WHO WILL SEE MY PAIN?

Something of a cri de coeur here ... a page that arose out of an appointment with my arthritis specialist.  She told me that the drugs I'm on were working, and I asked why in that case I was still in so much pain?  Oh, she said, I can't do anything about your pain.  She repeated this forcefully about three times, just in case I hadn't understood it the first time.  I wanted to scream and shout "what use are you then?", but what I actually did was cry, real gut wrenching sobbing from a deep place of despair.  Maybe it was necessary that I got that out.  Then, there being no alternative, I picked myself up and got on with life again ... and gradually made my negative feelings into this page.

I think the prickly cactus actually represents the ever present pain, but I put it down in the corner where I can make it smaller and more manageable.  The butterfly is about rising above that reality, and my attempt to live a vivid and colourful life despite it.

I was thinking about the way I'd cried from the depths of my being that day, and how healing it had (eventually) been, so I made my lady into a clown of sorts - the kind who presents a smiling face, which is what I do.  The doodles across the corners represent the layers of my life that most people never get to see or understand.

But then the words came, and the cry from the heart that SOMEONE has to see and understand my pain, believe in how hard this journey of 26 years has been and is.  That's all I wanted; acknowledgement.  Its OK to say you can't fix it, but I need someone to recognise its importance and how it dominates my life.

The painted face and the bright colours are the face I show to the world - let's face it nobody loves a Moaning Minnie, so I try very hard not to be one.  That can be TOUGH.

So this page isn't just for or about me, its also for and about all those who suffer chronic pain but try to put a brave face on it to spare the people around them the realities of their daily life.  Its a cry from the heart to just now and again be seen, heard, and sometimes even briefly understood.

You have to have that to make it possible to continue ...
Rosie

PAIN ....

 

Its probably reaction, but I really haven't been in good shape this last week.  With Fibromyalgia, pain and its location is very variable.  At best its all achey and drags you down a bit, at worst it puts you to bed unable to move.  I've been somewhere in the middle, and yes I do think there's an element of being able to stop holding everything together now, and this is the collapse after the crisis, in the way some people get migraine after its all over.

Anyway, I was still working but slumped in a heap not exactly inspired or effective.  Splodged a blue background with acrylic paint, and was cutting up a children's book bought for 50p at a car boot sale.

Then when I'd done a collaged border - the simplest way I know how to work - I outlined it using markers and a purplish shadow.

Then here I began to add bits of doodling and the word "pain", which I'd actually cut out of an old journal page I'd photocopied - its fun to recycle bits of your own work that way, though I almost always want to make it different in some way.  I added a face to represent me hiding out behind the walls of pain. If you compare the collage elements above and below, you'll see how I've changed the patterns with doodling to make them truly my own.

After I'd added the writing, I went ahead and ruined it!  I guess you know that feeling?  I'd just run out of steam and rather hastily filled in the spaces with these zentangle doodles.  I don't really like them at all, and even contemplated painting over them, but don't have the energy so it will have to stand.

And yes, before you ask, I'm still over the moon with the wonderful news that himself's cancer is basically GONE.  Its almost too much to take in.  I guess I'd just used up my reserves back there, and need time (and my journal) to build them back up again.

FRIDA ... AND THE GELLI PLATE

  

While I was in Virginia back in May I bought myself a gelli printing plate, but have only recently managed to find time to play with it.  This page is the product of one of my early efforts - and I'm pleased to say that I managed to print directly onto a page in my (wire bound) journal, without needing to either extract all the pages or paste one in!  Success.

My first few experiments were on separate sheets, but eventually I had a go in the journal and was thrilled with the results I got on the lovely quality paper - I didn't risk best quality paper on the the first ones!  So anyway, below you can see what I got - I understood why I'd got the white patches (uneven pressure on the plate) but didn't care too much.  In fact what I did was use some yellow paint to sort of "fill in" the gaps.

But what I really LOVE is the pattern it gives on the paper (you do need to use plenty of paint). Don't know how to describe it really, but the close-up picture below gives you a better idea - very organic-looking somehow?

So then I had a gorgeous page in my journal that I couldn't WAIT to work on.  Black seemed like an obvious foil for the pink, orange and yellow and I started with a bit of collage in the top right corner and a picture of my heroine Frida Kahlo in the other.  Then I started doodling a black line around areas that seemed to be shapes in their own right ... and it sort of went from there!

In fact I go SO absorbed in what I was doing that I forgot to take any more pictures until I'd finished it, but at some stage I made the connection between the organic shapes I was working with and Frida and me .... so it kind of became about the little cells and bugs than are the unseen enemy (pain) and how you can find against it.

Because of course, that's why Frida is my heroine, because she did and she made art anyway even when she had to lie in bed and work on an easel which rolled towards where her hand was, because she could hardly move.  Now that's heroism!  Am not heroic but try to be brave in my own small way .... at least on my better days anyway!

NOT ONE OF MY BETTER DAYS ...

 

.... but I guess you can figure that out from the main word?  The thing that is hard to explain about pain is that it makes you kind of crouch around it, as if you could protect yourself from it by curling up - which in turn can end up with you clenching your teeth,bunching your hands and hunching your shoulders etc., thereby actually making things a whole lot worse.  Don't imagine me rolling about in agony, because I'm not and (thank God) the painkillers do mop up most of it.  But sometimes they don't quite get enough of it, and then it takes an extraordinary amount of energy to deal with it, and can be very VERY tiring.

I forgot to take the very first picture which would have been the page below minus the writing - I'd done a prepared painted background (my favourite activity when there's nothing I feel moved to say, but the arty urge is upon me) so the purple and the arty pictures were already there.  Then one day I just wrote the word pain in big letters, and it went from there. 

For some reason I felt the need to compartmentalise the page into areas - maybe I was trying to get the pain safely into a box where I could contain it?  Perhaps its that pain days draw big black lines through what I can and can't do with my day?  Possibly all of these and more, the subconscious being a funny old thing. Like the houses at the bottom which came to represent how I end up stuck inside and unable to go out.  Or the eye which I think is the all-seeing thing, where even though I'm hiding away wrapped around and inside my pain, someone sees and cares ...

It doesn't take a genius to figure out why the decorative bits are somewhat jagged - and if you're interested the white is done with my rather nifty Posca paint pen.  I didn't think this was much good until I tried it on a painted background, whereupon it worked brilliantly and much better that it does on neocolour backgrounds!  Lesson learned, and I promptly bought some more colours.

And here it is finished - it doesn't SAY a lot, but it says enough, and something I needed to get down on paper.  There aren't too many days like this, for which I'm profoundly grateful, but I wanted to record for myself what it feels like when those days come.  I guess it isn't too self-indulgent, and genuinely belongs in my journal with all my other experiences, reflections and recordings, as part of my life.  Even if I do wish it would Go Away.