Shame Report 1- A Wasted Weekend

I had planned to work on Shame for two days. Saturday dawned with the news that tropical storm Fay was headed directly for our manufactured home in Zephyrhills, north of Tampa. I fussed all day, unable to focus on the task of getting my paints ready for a full session of painting. Needless to say the painting is along well enough now so some of the hard work, decisions, and drawing are pretty much nailed down. The painting is not easy to look at, although I hope that it will have some artistic merits, it is certainly one that raises many "issues" that lie buried in my subconscious mind, and some that are very much in the conscious memory banks.

Saturday seemed like a useless day. I have been working on the project of getting our slide collection onto digital media for at least 3 years. The approaching storm pushed me into a flurry of activity and I shot quite a few slides before packing them up to go to the "safer" storage facility made of steel and cinder block. I made the decision to save myself buckets of money by doing it myself, rather than having them professionally scanned and put on DVDs. It is unbelievably tedious work! I place the slides in a black holder (actually the slide holder that came with one of my old scanners)on my light table and shoot each slide with my digital camera. It came with a sun shade that screws onto the lens and provides a stable stand so I can shoot quite a few slides at a time. I decided not to shoot all of them, but select the best and take ones that show us, or people we know. The pretty scenes are pretty much, just that, pretty scenes, which at the time were incredible, but now, 20 years later, rather ho-hum to me, while shots of George hooking up the Airstream are precious memories.

Sunday I exhausted myself by removing all the loose gear from the carport and garden area. I had hoped for the focus to come in the afternoon, but my anxiety about moving out of my house to a Special Needs shelter was enough to make painting nearly an impossibility. All the photographs, a couple of paintings, and some other stuff all had to get to the storage unit. And I was also aware that I had to leave around 4pm to drive an hour away for a special birthday party in Springhill.

I must say that procrastination is very irritating, and after 7 years of procrastinating on this painting now that it is on my easel I feel somehow compelled to work on it as often as I can. What this week will bring is anyone's guess. The weather gurus can't seem to predict much about Fay and so I fret and try to get ready to leave my house with a few supplies and umpteen bottles of oxygen and myriad bottles of medications. Wish us luck!