The Broken Leg diaries

2009-05-20T10:32:00.000-07:00

This is one of a series of Diptychs I am working on. The working title is The Yellow Dog series cause there Yellow Dog visits each canvas and observes the bewildering activities of us humans.

FINAL INSTALLATION

2009-05-14T23:47:00.000-07:00

For those who could not attend the open studio here is the installation:

POSTER FOR THE OPEN STUDIO

2009-05-03T21:25:00.000-07:00

I put this together as a poster, perhaps to sell at the opening, but also because I thought it might be cool thing in and of itself. I have a wall in the studio with 35 of them. I posted a photo of it earlier. I think I will continue with the grid made up of smaller pieces, there is something that has always appealed to me about them.

35 little pieces on a wall

2009-04-29T17:33:00.000-07:00

For Pascal

2009-04-07T20:38:00.000-07:00

Pascal forgot his cigerettes when he last visited before going off to China for three months, so this would be from his point of view, here in lovely New Mexico...

Fish

2009-04-07T20:33:00.000-07:00

Another telephone call doodle...

She picked what she imagined

2009-04-06T18:41:00.000-07:00

Well I have been reading a lot of fantasy fiction while laid up, so I guess it is getting into the work.

Museum Goers

2009-04-06T18:38:00.000-07:00

I like the idea of paintings in paintings, or the interaction of an artificial reality with an artificial reality. I am going to play with this idea in some more paintings.

clown

2009-04-06T18:33:00.000-07:00

Nothin much to say here, doodled it out durring a phone conversation, painted on it later. looks nice in my black mock up frame.

Three, vs3, when horses fly, etc

2009-03-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

The last few days work.

out and about

2009-03-29T19:57:00.000-07:00

On March 26 we got 6 inches of snow, Jill was out of town so I did my second walk in the green belt. Did not go far or fast, but it was good to get out see just how mobile I can be.

The Final Bill (more or less) Rant.

2009-03-27T09:18:00.000-07:00

Well, I was doing okay with the doctor charging me $5500 dollars an hour for an hour and half operation, but today I got the hospital bill and I am frankly disgusted and outraged. Come on, $8000 dollars for a metal rod and 6 screws! $7600 for anesthesia,
$2300 for drugs and pharmacy which I barely used! They say the problem is the insurance companies, I disagree, it is the providers, and while the insurance companies may be the enablers of this insanely cost bloated medical system, to me it feels like an ethical (or lack there of) decision on the part of those providing the services to charge these enormously inflated fees. Well, if I don't qualify for the financial support this may be the straw, or more like the elephant, that breaks my financial back. With our house upside down, me not getting any traction on my credit card debt and now this I see little reason to hold on anymore and believe I will somehow pull a rabbit out of my magic hat and start moving forward. Add to that the recession is killing both my art career and my long established carpentry business. I am just flummoxed by how one group of people taking care of our essential medical needs charge amounts that we by doing our work that make their world possible can't pay them for their services. It has been said before, but something is terribly wrong with the medical system. I heard one story where a bicyclist crashed her bike in the middle of nowhere, an innocuous not that out of the ordinary kind of activity. She broke her pelvis and had to be medi-vaced out with a helicopter. A reasonable fee for a couple of hours work? $3,000? $5,000 maybe. No, $38,000 just to get her to the hospital. What was the profit margin on that I wonder? So at this point this broken leg cost $35,084.00. The good news is if I had been paying health insurance for the past 30 years, (since Medi-cal was gutted by Reagan) I am still ahead. That would have cost me $75,000.00 at least, and I still would have with a $10.000 dollar deductible, be owing $25,000. Maybe it is time to pack it in move to a civilized country?

Introspection with Hardware

2009-03-25T17:35:00.000-07:00

Went to the doctors today. Looks like in two weeks I will be taking up swimming to work on keeping my muscles up and my joints loose. The Hardware looks cool, they gave me the jpg files that they now use. we don't have the hospital's bill yet but this little bit of invisible artwork cost about $9,500 so far. We were introduced to yet another source for covering the cost. Next week I will be making apointments to get these applications in. Wish me luck!

