags on them (shop lifted, I'm sure) and the owner has a keen eye for designer names. I'd say half of the clothing has designer labels that you would find in New York City, and the other half has labels that you would see in the mall. And she sells sturdy leather pocket books - oh she doesn't sell quality cheap. My best find was a black Coach leather bag. Thick, black leather in a timeless style. I'm certain her store does very well. The girls that work there know me. My favorite find is a cashmere sweater. She sells a lot of those, and you can't buy them retail cheap. People bring in clothing for store credit or sell on commission, she will out right buy what she is certain will sell. So people go into her store with clothing hoping to make some money. And they do. Its funny, you see moms and their teenage daughters both looking at the clothing. With designer clothing you can be just about any age to wear it. I bought a designer shirt that almost fits (need to lose a couple of pounds) and a shirt that fits perfectly and a scarf. As luck would have it, the scarf goes well with the shirt that fit perfectly. Happy coincidence that didn't even occur to me until I got home. And I spent half or a third of what it all would have cost in a retail store.

Tomorrow I'm going to paint some tiny horses. They are miniature but they are detailed, and I have to work from a photograph to make them seem realistic.

Roast Beef

We have a dog trainer. He said that for our first session with Cherry Blossom we should bring roast beef to class. He has seen a dog owner train with lettuce as a reward, but he wants to make a clear impact in one specific instance, so we are to bring the treats we normally train with and roast beef. Thus yesterday at the grocery store we looked at roast beef. The first piece I picked up cost $18! Found a cheaper piece, but we were puzzled over whether or not to cook it. My husband said no, I said yes, so tonight for my consideration we are cooking it.

Last week we met with the trainer without our dog. Been practicing our homework, although, since it wasn't demonstrated I'm a little confused over whether I'm doing it right. Doesn't matter, all that Cherry knows is that after I say her name, sometimes, she gets good things to eat. And while I'm popping treats in her mouth I'm saying "yes". So this is what the power of "yes" tastes like! Been working on sits, downs, and stay commands, even though this was not part of the homework.

The total power in Cherry's gaze when I give a stay command and step away. I keep our eyes locked and she is totally alert, waiting, for me to return, give her the treat and say "free". She doesn't really get the release command yet, she stays in place for extra measure usually after she's gotten her treat.

In order to emphasize our dominance, we are putting her in her crate while we eat dinner and feeding her only after we are finished. The first night we did this she sat in her crate with her back turned toward us! She dissed us! I said to my husband that this little exercise certainly made an impression on her, or else she would have just lain down in her crate and rested as usual. Ultimately, what we want out of Cherry is to go lay down in a corner of the kitchen as we eat our food. But since she really doesn't yet know the stay command, we crate her. My husband was in the habit of feeding her before he made our dinner, it was to his mind a soothing order, eating while knowing that all the chores were taken care of. He was so resistant to changing the order of who gets fed when that I had to insist upon taking the responsibility myself of feeding Cherry. So now I make her dinner after our dinner. I believe in the trainer's rational that this establishes dominance, and I witnessed the psychological impact it had on the dog. She has never, ever, sat in her crate with her back turned toward us! My husband worried that I would complain about having the responsibility to feed her, but I promised to never ever complain.

I'm afraid that most of the discipline in our house comes from me. It isn't in my husband's nature to discipline. I'll give you a shocking example. When his young daughter brought home a note from her teacher saying that she had not been doing her homework, he sent back a note saying it was his opinion that she didn't have to do her homework if she didn't want to. I have never, ever, heard of a parent saying that they sided with their child in not doing homework. I think that rather than confront his child, he felt more comfortable confronting the teacher! So if he cared so little about disciplining his child, imagine how little he cares about disciplining his dog! If there are to be rules in the house, not only do I have to lay them down, I have to enforce them. (His child had to do an extra year of high school because she was such a poor student. My husband has a genius IQ so he could do well in school and never study much, alas, his daughter does not have a genius IQ.)

Today I couldn't paint. I was planning on painting the body of a huge bug. Maybe all those shades of brown turned me off. My head wasn't in a painting place. I took a shower. Yeah! Score one for small victories! Then I took Cherry for a walk so that I could practice the commands outdoors where there are more distractions. Had some nervousness about leaving the house and pounding the pavement. A schizophrenic friend I have has trouble leaving her apartment too and simply going for a walk. She knows she needs the exercise. She knows that the area she lives in is green, safe, and inviting. And yet, twinges of paranoia. Unless I'm going someplace fun (like shopping) it is hard to step out into the world. It takes a pinch of courage.

Now that Cherry is bigger (almost seven months old!) my husband and I are going on nightly hour walks. The route we take is about three miles long. I know the exercise is flattening my stomach and helping me to lose weight. I'm still not back to the same shape I was in last summer when my husband and I were swimming for 50 minutes stretches and doing water aerobics, but close. Now we don't have the money for a swim membership and we have a puppy. What is helping me get fit the most has been dropping the Seroquil and adding more Geodone. My eating habits are altered. After I eat dinner I stop eating before sleep. My appetite is no longer stimulated by the evening dose of Seroquil, and even if I'm hungry, I can ignore it and stick to my diet.

