Sunday 11 October 2015

Life is haaaaaard. :(

via quickmeme.com

IT'S BEEN A WHILE, HUH!?

Well, things have not been easy since July. I've been busy moving for the past 2 months, and even though it's almost over, It's STILL NOT OVER. I've been very lax in getting work done - even though my work was recently featured on Cult of Occult's European version of "Five Degrees Of Insanity" and also on VHOD's upcoming "Dreamcleaver" cover.  Actually, I'm really excited about those albums, I'm ecstatic! And very grateful to Cult of Occult and VHOD, especially.

My problem is with myself and my circumstances lately. To be able to move in to the next house, we were told over 3 times "Oh, definitely by.... [blah blah blah]" just to have it rescheduled again. I know this is not an exact science, and things don't always work out when so many different parties are involved, but I'm by nature a pessimist so I find it hard to see the good things (which DO exist, and very clear to anyone who isn't me!) in it. But I can deal with that. No prob. I was able to find a way to get to Canada to visit my fiancé Corey (of Dramatic Situations renown...heyoooo! Free endorsement!) for 2 weeks that I would never want to say "didn't matter." If I could, I'd fly up there again in a heartbeat. But I don't have the money. I love my Corey to bits! I miss him terribly.

And you know...those things can be gotten through. I know how petty I can sound and I take some things way too seriously that shouldn't even merit attention. And I want to publicly thank my brother-in-law Jason for allowing my family to house up in his house for such an indefinite period of time while we wait for our new home. And this time I actually have an Internet connection! I work on the internet, so it's kinda necessary. (Before anyone wonders - no I don't have a smartphone, I have a $25 flip-phone because I'm cheap and I don't have an iPad because that crap is too expensive. I don't have a laptop either. So I can't work "on the go" or away from home. This time however, I do have my home computer set up here. So there. And again, thank you to Jason!)

So no, nothing I've brought up can't be gotten through, it just really tests my patience. I don't even have patience to begin with, so... yeah.

But this last part is the worst, the most exasperating and even frightening. I woke up almost 4 weeks ago unable to feel my left hand, or at least part of it. Now, this happens a lot, to more people than just me. Wake up from sleeping with an arm in a weird position, and you'll wake up sooner than the arm does. I'm old, so I have blood pressure medication that tends to make all my extremities fall asleep pretty fast if I don't move around enough.

But the difference is that this hand and its numbness (which would usually go away by nighttime) is still numb, almost a month later.

I can't use my left hand much. The last two fingers (pinky and ring finger) are absolutely numb. They're alive (I only know because I have to keep touching them in order to make sure they're still warm and have some blood flow), but they don't work. The other three fingers are extremely weak, I can barely hold onto anything without dropping it a few times. I'm sitting here now typing with my right hand and my left index finger, because that's all it's good for (and it takes a while too).

In fact, the entire arm is injured, the numbness radiates from my hand to near my elbow, and one of the triceps is pulled very very tight. I've seen 2 chiropractors so far, and apparently I have a pinched nerve in my neck which needs to be relieved. It causes something similar to what's called "ulnar nerve entrapment" at the root of the nerve, between vertebrae. And it's the same reason my other (right) hand has had numbness in the past. The problem with this is that setting nerve tissue right again doesn't keep it from being just as swollen or inflamed as it is already, so I'll need to go through some process of rehabilitation for a pretty short time until that nerve calms down - AFTER the cervical vertebrae are set properly again (somehow...surgery?! I hope not!) and the spinal nerve can breathe again. That may take about 2 weeks alone, from what I know.

credit & thank you to "wp" and the boardofwisdom.com

So, essentially I'm just really pissed off that all this crap is happening together at the same damn time. First world problems, as usual. We still all have a choice whether or not to piss and moan, so I'm exercising that choice now. I know I'm usually fortunate and that all of this can be fixed, but at this point the only answers I've gotten for anything always amount to "hurry up and wait." So... I'll wait. If I'm absent from the interwebz for a while, this is why. (I mean I've been pretty absent for 2 months or so now - it won't seem any different.)

So, yeah. I hope I can get back to work soon, as I'm not making any money. And anyway, I MISS PAINTING! I had to pack everything away, but still haven't used it since June. At least my right arm works, that's the dominant one. Fuck yeah, one right thumb up!


ANYWAYYYY....I'll see you later, peeps. Love you all! - jen


Wednesday 5 August 2015

Recognition



AGAIN! Always good to know your work is appreciated. Thanks to Creative Monday (@creativemondayz). GO FOLLOW THEM ON TWITTER!

Sunday 31 May 2015

FOR YOUR ENJOYMENT (and mine)...I decided to make a You Tube channel!

Haaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy!

"PearlyWhites"©2007.

I'M ALIVE!
It's nice to be back, I was having some downtime due to medicinal/physical issues (that I'll address soon) that make it impossible to work at all. But, I've been feeling pretty okay over the weekend. I realized I hadn't told you about my You Tube channel. Well...I have a You Tube channel! YAY.
This is the most recent video. The pathos and the glory...

I've been uploading for a little bit, not long. I only have 5 vids. Partly because I'm just tired with still visual art on its own, and I just feel like playing around.

