So here I am trying to do Sitting Down activities

Well that means mostly working on my laptop here in my garage/studio. I suppose I ought to try to just call it "my studio" but I keep saying the garage. It's just that it has a huge pull up door opening the entire front wall (as it were). Not that I ever open it. It's got stuff leaning up against it and one mono print stuck on the door. Today I managed to clear out all the drawers of my Ikea plan chest
(it's only A2 size!) and has six drawers , which aren't that deep , probably about 2 inches or 5 cm. Anyway each drawer was filled with a miscellany of paper works etc. So I emptied each one up here on my huge worktable, which is in the center of the studio. I then began to sort them out into piles. Completed works, image research/resources, prints to complete, blank paper, 'chine colle' sheets.
I decided also to label one empty drawer, as a place to stuff things into !!



Tomorrow I am going to prepare my artist's book, to send to an exhibition in South Africa. It's to be a selected exhibition so of course I hope I get selected otherwise it's £20.00 down the drain plus the postage costs there and back. They are publishing a catalog, so if I do get in, then that would be really nice as well. Seemed worth the risk. On the whole now my policy is to only submit for projects that are publishing a catalog and showing in a gallery of good standing. Having said that I may now and then, enter works to shows that have a theme that I can not resist or that are fund raising for a cause close to my heart. I have already done quite a few of those.

I actually have been in so many exhibitions that i cannot remember a lot of them. That would particularly apply to when I started out.

Better finish now as it's getting close to "lights out" time.

Heres a lovely print I came across recently.

I will be featuring more of her works on my tradigital blog soon.

Continuation of the Leg Saga

I can't remember where I left off yesterday evening, though I think it was that I ended up admitted to the local hospital. It must have been about 9.30 or 10 by then. They gave me some tablets and I can not remember now how I slept though I think I did eventually get to sleep. The pain in the nerve in my left leg continued on and on. This made it extremely difficult to find any position comfortable and of course they had those funny pillows that are seemingly full of air. One gets used to ones own pillows!.
The next day the 'doctors' came around on their ward rounds and repeated all of my details and case notes in front of me. They seemed to conclude that I was a case for "pain management". I wasn't too sure what that meant except that perhaps the doctor who was a pain management specialist, who I had been seeing previously in their 'out patients' department, might be contacted and come along to see me. It was all a bit vague. I think it is awful when you are in hospital in that you become powerless, like a child. You are dependent on others doing things for you. Of course, they all seem to mean well and promise to do this and to fetch that but they rarely return or seem to carry though ones wishes.

I got the impression that they were overloaded with work. I could not get to see the particular pain consultant, I don't know why even though I tried to find out.

As I lay there, in pain, it seemed to me that really all that would be done now is that this pain consultant (R), would just increase my dosage of the new drug he had recently put me on and that there was no real reason for being in the hospital as far as I was concerned.
I tried to get R. to come and see me, but got nowhere. It was frustrating as I just wanted to get discharged. But all to no avail so I resigned myself to the fact that I was in there for another night. That turned out to be just as well because I had a terrible night and couldn't sleep because of my pain and discomfort.

The team of nurses who were on that night shift were a more mature bunch than the previous nights which may explain why one of them the charge nurse gave me sleeping tablets at about 1 am and again then when I woke at 4 am. Having an old woman sleeping opposite me who snored exacerbated the situation but eventually I got to sleep.

The next day I waited again for R. to appear but no show. However it seemed to be on the cards officially - that I would be released. Some doctor or other must have signed some bit of paper that made it all OK. Eventually I was able to leave at about 2 pm.

Time for another picture as a form of relief from all of this hospital administration.





It's by Mimmo Palladino, I can't remember where I came across it. Its a print and I dont know its title or its technique. What has just occurred to me is that I have abook called Mimmo Palladino's complete graphic works - so it is probably listed in there. I shall look sometime.

I came home from the hospital still in heavy pain but of course being human, I hoped that it would lessen. And the hospital had given me a huge amount of tablets.
These were mainly paracetamol, which apparently is supposedly good for neuralgic pain. I have only taken it when I absolutely needed it.

This being on top of my usual medication. There are loads of these paracetamol tablets left now in my kitchen drawer.

Amazingly by Friday morning the heavy nerve pain in my leg lessened - I was almost afraid to believe it or to tell another soul in case it came back. I admit that I did touch wood several times.

having said all of this - this episode has rendered my left leg weak and I now have to get around with a crutch. I need to sit down as much as I can and keep walking and standing to an absolute minimum. This was the case with my situation before this "episode" but now this policy HAS TO BE ADHERED TO.

