The Art of Patience

Bonsai
Originally uploaded by RedTea

I am starting my meditation though writing early today. My stomach is empty, and telling me that I should have eaten more last night. My nails are falling apart. They keep on cracking. I had to clip them down to almost nothing. It is a strange world without having long nails. I try to use them to pull about two pieces of paper and they are not there to help. I miss them. I bought a new computer battery yesterday, just thought you would like to know. I cleaned the kitchen as well.

Tonight. Tonight I finally go to the Bonsai auction. I wonder if the IP instructors will understand how much patience it takes to do this art piece. Whether it be Bonsai trees or medication (and even meditation) they grow slowly. I am not skilled enough on a potters wheel to produce what I would dream of. Knowing this I am limiting myself to simple clay pots, and am wondering if I should cross out the clay altogether and make something new. I need to brainstorm what plants can go in other then pots. I know that tastefully clay pots just look better then store bought pots. So I will have to pull my clay skills together and create unless I can think of something else.

I am back. I just completed looking at craigslist for a table I can display my artwork on in the Gallery. I also found a curtain for my studio. Now that I think about it I hope that the curtain has been sold. I can be a bit of an implosive buyer. If I buy it I will have to put it up… that means I will have to spend money on a rod as well.

So far the Dogwood and Juniper seeds have come in. The Dogwood seeds do not need to be wintered (some seeds need a cold period to grow), but the Juniper does. The Juniper is soaking in water right now. Out of the ten seeds how many do you think will grow? My sister recommends I only do ten seed for of each kind of tree I have. I think that this is because over time I will better learn how to germinate trees from seed.

Tomorrow I go to the Sweetland Writing Center for a workshop on the story you have not seen. I already turned in a raw copy to my IP professor and am waiting patiently (again with the patience) for a response. I just finished my Mountain Dew, yah for things that destroy your teeth. Sometimes I fill like I am doing nothing towards my IP, but I am writing, and will continue to write until I have formed a pathway between my fingers and my brain. Or at least that is the idea. I want to write. I want to express. I want this writing to be a major part of my artwork. I want to salvage as much of my idea about the website as possible. I am doing this for your benefit, because despite what my sister says about even sugars impacting my brain, my thoughts are impacted by the medication.

My sister asks why then do I not do artwork on sugars, but everyone has experienced the effects of sugars. I have experienced the effects mind-altering medication firsthand. I was more social while on Geodon and started looking for a boyfriend. On Abilify…Abilify is a wonderful medication that works for many people…On Abilify I became more paranoid and started thinking of killing myself. I do acknowledge that there are other mind-altering things besides medication, like a word very similar to it, meditation.

There are those that recommend meditation as another aid in fighting Bipolar disorder. I examined it in a book on Yoga at the bookstore once...well my sister did. I was drinking a jasmine green tea; I had two sisters with me. One was looking through the book on Yoga and the other Tai Chi. They talked about things they were reading in the books, like the importance remembering how you ran as a child. I was probably flipping through a magazine complaining about how the tea didn’t taste like I wanted it too. (My likes in tea have expanded since then.) I didn’t have the pressures of IP on me at that time. It was a distant mountain the size of a fly. Now it is a whale and it is on top of me.

I have a brother that spends a lot of time coaching Frisbee, working, and doing whatever it is he does. When he is not doing this you can find him at the bookstore reading DC comics. Often when I call him up to ask to do something I end up reading anime.

Lately I have been greatly tempted by the coffee shops in the area. Espresso Royal has a deal where you get 50% off one kind of drink everyday in September. I walk in check to see if it is a Polar Cap (the Frappuccino like drink of that coffee shop) and if it is not I leave. I have this system down perfectly. The barista knows not to bother to walk to the cash resister when I show up unless I stay there.

Did I tell you exactly how incurably happy I am that the Bonsai auction is today. I have asked my sister to return the camera she borrowed and me tempted to bring a video camera, but I think that is a little extreme. Yes I will be missing the support group, but for the art of Bonsai some things must be sacrificed.

