A few more tiny details and the African American clown with red dreadlocks, who hosts birds in her hair will be complete. I’ll photograph her, seal her and add her to my Etsy shop.
The African girl clown is wearing white speckled overalls with shimmering maroon sleeves. Her hair is red dreadlocks with sporadic yellow, purple, blue and green dreadlocks. The younger August is painted white with the edges of her African American face still showing.
Her full lips are painted red. The nose is designed and painted red. Our little one looks straight ahead with big, brown eyes surrounded by blue clown eye shadow.
Striking are the large sunflowers the August child stands beside with her birds. A huge, white Gerber daisy and huge green leaves huge the clown and make her feel better.
Finishing “Awake” took much effort but it is here, reworked, beaming with color and striking details.
Bellow are my comments.
I woke to a new existence somewhere unknown, they called it a stroke. Now words come like slow snails, or they are kidnapped so as not to form on my chapped lips.
I painted the emotional roller-coaster I felt as I played tug of war with my body, emotions, speech and interpersonal relationships. Ultimately I felt lost, defeated and misunderstood. I also thought I’d never paint again.
Grueling therapy and persistence with paint brushes helped me get to the point where I can say I’m awake. I’m awake to what has happened and the I’m happy the hardest part of it is behind me. Awake is about surviving the body after stroke and making it my new home.
You will find more images and a short video on Etsy. I also accept PayPal.
Thank you for letting me talk. Thank you for visiting SUNDRIP Art for Life.
I intended to keep the colors brighter like always, shockingly bright, but this time darker colors felt right.
The rainbow was given a darker red and a mustard yellow stripe in a midnight blue sky. The clothing of the figures is in plum, dark red, green and blue.
As I worked I realized the high amount of frustration and anger associated with feeling like a freak; feeling broken if not shatteted. Line after line I drew myself shatteted for the last time! I will not do it again.
I felt so hidden behind the lines, even hidden from myself. I’ve described being a multiple like looking into carnival mirrors. It’s hard to know who is who. Well, I may not always know the who but I do know The Way.
I need hope too. I don’t feel hopeless but sometimes I feel like I’m in prison here. I wish I could leave. This isn’t my home anymore. However, I can’t just up and go in the middle of the night – won’t up and go like that. I’ll move somewhere safe, clean. One thing is for sure, there’s no more peace here.
The painting will be in the shop very soon. Check my Etsy.
This is about the stress and pressure from people telling me what I should be doing and me having a hard time finishing projects. Slowly but surely they are being completed, this one too very, very soon. –
Sometimes I feel like a freak but I try to hide it.
I try to blend in.
Say the right things, the right way.
I want to hold my face in the expression allowing emotions of the moment to show, balancing them on my brow and tongue like a real live woman.
I’m not normal. I’m not and the effort it takes to be, exhausts my tired spirit.
Sometimes I feel lost.
I’m lost
as ink scratches on
9×12 pads
roads and hills,
lands of dramatic color and wonder.
With each stroke of the pen to paper you hear the symphony of my madness.
There’s stress in the ink, acrylic and experimental designs. Stress to do it your way.
Many years ago I painted with a computer program. I painted stroke by stroke instead of with filters, making each line very personal. I printed off postcard art and offered it under my name, Sundrip. It was many years and many experiences ago.
Recently I found a stack of the post cards in an old box and began doodling on them. The Advocate came about, so did the idea to continue to mark up, up cycle and alter my own art piece.
I’ve created a section in my shop called Face It. You’ll find just a few original postcards offered for a short time and the altered Face It pieces. The piece that’s in there now is called The Advocate. It’s different from the original in that the colors are deeper, the walls are fuller and if they could talk, they’d have a lot to say.
Here’s the original postcard art from 2007.
Introducing The Advocate in 2024
The Advocate
A figure stands on a purple platform looking down. Purple is used to advocate for domestic violence, Dementia / Alzheimers, Fibromyalgia, Lupus and other systemic illnesses. The platform symbolizes the person’s difficulties that he or she must face. Who will speak?
The postcard is original art by me but there will be many altered Face It Postcard Series pieces. Each will be a one of a kind.
I’ve written several paragraphs only to erase them. I’m emotional and all over the place only to come to rest on afraid. I’m afraid.
The way through will be long and arduous.
I don’t feel so good.
The man and his company who called me pious and lion likehas been fired. Knowing I hate water he said I’d enjoy two showers a day and that the caregiver would need to daily check my skin in the shower for possible skin infections. He would be the one to take me to the grocery and pet store, not the caregiver. If he didn’t want my case he should have just said so. There are over 700 companies in my area I can call on for care, seven hundred. The thought of that man returning makes my skin crawl.
Beans. I’m on a bean kick again. Legumes are my friends.
The Psychiatric Service Dog will be about $17,000. Everyone is on board with the idea of me getting one. I’ll start looking into grants soon.
I hope to paint soon, too but Covid is kicking my butt. No changes either way. Today I tore up an orange juice spiked with coconut water. Very refreshing. I later had a chicken thigh, fresh fruit, cheddar cheese and a slice of avocado.
My bblood pressure has been all over the place, dipping way down. My body temp even dipped to 96.9. I’ve sweat like nobody’s business! This is crazy.