Where I want to go:

2009-03-23T19:12:00.000-07:00

This begs the question: How can I speed up the healing of my bone? This was sent to me by James, thanks.

FOUR VS.2

2009-03-23T14:25:00.000-07:00

This is more like what I have in mind for this series...

THREE, VS.2

2009-03-23T14:19:00.000-07:00

Still just working on creating a stage here.

The Screaming Banshee is at bay...for now

2009-03-22T19:39:00.000-07:00

Things have progressed that I can sit for hours without pain, as long as I keep my foot at least level with my seat. Up from 9 to 5, painted most of that time, well about half. I feel very connected to the work, like something unexpected might come of this. Too bad it took a broken leg to get me to sit down and take this seriously. Seems like I wanted to but then I would have been off riding today if not. My little camera is not great at photographing this kind of stuff, seemed the DSLR did better, but it has bum lens. I am also limited at how elaborate a set I can do. (I have dismantled the bum lens from both ends, seems the broken part is in the middle, so it remains stuck at wide angle. Today I am happy.

WORK STATION

2009-03-22T16:23:00.000-07:00

FOUR

2009-03-22T16:20:00.000-07:00

THREE

2009-03-22T16:18:00.000-07:00

TWO

2009-03-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

I got an idea to day to do portraits of Jill's salt shakers, she has a large collection. Well they will need environments to dwell in so today I painted three, or started them. "ONE" may also be finished.

ONE vs2

2009-03-22T16:10:00.000-07:00

Home of the screaming Banshee

2009-03-21T16:31:00.000-07:00

See the indention in the upper third of the leg, just above the ankle, kind of in the middle of the triangle formed by the staples? There is a groove running up the leg from there. That is where the banshee lives that I all too often awaken.

one

2009-03-21T16:17:00.000-07:00

So the set up worked, this is about an hour into the first one, tomorrow when it dries I will add color and see where I take it. Yeehoo, I am back.

OK, so this is not going to be as much fun as I thought

2009-03-21T12:59:00.000-07:00

I have not posted for a few days because just exactly what can I say that is new and inspiring about the screaming banshee that lives in my leg every time I get up?

The good news is that over the last few days my supplies arrived, I got em unpacked, and I have experimented with different locations around the house and yes there is a way to proceed that is not so painful. (sitting at a table, foot up on another chair, good cushions on both). It does require rearranging the studio though, and frankly my muddled mind forgot about the work table buried under the canvases and paintings. So this morning I set to work on that. I can only go so far before I have to take a break, but I expect to have a place set up where I can work at least an hour a day soon.

Working off my bed did not work out, too messy, I love art, but living in my paint drippings is a little to Van Goughish for even me. Guess I am getting old and middle class.

So I hope to continue with posting the new work maybe as early as tomorrow. I was talking to my friend Bev who was visiting the National Gallery, I could see some of the works she was looking at and for some reason "Rug" by Phillip Guston, an influence from the past, appealed to me.

2009-03-18T16:40:00.000-07:00

It is only day seven since the break, and it was not too bad. Instead of bullishly running forward and hoping for the best I moved slowly through the day, paced myself you might say and things went much better. I am off the meds all day since the blood thinning asprin this morning.

There is just no way to be comfortable sitting at my easel so I set up my cool but never used anymore thumb box on the tripod, got out my oil pastels, took a clayboard panel I happen to have a lot of lying around and did a sketch of a tulip Jill gave me. Sitting on the edge of the bed I figured I could regulate the pressure in the leg and if it got bad I could roll up onto my back and continue working on my lap.

Worked perfectly, tomorrow I may take the rig out to the deck and set up shop there where I can keep my leg raised and take in the sound of the garden and the fresh air too.