My mom is 71 and very svelte, yet she eats tons of food. Its her energy level that keeps her in shape. She is always going, going, going. It shocks her how little I eat, and yet, I'm slightly overweight. I keep on telling her that I don't have her metabolism. My illness or the drugs keep me sedentary. I read, watch movies, paint, or cruise the internet. I don't have the mental energy to move my body around too much. Oh, there is a mind body connection in me. Tax my mind and I know my body doesn't want to move. Completely overtax my mind and I'm driven into catatonia.

Cherry Blossom is a challenge to me because we have no back yard for her to run around in, her usual form of exercise is to be walked. Last week the dog trainer asked us what was the number one method of keeping a dog well behaved. It was to exercise them, and not just walks! A tired dog is a good dog. He said walking a dog is not enough, they need to run, they need aerobic exercise. So I try to do the next best thing - give Cherry two walks a day and make them as long as possible. I recently read in a dog magazine that there is a town in Italy that will fine a dog owner if the owner does not take his dog for three walks a day. In my mind is a dreadful, powerful guilt over not giving Cherry the exercise she needs. I'm prompted, I'm harassed, and I'm chased by the specter of my duty towards my dog. And somewhere in this desire to give the animal the best quality existence is the happy knowledge that I'm doing my own body a good as well.

Cherry Blossom is keeping me healthy in big and small ways. My heart, as a pumping muscle organ, as a pretty metaphor, as the center of my existence, is strengthened by the challenges of loving Cherry.

New Monster Drawing

This is small, 8x10. I thought I'd color the monster dark, purples, blues and browns, and have the background yellow.

I sat with myself quietly today and yesterday before I did anything meaningful with my morning. I said the Lord's prayer, and tried to have a little conversation with God. It's about as close to meditation as I get. A while ago I had the practice good, time for prayer everyday, but then we got Cherry Blossom and my peace of mind was shattered. Now Cherry is 6 months old, we've had her for 4 months, and it is time to return to my former habit of centering myself emotionally in the morning.

Called my father yesterday to get his email address. He says his favorite paintings of mine are the monster paintings. So I wanted to send him an image of the finished Croc monster. We talked and he told me about a portrait convention he went to in some big city. He heard lectures and saw demonstrations. I sigh, because I live with so much isolation and I can't travel, can't summon the concentration to learn in a studio situation. I have no choice but to be self taught. My schizophrenia is so disabling, I have to live a closely scripted routine with brief jaunts away from the house. It is very much a "walk forth into the world" and then "scurry home and hide and recoup".

Part of my prayers are to accept me the way I am and not compare myself to others. I'm asking God for help in this. It simply hurts too much when I compare myself to persons without a mental illness. My Dad says he paints about 5 hours every day and that he heard this was an average for an artist. On an extraordinary day I'll paint three, but usually 2 hours is my limit.

Wondering how I would depict myself in a self portrait. Would take a photograph first, make a sketch, and then revise it by looking in a mirror. Rather funny, looking at yourself and then painting yourself. Tried it once in a drawing activity run by a painter at a clubhouse for the mentally ill. One eye turned out a bit larger and higher than the other, and as truth would have it, my eyes aren't level. But I don't just want to paint a likeness of my face, I want the portrait to have some inner psychological value. It is hard to say how me feels about me when I'm praying to God to accept myself as is.

I read a statistic that 60% of those with schizophrenia can't recognize their own illness, vs. only 25% of those with a schizoaffective disorder. My problem is that I'm too hyper aware of my illness. It doesn't work to simply orientate myself by calling myself an artist, because I'm hyper aware of being a mentally ill artist and I think I do crap work. It used to work when I was in my twenties, I called myself a student when I went to college and this helped me with coping with having a mental illness. It is death to the self to call yourself mentally ill and let that definition be the strongest thing about you - when I was in the hospital for two years the staff really tried to get me to accept that I was mentally ill. They thought that they were doing me a service by getting me compliant with taking medication for the illness. I knew that there was something terribly wrong with me, I couldn't read for instance, but I felt like I was a human being with the right to survive and exist.

I don't know why, at 43, I'm having such a difficult time owning my right to survive and exist. So I pray for guidance for a power that is greater than me, a power that my religion says is a source of love and acceptance and forgiveness. Am I having a mid-life crisis? Its about the right age for one.

This morning I woke early. I opened the bedroom door early. And Cherry Blossom kept trying to leap upon me, she was so excited that I was awake and out of bed. Her joy was infectious, and all the fuss she made was for the sake of loving me. What a way to start the day. With an animal that's crazy about you.

I think my life narrows down to my husband, my dog, and my art. A really simple life. I don't know how to engineer self-acceptance, but I think I can arrange for simple activities with times of rest inbetween.

I think that if you are aware that you have a simple life, living very much in the here and now, then you are likely to say to yourself, "what a blessing it is that I have a simple life." Thinking about the future, thinking about how other people live their life, thinking about what ifs and I wants is not living in the here and now.

The more fragile the person, the more important it is that they live in the here and now. Living in the present is a very rich place to live. Since I know that, in my gut, I've got something healthy in my outlook.