Thanks everybody for your supportive and helpful comments here and on FB regarding my two eye surgeries. Sometimes I think I'm a big baby... I don't cruise through medical stuff easily the way it seems many others do. For me it was a difficult 6 weeks.
good news
- my perception of colors and color saturation is dramatically improved
- I can drive legally without glasses
- it's my last week of the eye drops routine
- I can thread needles and bead when wearing highest power reading glasses
- vision in right eye is still a bit blurry
- still have loss of peripheral vision in left eye
OK, enough said about the eyes... And what was that beadwork above? Well, here's the really good news of this post... Are you ready? Taaadaaaah....... I've finally started my Bead Journal Project pieces for 2012!!! I'm 6 months behind, a bit bewildered at the starting gate, yet excited to get moving!
I'm visually journaling about blessings this year in ATC (artist trading card) size. This one is obviously about the blessing of vision. It probably will be solidly beaded, something I haven't done in previous years with my BJP pieces.
More good news! Here's a peek...
My 2011 BJP pieces visually explore my relationship with various people, places, and events in my life. December's BJP is Me and Mountains. I've always loved the mountains. I recall driving in the hills around Sutter Creek, CA and over the range between San Jose and Santa Cruz as a child - glued to the car window, enthralled!
We moved to Minnesota, where rolling hills and river banks are the mainstays of elevation changes, when I was 7. Returning to the west coast after college, looking for a job and a place to settle, I wandered toward the NW. I'll never forget driving north on I-5 and seeing Mt. Rainier for the first time, one of the greatest thrills of my life! Instantly I knew it was the place I'd been seeking, the place for me.
I've hiked the Wonderland Trail, up and down ridges for 100 or so miles, all the way around Mt. Rainier. For countless happy and peaceful hours, I've hiked trails in the Cascade and Olympic mountain ranges. And countless times, I've rounded a corner to catch an unexpected glimpse of glacier-topped Mt. Rainier or Mt. Baker, gasping aloud at the beauty.
In this piece, the top-left to bottom-right diagonal represents mountains; the other diagonal represents me. Where our paths cross, there is a beautiful trillium, an extraordinarily beautiful, mountain wild-flower! Says it all, don't you think?
I've now completed all of my pieces for the 2011 BJP! Next step is to embroider the subject on each one, stitch them together, and then quilt them into a wall hanging. More on that soon.
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Good to hear you're on the mend and doing well! This beaded ATC is looking very striking.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that your eye surgery was a semi success, a good semi success.
ReplyDeleteYour December piece is stunning as always. It will be interesting to see if your 2012 project changes in colour and depth with your eye surgery. I had an brilliant Drawing tutor at Camberwell who sadly became blind as the years when on. However, he continued to paint as he could continue to see colours.
Here is a guardian interview with him - http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2010/nov/21/sargy-mann-blind-painter-tim-adams
Robyn
ReplyDeletewonderful that your eye surgery went well. my mum had hers at age 73 and has not looked back. i am trhee months behind and stressing but pleased that someone else is jusst getting underway.
diane, New Zealand.
Good news about your surgery I had mine round Easter, and the blurriness does go. Once I got new glasses I now need them all the time for near sighted stuff, but the long vision is good without them. Have 2.5 readers to embroider, thread needles read in bed etc, but the good colour vision is still there.
ReplyDeleteYour theme for 2012 BJP is wonderful and a reminder to us all to be thankful for what we have! There is so much we take for granted, including sight. I enjoyed all of your 2011 beaded pieces as well as the friendships, meanings and stories they were built on. Your December piece is exceptional.
ReplyDeleteRobin, I'm so glad to hear that you're on the mend and I hope all works out with the right eye. I love your 2011 pieces, as I've said before, and the eye piece you've done is wonderful too. I can't wait to see what you have in store for us next.
ReplyDeleteI am really pleased to read your good news and even the not so good news because it was better than bad news.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed your 2011 BJPs and the wonderful descriptions that came with them. This one is no exception. The colours remind me of the lovely mountains I have seen only once in Scotland. I thought that the trillium represented the glacier on the top of Mt. Rainier. :-)
Robin, I'm in love with the eye piece! It's going to be spectacular when it's finished.
ReplyDeleteI hope you continue to heal from your eye surgery. I'll keep my fingers crossed for you -- seems like you're doing pretty well so far. <3
yeay! I hope it's all over for you too!
ReplyDeleteglad to have you back!
glad to see your beadwork again. It should make you heal faster to be looking at beads again.
ReplyDeleteI just love love how you incorporate your experience into your beading. I have always loved that in your pieces. Makes me think about things happening in my life and how I could incorporate those things into my own beading.
ReplyDeleteAlways just so inspired by you.
Congrats on all the positives your eye surgery brought you, and I pray all the complications are being resolved.
Have a beautiful day!
What a fabulous project, Robin. I've got a little surgery coming my way that I'm awfully nervous about. I think I'll try a some bead journaling of my own. :)
ReplyDeleteI am so glad your eyes are doing better. Now we get the treat of getting to view such lovely beading.
ReplyDeleteYour work is gorgeous and so colorful. This may sound weird but I think there is a deeper spiritual quality to it.
glad you're back to blogging, and beading! and really glad the surgery did the trick!
ReplyDeleteA very striking piece and with such personal meaning!
ReplyDeleteGosh, I don't know how I missed this post! Sometimes 'Google Reader' really lets me down...aarrgghhh.
ReplyDeleteSplendid news on them thar eyes, Robin! A *new lease* on vision, how wonderful. And your December piece? I caught my breath ~ so my colors ~ yet filled with the magic of mountains. Perfectly, beautifully done...paths meeting as they're meant to....