Bruised now

2009-03-18T16:25:00.000-07:00

I woke to a familiar pain last night, that dull aching, not sharp enough to really be called pain, but too present to be able to sleep kind of sensation. I realized that my increasingly oddly colored skin, also known as bruised, also hurts, oddly, just like a bruise. Meds put it under control, it seemed one was not doing it nor lasting long enough so at the 4 hour point I took the two that it said I could... Funny thing, later when I woke up with a start, I found I would exhale, just keep exhaling and fall asleep and start up in a little panic and take a deep breath.

When I came out of the operating room I did the same thing and it set off the alarm on the machines and got the nurse all riled up that I was breathing too slow. I was alert, just sleepy, but I thought it would ironic to just fall asleep permanently.

Anyhow, did some drawing and stayed restless awhile and eventually relaxed enough fall asleep and to wake up to watch the sky get lighter and had a cozy morning and a long get up.

Pain and how it comes to own you

2009-03-17T15:47:00.000-07:00

The pain I go through getting up has been so dauntingly overwhelming that a certain amount of fear developed. As long as I have my foot elevated there is a tolerable amount of pain to none, add the pain killers and I can even forget this happened. Getting up and for quite sometime after there is a mind numbing pain coming from the area of the break and radiating down into my foot, even after the first ragged raw burning pain passes there is this presence. I can do things while it is there, but the quiet space I inhabit to be creative in is filled with this howling acerbic noise.

I was trying to do my usual when it comes to managing pain, get off the meds asap, listen to what my body wants, and work around it. This pain is not like it comes from my body gently reminding me to take care of myself, this is like a foreign entity dwelling in my leg demanding I pay it all of my attention. Thus I had a consultation with the Doctors assistant, he assured me that the painkillers would not interfere with the bodies reconstruction process and that this kind of injury is very painful, and that the best I can hope for for now is to take the edge off it. The more I get and move about the sooner it will devolve into something livable. So today I took back ownership of myself, I am using the painkillers, perhaps not as much as prescribed but enough that I was able to spend much of the day up and doing things, fixing things like before the accident. I discovered that working upside down in a chair was very comfy, but alas not much of what I did today could or needed to be done that way.

At any rate I feel I have gotten over some kind of hump with it, tomorrow I will try to work in the studio again, so look for a new piece to be posted here by the end of the day.

struggling with the limits

2009-03-16T17:30:00.000-07:00

day 5, the bandages come off

2009-03-16T17:05:00.000-07:00

From here on out

2009-03-15T22:57:00.000-07:00

Ok, the above(actually the below, as this blog is going to post earlier entries at the bottom) establishes how I got here, as of late I have been admittly obsessed with my motorcycle pasion, with all the problems in the world, the tenuosity of my own financial situation, the raw pleasure motorcycles, buying working on and rideing them as well as hanging with my fellow afflicted friends plus all the imaginative possibilities to go out in the real world on long adventures, well it was just to easy an escape. With the limitations thrust upon me by this it is time to set the obession aside and turn to something else. As many of you know, my other 30 year long obsession has been fine art painting, which probably has done more damage to my and my families life then any single other incident as it has kept me from being obsessed with such things and becoming a sucessfull building contractor, or in some way turning to an obsession with aquiring wealth and power. I have been for the last 4 years seriously working in the studio, moving to Santa Fe for its art market possibilities, and even making some inroads into the market. The work itself has progressed much more then I had imagined it would, but I, as is my norm for anything, have not worked as hard to promote the work into the marketplace, the carpentry, which I enjoy has made enough to keep from needing to. The broken leg of course puts a halt to that for the next 3 months, as I have no employees nor large scale projects to keep me fed financially. I may work on that. But what will happen here is I am embarking on painting a large number of small affordable paintings. I will be posting them as I go along and writing of some of the trials and tribulations involved in working with a broken leg, how it is going healing wise, and my thoughts on art and life. For the most part, it will be a pictoral history of the development of about 36 12x12 inch canvases and 36 12x16 pannels. I have other canvases of various sizes already prepared which I may from time to time venture out on. I did one today, about 18x18, a dismal failure at best, I went back to look at it and it felt like my leg felt while doing it, obviously this is not going to be as easy as I had hoped. Leg comfort is going to have to be increased some how. Body posture, the freedom to not think of my self and become the process, all I realize are now a challenge. I have about six to 8 days before the canvases arrive from Dick Blick. I will post the first painting next.