Or (God forbid!) I'm trying too hard.

I realize this is a medium I won't use much, and even though this one -
- makes it look like I'm trying to be "edgy" - I'm not. I'm not edgy at all. This one actually has a backstory that wasn't too fun to live through. One day I'll explain. Until then, enjoy what's there! 

Thanks, love to you all!

And a final ¡Adios!

Tuesday 19 May 2015

I'm working on it...thanks for your patience.

Hello...I know it seems I've abandoned my work. Still having not just multi-tasking difficulties, but mental ones as well. But I'll be back like the Terminator when I'm able! It's shouldn't be long. Thanks guys, I do appreciate your patience with me. :)

Monday 11 May 2015

Multi-Tasking Difficulties, Please Stand By...



Personal problems, brain problems, scheduling issues, issues in general, money problems, exhaustion, insomnia, pervasive boredom, case of the Mondays, spread too thin right now... you name it - I have it. I've been taken by WAAAAAAAAMBULANCE to the nearby ER for immediate caffeine IV and free pacifiers. For multiple reasons - not excluding procrastination or "going completely blank" creatively - I have not posted in a long while here, but I'll be back! I swear! Thank you for putting up with me and my "issues".

In the meantime...maybe check out this place! http://provokingdrama.bigcartel.com
Enjoy!

Thursday 26 March 2015

Friday 27 February 2015

The Loneliest I've Ever Been: Three Minor Paintings

Oh, insomnia. How I loathe you. For as long as I can remember I've always had trouble sleeping. Every time it happens, I always feel like the only one awake in the world, or like the last woman on earth. Until recently, I used to have to get up around 2am or so after lying in bed for hours to paint (since my studio is also my bedroom, for the last 18 years). So it shouldn't be surprising I'd choose to paint my inability to sleep, just to exorcise that demon from inside me. 

Unravel ©2001, acrylic on canvasboard 16"x20"

This one, "Unravel" is the first. It was finished in 2001 but was a memory of a horrible night in 1999. Seen from above (if you were floating by my ceiling) it's me in the bed I still sleep in, crying. I'd just heard "Unravel"by Bjork on my stereo (with headphones, in reality) - the source of the green light. The words were sad but simple, like the music. The hard part for me was the funereal sounding organ at the end. It was heartbreaking. When you're in bed at night with no hope of sleep your brain will imagine the worst things...and the song only made me think of death, and the deaths of those I loved so much, leaving me more alone than I felt even then. So, the title of the painting is named after the song, repeating in my head, over and over.



Sleeping Pills Don't Work ©2006 acrylic on canvasboard 20"x24"

Six years after painting Unravel, nothing had changed! No surprise to me, really, but looking back on how sleepless I've been since I was in high school (and I'm 40 now), how have I survived? Holy crap. Well, same subject, different view. If you were part of the wall beside my bed (in the same scene from above in "Unravel") this is what you'd see. Me, sitting up in bed, my little mini-stereo on and shining green light in the gloom, my blue windows in the background. "Sleeping Pills Don't Work." The clock on the stereo says 3:35 (am), but the 5 is backward...just to demonstrate how slightly otherworldly and fundamentally wrong everything feels during a night when you can't sleep until sometime shortly after 4 in the morning. It's terrible and lonesome. Almost dreamlike, due to the sleepiness that (paradoxically) won't let you sleep. And neither will sleeping pills.

Summer Insomnia. Typical. ©2007 acrylic on canvasboard 16"x20"

Another year, another insomnia painting. Monochrome this time. "Summer Insomnia. Typical." Same bedroom scene as the previous two paintings, different perspective, head-on. Summer is when my sleeplessness is at its worst. Sometimes it's the heat, or the sun going down too late in the evening. It's probably a self-fulfilling prophecy by now. In the darkness I can only ever see one bluish-black color, since my old mini-stereo is gone now. So, no green light in this one.

These three paintings were not hard work, and it shows (to me). The further down from "Unravel" you get, the less the paintings seem to hold themselves together...from the backwards "5" to the slanted walls of the last painting. By this time, I had no more patience with insomnia and its absolute-aloneness. The paintings themselves were not art for art's sake at this point and more like continued exorcism that just got more frantic and impatient as time went on. I don't have as bad a problem with insomnia as I did before...my doctors have been able to drug me enough so that I've ben sleeping pretty well (sort of) since 2013. Still, that's a long time. A lifetime of restlessness, slowly and finally giving in to sleep.

Friday 2 January 2015

All Ties Severed Clean

"All Ties Severed Clean" ©2003, 16"x20" acrylic on canvasboard

Well, the title says it all. It's the perfect New Year's celebratory painting for me, cutting all the ties that dragged me down along the dry desert dirt in 2014 from this year onward. I know not everything will allow itself to be cut away (like my sister's death, I'll bear that burden until my OWN death...), but so many drastic and GOOD changes - if things go fairly closely to what's been planned - are on the horizon. December, even though it's the month I was born in, always seems like the small hours of a dark, dark night. New Year's Day is the sunrise after that oppressive dawn. I'm looking forward to this year! I hope it's the same for you all as well. Onward and upward, all ties severed clean.