It’s Tammuz/Cancer season , and I’m thinking about my squishy parts, and how I have gotten more exoskeletal support this year. This winter I had an accident on the subway and bumped my eye socket hard on a pole when the car braked too fast. and I painted my black eye in this piece –
I feel proud looking at this painting and thinking about how I couldn’t open my eye fully for about a week. I was so fascinated how the bruise developed, and to keep myself from poking it too much, I poked it with my paintbrush, on this portrait.
This next painting I made last month after getting fitted for hip braces. I have pretty intense hip pain from my EDS, and I was approved for some really expensive orthotics. For the measurement process I was told to show up and get measured. Unbeknownst to me this meant standing on a machine that made a 3d scan of my body while taking hundreds of photos and spinning me in a circle. I had to do it with practically no clothes on and a small curtain between me and the rest of the world. I felt really vulnerable, scared, and confused. I didn’t have enough German comprehension for some things that were being told to me so I just stood there and was poked and adjusted, and spun. I kept taking deep breaths, and now I have hip braces that fit me perfectly. It was not a fun experience, and so I painted this anxiety. Showing the lips, moving but I was unable to understand what they were saying. My arms, reaching, but with no hands to stabilize myself. The hands of the people adjusting my body for the measurements. Big, bright, intimidating. I tried to paint how my disability made me feel invisible, objectified, and vulnerable.And through that painting, and knowing, I owned the experience for myself.
Mycelium Memory 