Poor Joe has been alarmed. He’s sticking very close.
He’s such a good guy even when he smacks me in the head with his tail.
My mind will catch up with me if I turn over and go to sleep.
Grief will catch up with me if I allow my mind to slow down.
I’m afraid of the images that are so vivid even with my eyes closed so I watch worthless TV shows and listen to books I’ve heard more than the author has heard it himself.
I feel myself running. I’m afraid of being left. I hate hanging up the phone after therapy. I hate when my CNA leaves for the day. I feel alone in the world when people leave. It’s not that they are leaving to go home, it feels like they’re leaving me.
My face is different all the time.
I see my different selves in photos.
My appearance drastically changes as the day goes on.
It takes so much mental and physical energy to leave the house. When I return, I look swollen and tired. Seriously, these two photos were taken hours apart.
I often do not recognize myself in the mirror and that spooks me.
On days when this is happening I go in the restroom with the lights off, and keep my eyes down so I don’t catch the eyes of the person in the mirror.
I recently looked at more photos of my mother and her sisters. You can tell we share blood. I don’t mind clearly being from that family. Years ago I started getting ok in my head with having my mother’s hands. It feels like it should bother me to look so much like that family but it doesn’t. I suppose it would be another story if they were dog-butt ugly.
Art
I like to play with light on my face. I often want my face to be my art, expressing different emotions.
Photos after dental surgery (and with a filter) allowed me to show how my heart feels bruised and beaten by grief. It’s not just grief for -K-, it’s grief over the catastrophic consequences from the selfish choices my family routinely made when I was young. It’s grief over decisions I made as an adult trying to survive my past.
Sometimes these things feel as if they consume me.
*No worries. These photos are from past dental surgery. I’m 100% safe and healed, as seen in the recent photos at the top of the entry. *
I sold a few paintings.
I sold the little girl with the balloon
and the one about faith. The funds will go towards my trip at the end of June. I’m hoping to really fill my Etsy shop in hopes of making more money for my three day stay. I’ve also updated my Redbubble shopthat offers prints and products of my art pieces.
It’s 2 in the morning. I have things to do tomorrow but being alone in the dark is hard.
My head is no better than when I started writing. Please, I need peace inside.
I keep sighing. My heart is heavy but I keep trying to lift it up.
The fatigue is insane.
I’m learning so much about how OCD affects my life and how it affected my mother and sister.
I don’t know why I keep thinking about my father. I remember his voice was kind and sweet. I don’t want to be angry with my mother for separating us. It’s foolish to entertain what-if scenarios but what if one of my parents loved me.
I say my mother didn’t love but I’ve got to retract that statement. The more I learn about her mental health the more I think she had love for me from time to time but was unable to most of the time. There were many things I can point to now and see a shadow of normalcy where love could have existed. Somewhere in that shadow she may have been capable of loving me. Sometimes there may have been a spark.
I bet my mother battled depression after the divorce. I remember feeling like a failure after my marriage ended. Is that why she cried so often? Did she cry because of the divorce and the loneliness?
It’s hard to say she may have loved me while knowing the extremes she went to in order to hurt us.
She lied and told me my father was dead when he wasn’t. Now I wonder if what contact she had with him in my younger years.
Like all my other family photos, my father’s photo is tucked away so I can’t see it. There are no family photos on my walls at all, just art.
Our family of three left a restaurant together. While in the car my mother told me and my sister to “freeze, it’s an emergency, don’t move.” She said look straight ahead and don’t move. After about a minute or so she gave the all clear then said, “That was your father in the car next to us.” It was cruel.
I’m tired. I’ve got to sleep very shortly then get up and eat. The fatigue is heavy.
Original Art
This piece has changed significantly. It now reflects dissociation and PTSD. It’s currently listed in my Etsy shop.
This is more Chatter Art. It’s art that I do to better manage the incessant talking in my head. I’ll put this in the shop too. It’ll be in the section for journal art.
The above is complete and ready for the shop. It too is chatter art. It feels great to finish art pieces. You can see more in my Etsy shop. 🙂
I have a restart button hanging on the wall so if things really start to go down hill I can hit the button, take 5 minutes for breathing exercises then get back to life. I got the button from Dollar Tree.
I added moss to small, up cycled glass containers to make small worlds.
This one has been up significantly longer than the globe. I love how the moss keeps reaching up. I also adore the child figurine.
In the background of her terrarium you might be able to see vertical driftwood with moss on it.
The glass lid is on but not permanently sealed. She has springtails.
These globes are perfect for moss! Total love!
I’m overly cautious when working with it because I’d be so irritated if I dropped it upside down. I can see the disaster in my head. Lol. No sudden jerks or bumps, please.
The globes are going to be fun to landscape with my supper tiny terrarium supplies.
Once the ecosystem is more stable I’ll add a small figurine, a boy this time, then close it up. It too will have springtails.
These are some of the art and creations offer locally, only.
“At the end of the day we can endure much more than we think we can” – Freda Kahlo
The art piece deals with loss and grief. The largest figure holds tombstones in her hair, and her tears roll down into a heart. Those are some of the details in this small but mighty original art piece.
After some breaths and a lot of hot tea, I was able to get this original work in my Etsy shop. There’s even a short video. Please visit.