2009-03-15T22:54:00.000-07:00

2009-03-15T22:53:00.000-07:00

2009-03-15T17:06:00.000-07:00

On March 11 2009 I was rideing with 5 other riders on the Glorieta Rowe Mesa in the Santa Fe National Forest. The roads were one lane dirt, lots of ruts caused by 4 wheelers driving on them when they were mud. There was rock, and gravel and sand conditions, perfect for dual sport riding on a 600 class dual sport motorcycle. I was just getting over my first ever flair up of pre-patetallar bursitus and was eager and happy to feel the vim and vigor of both my bike and my left knee. I was having fun, wacking open the gas, breaking the rear wheel loose and sliding around corners when I could get that to happen. I still have a lot to learn about it, but I was feeling good and in control. Comming up to this one corner I gave it some juice picked up speed going in. My memory is that I realized this was a bit too fast of an entry, my usual response is to get on the rear brake and come to a sliding near stop, and take it from there, this time I made the decision that while fast for me, I could ride the outside rut,up against the embankment. I looked where I wanted to go, and shot into the rut thinking something like it felt a little out of control but the bike will get me through this. Unexpectedly the bike was thrown hard up against the embankment, I felt the gear doing its job of protecting my leg, unaware that it was also protecting my arm and shoulder as my light weight windbreaker was being shredded between the bank and body armor under it. I guess since it felt so out of control I brought it to a stop before exiting back onto the road, and immediatly looked down at my foot and knew from what I saw that I just broke my leg. According to Horst who was right behind me my upper body caught and twisted around backward while my right foot was traped between the bike and embankment. That happened so fast I have no memory of it, my impression is that I stayed on the bars till I stoped it. When I came to a stop the bike and I were up against the embankment, Horst came and took the bike away, I was focused on my leg at that point. The leading question was how bad was it, I knew I would not be riding out with the foot going off at that Buster Keaton little tramp angle but was this one of those really horrible broken bone stories with bone sticking out and blood everywhere? While getting my helmet off, and calling out to everyone that I had broken my leg, I was getting ready to take the boot off, by the time I got there, Dr. Leonard Thatch had gotten off his bike and was calmly ready to do his thing. We got the boot and armor off, pulled the pant leg up and could see that the skin was bulging but not punctured, I layed down and he put traction on it got it elevated and we worked on geting it supported and positioned so that it stopped hurting. Happily I had body armor, as the plastic spine protector made a handy insulated bed to lay on. My cold weather gear that I had been shedding along the way and stowing in the saddle bags came out, Leonard at one point put his helmet and gloves on as his jacket was somewhere in my cocoon. It took about an hour for two of the guys to go and get Leonard/s Landcruiser, the idea being that his trailer hitch carrier that he used to haul his KTM 530 could be used to haul my Husqvarna te 610, But when the guys got back, they realized it would be just as well for someone to ride all the bikes out, Leonard would drive me in the Landcruiser. The ride out was uneventful, getting in was almost painless, only after getting out on the paved road did we have to stop to support the foot, I tried rotating with it, it ended up on the floor, but since we were done with the rough stuff I figured might as well have em stop and readjust. Leonard took me to his Clinic he works at, Ultimed, they are experts with this stuff having offices in Taos and Eagles Nest and take care of this kind of ski injury all the time. They quickly determined that it would need surgery, hooked me up with an ortho surgeon, Leonard took me to his office, they set me up with the hospital for the operation the next morning, which went well, and I am now home with a three month lay off ahead of me.