Dancing up the silver curtains.
Their shear mass held up by a single black bar.
I swing from the bar, two invisible stings holding up seat.
My hair stands up on my pale arms; clay is plastered on my pants.
I look tonight for the twisted tree.
Sliding like a snake through the air it will unveil its fall colors soon.
On a cold cement deck it will breathe in as I blow on its leaves.
I touch its leaves. I test its soil, still moist.
How long will I keep you?
I saw a Master tree on sell today.
Its owner, sad to part, needed the money.
Tonight I buy a tree.
No, no Master tree for me.

See my hopeless attempt at a poem. I am waiting for an instructor to come around for me to ask a question to and then I can go to the Clay studio. Patience.

A little story I cooked up

Biology

Basil and Future Bonsai
Originally uploaded by RedTea

I am discovering a lot about seeds as the days pass. For one thing my sister thinks I am going to have a hard time growing trees from seed. I guess I figured this, but I had high hopes. I wonder what my project would look like if it were about seeds not growing? I think I could work through that little bump. As for now I am done buying seeds.

I collected seeds from my yard back at my parents’ house. It was a disgusting ordeal. I was collecting White Oak acorns, and when I creaked some open to see if they were good they where full of maggots. No wonder I have never seen a young White Oak seedling around the yard. One thing that I have seen a lot of are the green maples. Not the Crimson King, birch, some sort of blossom etc.

Do you think that my seeds will grow? I wish there was a way to speed things up, but an important part of this artwork is patience, but does this go with the Senior project? Do you want to know a secret? I have wanted to grow trees for a long time now. When I was young I would think about planting apple seeds. I kind of slipped into this project. In fact I don’t even remember how it came to be like this. Where did I get the idea of transferring the essence of the medication in my veins to trees? Couldn’t I pick something easier? What will I do if the trees do grow and I don’t get the greenhouse space? How will I take care of them?

Oh, because I never told you I will explain. You see the University has a lot of greenhouse space that goes unused (according to my sister). It is for Biology students. I am trying to get some of this space.

What would have my life been like if I had went into Biology instead of art? I do not regret my choice, I have learned much, but there is something to be said about Science. Math. Math is only important in that it is connected with Science. It has been to long since I have been in a lab coat, sure I took Biology, but I am wondering if I can take it again. I guess I can take a harder Biology. What do I have to lose? My grades?

Is the day over yet?

meow
Originally uploaded by RedTea

Here I am waiting until the time I can go to the clay studio.

Sliver curtains hanging from a black bar and a melon green blanket on a black chair with matching pillow. In front of me is a room. In back of me a wall. Spiders crawl around the school. I wonder how I got in the school to begin with. Looking at all the skills spread out before me mine look like children’s drawings. In fact I was told once I would make a very good children’s illustrator. That was long ago. Today I made my children’s drawing in a small notebook. A horrible feeling hang over me, and all I could bring myself to do was draw.

Seeds. I wish I had my seeds now. I wish I could soak them in water, put them in my refrigerator, and wait for the cold to make them germinate. I wish I could plant the seedlings in the perfect combination of sand and soil. I wish I could put the little seedlings into pots (pots that I made) and place them around a gallery space coupled with starter plants.

Patience. It is something that I am going to have to learn. Bonsai trees take time. There is an Ann Arbor Bonsai Society that has an auction every year on Sept 26. I will be attending this auction. I hope it is everything that I have been told it is.

I am supposed to be seating here as wonderful things explode from my fingertips. Every key pressed makes a wonderful sound and the song is quite nurturing. It is encouraging hearing that sound. It makes you think things are happening. You are going somewhere. It encourages you to write more bolder, crazier ideas.

It has been a half an hour. Now it has been an hour.

Sketching cats endlessly, such a mindless action. Everyone else has such propose, they have ideas that need to be done right away or the winter will get in the way (or such and such). I decided not to work on the potter’s wheel today because I forgot my supplies.

HA! I tricked you. I went and worked with clay anyway. The story goes like this. I was drawing cats and then trees when I realized that I didn’t want to be in my Senior studios just writing and drawing and doing stuff like that.

I am free! Studio time is over!