Category: Lupus

Therapy Review: Permission to Speak

Posted on by F.Magdalene

Holding out for MoreI saw my psychiatrist today. We talked about the suicidal feelings. She asked if I feel suicidal at the Kingdom Hall. I said no, I feel like I can make it one more day. She and my psychologist suggested I stick close to the brothers and sisters. but especially try my best to be there in person.

I know my attitude stinks. I’ve got to pray much more about that……

Dr. D and I are taking on an art project where I let my body speak. Often I form experiences and emotions on canvas but they’re from my head. They’re all but photographs of my mind at that time. The rather large therapy painting will be a painting where body expresses itself as it goes through medical changes.

Imagine not speaking the language of anyone around you. Pictures are all you’ve got to tell how you experience the world, the world where there is only one person, one physical being. Now that body has to try and free itself of silence so that bitterness is released. It needs to speak and I can tell and I have a feeling this assignment will be very emotional, humbling and beneficial. I think I’ll have a sense of freedom. I think it’ll give me relief.

A moment of self talk

Continue reading “Therapy Review: Permission to Speak”

Art Therapy in the Etsy Shop

Posted on by F.Magdalene

Weeds - Original Art TherapyI paint with my heart and all but bleed on canvas. Painting is a powerful way to release anxiety and thoughts that pound my skull. While art as a whole is therapeutic for me, there are certain pieces that were created specifically as therapy with my psychologist. As I thin out the amount of art in my home, I’d like to make available on a continued basis, some of the art pieces created during my therapy sessions or at a later time.

As I said, art therapy has been one of the most powerful tools in my healing process. I can’t explain to you the relief I feel knowing that some of my abuse memories have lost their sting when I was professionally guided with the tool of art therapy.

Continue reading “Art Therapy in the Etsy Shop”

Landfall Abstract Ocean Scene

Posted on by F.Magdalene

This entry shows art two art pieces with a purpose. Rise, fall if I must. Stand to meet the challenge. What’s the challenge? I’ve got to get a hold of my stinking thinking. I have to change my outlook one single color at a time if necessary. While writing I felt a sense of urgency and desperation. I could all but see myself at a door grabbing the handle and pulling it, ripping at.

Lets talk more about the art at the root of these emotions.

Landfall

Landfall

Creating non objective abstract art started with a self challenge in June of 2014. I really wanted to create some of the beautiful art I was seeing, but it didn’t think I had it in me to do that type of art. When I first challenged myself I said I’d do 10 paintings. I wasn’t looking forward to it because it was as if I had no idea where to start, let alone know how to finish.

Though I’m still learning, I can say I have left behind the anxiety. I enjoy it creating non-objective abstract art. I find it soothing to create and I actually feel I know when to start. As a matter of fact I start non-objective abstract such as “Landfall” the same way I begin other art, with a single stroke.

I don’t think too hard and I sure don’t plan ahead. When it comes to art, if I plan ahead then I’m planning for a disaster. I start art with one single stroke and go from there. I paint from the hip…..not literally because that would be uncomfortable. My next challenge with abstracts is to paint them larger.  Continue reading “Landfall Abstract Ocean Scene”

The Master of My Ghosts

Posted on by F.Magdalene

There’s an old, half blind dog lying on the porch. That old dog is me.
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His daytime howl is common, almost a fixture in his home. He growls at shadows and charges falling, dry leaves as though they were a personal attack on himself and the dilapidated house he protects.

He can hardly see. He doesn’t hear clearly or process like others. This old dog with half an ear and legs born lame, feels so far removed from a living thing that even the softest touch can in an instant turn from intimacy to biting distrust.

Continue reading “The Master of My Ghosts”

DID. Anxiety. Art.

Posted on by F.Magdalene

away 2 fmaI was thinking about how many doctors have told me my body is resistant to treatment. Hearing that in my head made me think, well, if that’s the case then I’d better get to moving along before this treatment is rejected. At this time I’m able to leave the house. This treatment allows me to be 50% of who I used to be, which gives me 50% to work with until my body rejects it.

I’ve been switching personalities quite a bit lately. I have such strong feelings of uncertainty. Strangely enough, my schedule is more stable than it’s been in a long time, yet my focus is off, my ability to concentrate and complete one task is difficult.

Salt fma

away 1 fmaI scheduled a tea party with Red but forgot Snow is coming over that day. I do need Snow’s help. I need help getting my bed made and getting some laundry done.

I got out for a walk the other day and found some more moss for my 12 x 12 moss garden. I’m having a blast doing this. I like to watch things grow. I have grow lights.

Anxiety is intense right now. I want to get up, get my drawing pad and scribble some. I want to lay in the fetal position and rock. I want to go deep in my head where it might be quiet and where this anxiety isn’t so intense. Continue reading “DID. Anxiety. Art.”

