Watershed

                                                                  Pillars of Creation
                                                                         by Chris


 My son Chris and I showed paintings at a new gallery that opened last night, the Dana Marie Art Gallery in Corvallis Oregon.
It was a truly wonderful gathering of people and art, wine, cheese, laughter, networking, friends and family, strangers and new friends, all received with grace and appreciation by Dana Marie and her husband Emil.

Alyssa's family all came, my daughter and grandchildren came with two of their great friends, and as a bonus to the night, Cheyenne's art work, already well received by all, was a hit with the Dana Marie too. Maybe she'll be in the next one!
The day before, my doctor loved the almost finished painting 'woman child staff'  which she actually inspired me to do during a conversation after my surgery in the hospital.

I am feeling very good.

                                                                            Owls
                                                                      by Cheyenne

Aftermath

My polar bear dream of two nights ago keeps interjecting into my thoughts. Every once in a while, a dream is clearly teaching something, especially after two days. And they are rare so I pay attention.  It's called dream lag.
Waldport sinking in mud, so back up truck, notice polar bears, (which I think are beautiful and important and always to help save but wouldn't want to be close to one) lose truck, then plastic boat I don't know how to assemble, walk enter Seal Rock path between steep hills, rock formations- followed by 2? 3? polar bears. See people and safety at the ocean side but then see young bear in between. I look back and the big ones are coming toward me. Instantly adjust my self to pass the young one peacefully without fear. Cause there's no other choice.
Confidence.
Then I look up and past this possible one again and there are two or three more on the oceanside of safety, gathering toward me.
A lot of emotional searching going on in my life at this moment. I want to understand this dream, I want to understand the message, because I know the answer to my sadness and fears of the last few days is there.  
I'm not the only one who sometimes deeply connects to a dream, right, to what's just below consciousness .Even if they're kinda scary, so is waking life sometimes and this was one of those dreams that just won't let go. keeps entering my waking thoughts.
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                                                                          Aftermath

On a vision quest in the mid 80s I learned to keep my feet on the the earth and stay connected: but still I like it that it's not yet dawn, and most of you are dreaming.

Grandparent

Dana gave me a great idea. Post a bit of story for the piece of work added.

'Grandparent'  is an acrylic fingerpainting, not formatted great for digital. Still learning. Folks seem to like this hanging around though.

Landing on my feet after the 90's, I'd  somehow gotten brave enough to take an art class at the Newport campus of Chemeketa. There was one art teacher there, and he was pretty amiable, creative and talented. He encouraged us in a bunch of directions. Painting with our fingers was one.
I remember feeling freed by this and contentedly used my fingers to copy a cherished old postcard that has resided on every fridge I have owned or rented since it came in snailmail back in the early 80's.
.
A lot was going on in those years, you can imagine. Back when people got personal things in an actual mailbox fairly often. And I was curious and friendly, I knew a lot of people.  One day I got this postcard with this amazing face on it, and pure poetry on the back- beautiful calligraphy. 

The message is about being true to oneself and letting go and most importantly not being afraid of death.

I have my suspicions but I am not sure still who sent it, and I also am not sure if the wise person pictured is female or male, but it has long since ceased to matter. The older I get, the more it means to me.
A great thank you to You who took the time to send this to me.

work in progress

Here's how it went...I finally got the balls to have the damn creepy alleged dermoid (ew look it up)-but which instead actually turned out to merely be a fibroid-taken out surgically (but only because my kids really wanted me too) and out it went, along with that sadly overwhelmed ovary.
I don't really need either ovary anymore, so goodbye, but in truth even though I have accomplished the 'change' of menopause (what a dumb name, of course, most words for womens issues are steeped in patriarchal negatives...for instance, men who have an array of sexual partners are still studs, while we are whores, sluts, etc...) anyway I still kindof like that I have one ovary left. I liked my periods, I miss them. They made me feel like a woman. I know some of you have rough periods and awful stuff like endometriosis, and you wish your periods were over, and for you I wish they were too, but what all of a sudden pisses me off at this moment is that as common as endometrious is, and as hard to spell, when the red line appears under it, it has yet to make the roster of spellcheck. Unfuck you whoever is responsible)

Anyway my kids visited me in the hospital, and brought me many sweet things, one of which was a sketchbook of mine, just in case I would want to draw or something instead of gaze in unnatural contentment at the nice nurses or the tv in that sweet drugged stupor of pain meds.

And that's why I am painting this piece, 'woman child staff'. My excellent doctor, who was a lawyer first and has five kids, sat down for an hour, because she's cool, (and had to be in hospital cause a patient was in labor) and we got to know each other. She saw the original sketch of this, which I had drawn from a brochure I got in the mail, maybe from Oxfam or Heifer International, and said that a painting like this would be great for her office.
Maybe she'll buy it when it's done, maybe she won't. But she drew me into the next realm of knowing what I wanted to do with my art, and here it is, one message to my fellow human beings, not quite finished, but from my heart, and likely my ovary too.