Colleen Mccarty's Self Portrait with Chicken
Door Prize for Portraits 2017
I entered the Hardy Wall to Wall Salon exhibit in Ephraim,
which went up over Memorial Day weekend, and was up two weeks, then juried, and again I was eliminated so threw a party for all those brave souls who entered and were also eliminated. It was sort of a dress rehearsal for the Portrait Prize show, we had some nice food, and the art looked good hung in a setting that was more conducive to presentation. On an up note, I have a buyer for my painting, many felt that it should have been included in the show. Frankly, after seeing all the entries I was not surprised I was not selected. The showing this year was strong, with 170 artists, and only 70 were juried in to the final exhibition.
Its been quite a long gap between entries in this blog, partly because in January my dog Daisy died, and shortly after that I developed some horrid symptoms, facial nerve pain and it never went away. I have since been on increased medication, an anti convulsive, which makes me tired, and slightly high at first. As I adjust to it I have facial nerve pain return, and then have to increase the dose. This has made my hands shake, and while the pain is gone, in the last few days, I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop, and the source of the problem has not, and an MRI in mid March revealed a meningioma, or tumor, which was coming out of the meninges which lines the brain, and its pressing on the trigeminal nerve, it is also quite close to the brain stem. I am now facing either radiation or surgery and at least another year of medication. It is a struggle to remain up beat. Painting has helped me get through the sadness over loosing my dog and offers some distraction from the facial nerve pain.
Here is a shot of Daisy mae in the studio taken several years ago. She went with me most days and seemed pretty content to the point of falling asleep while I painted.