Artist’s Thoughts – This is me 2

Posted on by F.Magdalene
Sunset Dancer by SUNDRIP - 2010
Sunset Dancer by SUNDRIP – 2010

As some know, this body of mine dictates if I will move or lie still. Due to a permanent nerve injury to my right arm, I can be limited in action, including holding a tea cup, a cane, paintbrush and pen. In addition, my eyes are growing dim. Strength in several areas of my upper and lower body have deteriorated. Even so, I have one other activity to discuss in which I participate.

I’ve mentioned my love for yoga but in private settings I’ve spoken more. I love contemporary and lyrical dance. I am my own dancer. I have set music that I do yoga stretches to. From there I began to move free-form. Once I realized I’d tapped into something deep in my bones I began to wear a free flowing skirt. I removed the toe from medical compression stocking and moved about joyfully. What do I enjoy? The feminine movements, turning yoga into a dance and doing so not in sweatpants and workout clothes, but in a flowing skirt with “dancers feet” (black compression hose). Sometimes my hair is down but other times the dreadlocks are in a headdress.

In this video, followed by a comment to the choreographer, you can see this style of contemporary dance and lyrical dance. Continue reading “Artist’s Thoughts – This is me 2”

Like Girls Do – My Face My Art

Posted on by F.Magdalene

To combine art scribbled in black ink, inked in with deep blue, crimson and yellow can be sobering. To add these art pieces as a collage over the face they affect was to show that Lupus is more than what you read on a blog. It’s more than the art itself. It’s not pretty. What this collage says for me is: for many, Lupus isn’t written so clearly on the face.

Like Girls MFMA

The digital collage is made up of the following art pieces.

Bruised Reed – Redbubble

In the collage called “Like Girls Do” there is a piece of writing that says in part:

Years of laughter and chit-chat captured in cards and letters with flowers and smiley faces like girls do…… half cursive, half print promises that nothing…. under a cardboard lid with edges worn and weary of holding our secrets, the last….. “

While the original art pieces are available in my Etsy shop or via PayPal, the collage is not for use or sale. But, don’t worry, I’m getting there. The writing is on the back of work in progress.

Faith

Please respect the copyright and Please respect the art’s wishes.

A Month of Strings 1

Posted on by F.Magdalene

This may look familiar. I’ve had it forever. “The Tin Man”. He also reminds me of a puppet on strings and the need for freedom. From what?

Tin Man - is still available
Tin Man – Available

From the things that wrap around pnd me. I feel tangled. I feel lost, pulled in several different directions, floating above unstable ground. MY HEART IS BROKEN and I can’t seem to make it stop hurting.

Go here and get twisted around so you’ll feel better and, less pain.

Go here and for this doctor’s magic.

I just want to see my therapist again. I want to remember his face. I saw him in person today but he was so blurry. I couldn’t see him.

Continue reading “A Month of Strings 1”

A Month of Strings 2

Posted on by F.Magdalene

I’m still trying to come to terms with the health scare.

Patience - unavailable
Patience – unavailable

I micromanaged every move for fear it would be my last. I thought about a journal I’ve lost touch with, a girl who wrote about the “indignity of death.” How is she? Where is she? I cleaned my room because no one should have to clean it up. I started to take out the trash but I was tired. Then I thought, if I won’t be here tomorrow I should turn off the heat, ya know? I thought about doing my hair then realized it wouldn’t matter. I never thought, I need to throw away this or that so no one finds it.

Continue reading “A Month of Strings 2”

Some Things Aren’t Easy to Look At

Posted on by F.Magdalene

Ariel knew d1 They just aren’t, some issues are so frightening that even in the line of the sun they are still pitch black, still frightening.

When I painted this child, I did so with full knowledge that she may not sell. I have a problem though, I can’t paint gentle art if that’s not what’s inside. So I did what I do. I painted what I know.

Little Ariel knew it would rain. How does a person with Fibromyalgia and /or Lupus know it’ll rain even without turning on the weather report? Our bones tell us. The pain level shoots up high. Our eye sight is affected. Our fingers, lips and toes get cold. The pain level shoots up so high and so fast that it’ll double the body over. What’s interesting to me is that I’m caught off guard every time.

I hold my side. I’m bending down, seconds from loosing lunch, but it hasn’t clicked. I don’t understand what’s happening to my body. When I try to get to the car I see its sprinkling, raining or even light snow. Now it makes sense. Finally I realize the weather system has changed  and that has affected my pain, my complexion, fingers, lips, eyes and my ability to think rationally. It’s as if I’ve been sucked in and can’t see my way out….  but not so fast. I can see my way out. Continue reading “Some Things Aren’t Easy to Look At”