Heres what's really been going on with me lately

For the last 5 to 6 weeks, my condition (scoliosis) has really "escalated" for want of a better word. I have been in a lot more pain in my lower back and my leg nerve pain has been having a "field day".

Then about 3 weeks ago or just under that, it hit the high notes of extreme pain in my left leg. The whole "friggin" length of it. It was unbearable and I was beside myself with the pain. That started at about 11 in the morning. I was in tears an just kind of groaning/shouting in a caveman like fashion by about 1 o clock and C. said "maybe you better call the doctor” so I did.

When I phoned my doctor I got a message telling me that the "system" had changed i.e., now us patients were to phone something called "NHS Direct". This is a nationwide service, with a national phone line. I explained my situation and they said they would pass on my case to the doctors there and I would be phoned back. Weird huh............ By about 3.30, still in an absolutely miserable state with the pain, I decided to phone them back and had to explain my case again. It was getting to be like when you phone Epson or Applemac to try to get something done, and you get a different person each time and you have to repeat your details and so on. But given that that’s absolutely frustrating enough if you are trying to sort out your printer, well I mean when you are in the state I was in with like nerve toothache down my left leg...well it was farcical in a kind of sick surrealistic way.

Trying to cut the story short by 7.30 pm, I got to see a general practitioner at the local hospital. This was in the "NHS Direct" GP area (only for those with appointments!) I only had to wait 6 and half hours for that though. Like so that was great wasn't it.

I kid you not, I explained my situation to this bod and he banged my leg here and there with a rather nasty looking all metal hammer and his final conclusions were that "really there isn’t anything that I can do for you"

WHAT..........................

I burst into the most deep guttural tears of disbelief and despair. I had not really cried tears like that for years and years.
Upon which he proffered that perhaps he could phone his colleague an orthopedic specialist, and we could see what he thought.

This chap, whose name I cannot remember came along fairly quickly, he had a mumbling session with the other guy, asked me a few questions. Said that I should be admitted he'd have me x-rayed straight away which wouldn't take long and get me up to the ward as soon as possible so that I could be given some pain relief. And sort of asked if would that be alright with me. Ha Ha Ha.....from one extreme to the other. The oddest thing too, was that while all of this was going on, my pain level went down just the tiniest bit on the Richter scale, though it was still pretty awful - its just that it wasn’t at "screaming" level anymore.

So there I was, with one of those prisoner like, white gowns put on, that tie at the back, and hoisted onto a metal trolley.

I am actually quite tired now so will continue this tomorrow.

Meanwhile here’s a picture to cheer us all up

I came across this image, a monoprint by Gail Bos, which I find to be delightful.



I found it on the website of Monotype Guild of New England

Works on Metal by Anne Beresford

Just loved this piece, which I came across recently, by Anne Beresford. I did have an email from Anne, following my enthusiastic response to her works on metal but due to yet another computer crash, this has now "disappeared" !!.

It's that Sarah Hopkins....again....now Where have I Heard that Name Before ??

You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You You know when you keep coming across a name of a person and you can't always figure out how you know of it, or where you came across it before, well Sarah Hopkins was a case in
point.
Earlier this year I came across her "again" on Facebook. I had had to join Facebook previously, in relation to accessing some information on an arts opportunity and had an account there for a while before I actually started "rooting about" on the website.

Being a printmaking "nut" I looked that up and hey presto came across the "I love Printmaking" group, which is where I came across Sarah. There are a few printmakers on there making work that I like and this piece by Sarah is one that I particularly like. Its a collagraph, apparently, just glue and cardboard she said when I asked her about some technical info. It turned out that we had both been previously invited to be in an exhibition in Spain, which eventually had its funding pulled, so that show never happened in the end.

Having said that the guy who originally invited us Jaime Rodriguez did co ordinate an alternative exhibition at a place called Casa Duro in Asturias, which I did participate in. The website called "Kaosart", is, I find , a bit chaotic, in that for example iI could not find a link to the exhibition we were in . It was called Semantica. This project was mentioned in an earlier post in my blog.


p.s. I have just realized that the "I Love Printmaking Group", is only accessible from within, i.e., you have to be a member to see it.

Anika Murray

I recently came across Anika's work and rather liked this piece of hers in particular.