Friday, August 12, 2011

cease and desist


Today I am realizing as Mary Chapin Carpenter so aptly stated..."someday you are the bug...and someday you are the windshield". I am sleeping more than a hibernating bear...and still feel exhausted from the mono. I am realizing many things..I am not as young as I think I am...I need to slow down and pace myself much like a sweet tiny turtle. The goal is to finish the race on my own pace... the goal is to take tiny baby steps and strengthen my spirit. Art Saves Lives and I am the proof that working in the creation of sacred marks is the best medicine in so may ways. I listen between naps to Jane Fonda on CNN about the third chapter of her life. Life reflection has provided me a tiny bit of insight to guide my own journey to the last decades of my life with those I love. The studio is my retreat...I am not invisible and I have a purpose to get up and out of bed ...to make my sacred marks for whatever number of days I will walk on this earth. Remain calm and remember to pay attention to the smallest of details. This is a lesson to develop and edit with each morning...the gift of the day is the real present to my heart.

I am on my way downtown to straighten and reorganize the week's process. Our computer is providing us with new challenges ...that is a polite way to say "I really do not know what is happening right now...?? I am working on catching up with my Inchies and will present three on Monday for your review. Ken had a small little portable book printed of my journey with tiny art process. I am amazed when I review the pages I realize how baby steps really can make tiny improvements. I have my hospital appointment next week with my research Lupus specialist and will plan to have the brain specialists take another look at my healing/changes /progression. This should keep me out of trouble for a little while :O).

Have a great day in your studio today and remember me in your frustrations in your process...we are not alone...it just life so as my dear friend Jane told me..."Just Deal with it!!!"
Imagine and Live in Peace. Mary Helen Fernandez Stewart

Monday, August 8, 2011

Blue Monday....









I am heart sick about the loss of our beloved servicemen in Afghanistan this past weekend. I do not understand ....well any of this. The young families left without their beloved spouses and the children left without their fathers. I would love to reach out and comfort them...but my prayers will have to do for now. Please Lord above us all ...please allow this Hell to come to an end. War is never the answer ...I pray for Peace.

I am not involved with the world stock markets ( I do not have any money to say) so today just seems to make everyone watching the news...all around the world very unsure and uncomfortable. I am a fairly simple woman who attempts to pay her bills and find a way to give back to my community through volunteering in my humble limited manner. I buy my needed clothes from second hand shops and Goodwill...some of my students from YES are now working there. I picked up my 14 year old car today....the bumper shield needed repair, the driver's window needed to be put back on track and the rear end light needed replaced... so I might be able to drive it for a couple more years. I have very small savings...nothing like what the financial wizards guide us to save for a rainy day. I pack my lunch most days and there is nothing wrong with a peanut butter/jelly sandwich on whole grain breads. (Day old bread at that!) We have been to Michigan for a friends wedding and when I arrived home on Saturday and Ken picked up our week of mail...I received notification that I could not volunteer for Curious Kids on Tuesday at The Works tomorrow at 1:30 to 2:30. 60 minutes of simple drawing techniques with a splash of watercolors. You see the retirement board sees volunteer work as a JOB...even though no pay is exchanged! If I help someone at Hospice work in Art during their last weeks...this is a JOB not a volunteer outreach. If I help the library with a reading program...volunteer ...no pay... this is a JOB! If I give an hour of art making with children on a Saturday for the "Art from the Heart" with the Licking Memorial Hospital...this is a volunteer JOB with no pay...it is all teaching! I could lie....I could pretend to ignore this nasty letter...I could "volunteer at a call center to prevent people from suicide attempts..." this was the volunteer work the advisor told me I could volunteer for...today I could have taken a flying leap. I shared with her that I went into a very deep depression when I lost my job at the Licking County Arts and found happiness when I opened my studio last August. Making my ART ...visible for all...with a futon bed in my small office when I needed to rest or had heart palpitations or irregularities... a visible place that I pay for and finance myself to MAKE ART! I am so hurt...angry...lost ...feeling a BIG bully who controls my health insurance in their mean little hands. Mean people suck! I am working on a letter and will probably have to hire a lawyer so I can (...that costs real money...) to appeal to their good sense so I can remain sane and avoid another severe depression.

We did find a real sense of serenity in the woods of Michigan. The wedding went smoothly and the giddiness of the bride still can make me smile. My photos have inspired me to paint in watercolors the beauty of the wilderness. I will share some from time to time...and hopefully some of my impressions of Michigan's brushstrokes in the woods and the many vineyards. The people and the animals and the lakes were superb...no TV either so my blood pressure was a real low healthy number.

I have a confirmation...I do have Mononucleosis but I do not have a strep infection. I am overly tired and have swollen glands that are like golf balls in my neck. maybe that is why I have been crying all day..being sick and a bully advising me to cease and desist from offering free demonstrations or guidance to little children for an hour. Can you tell I am really angry??? Hopefully tomorrow will offer a new solution to my dilemma...I do not ask for much but I have worked for almost 24 years to educate myself in the life of an Artist so why can't I share with others. Peace be with you! Mary Helen Fernandez Stewart

p.s. Check out the Guerilla knitting in downtown Traverse City, Michigan!