Daily Compositional Exercise

I have been off reading blogs this morning.  The artistic ones. With Artist Profiles.  All those excellent work habits always get me excited.  I don't follow through but I get excited never the less.  Right now, I think the best thing I could do to move my work forward is to have a design wall that isn't behind the work table.  A wall that I can get to by walking forward and not to the left, around the floor lamp and then wiggle to the right behind the collage paper cabinet.  If I took anything from the Pamela Allen workshop, it was to walk back and forth in front of your work; adding and subtracting until there was nothing left to do but throw the piece away or declare it perfectly done.

Wiggling around a heavy lamp with a big lampshade and then around a tippy cabinet and then back out each and every time you want to "tweak" a scrap of fabric is ridiculous.  And working flat on the table is useless.  Unless the work will be shown flat on the table.  The only way it will look like it was made to look.  No wonder I get fed up with making anything.

On other news: a recent email from Wheat Belly (the blog for followers who gave up all wheat products) suggested that stalls, lack of weight loss etc for people (like me) who eat no wheat products could be more about a lack of iodine than a lack of trying to lose weight.  I am now on my third day of a natural kelp supplement.  I am sleeping soundly and actually dreaming.  I am hoping the next improvement is less water retention in my legs and ankles.  My hands are warm but I am wearing slippers even at 80 plus degrees.  I was born with ice cold hands and feet.  Did you know that they have removed iodine from all packaged salt?  Unless I eat fish two or three times a week (never going to happen) I don't get any natural iodine.  Time will tell.

G is recovering nicely from the full body rash he had last week.  This dermatologist knows what he is doing.  G returns to work on Monday.  He has two days of vacation left.  Yesterday he installed a new gutter over the back stoop deck.  The previous gutter leaked right over the door, so going in or out, you got very wet.  My garden has benefited from G being home this HOT week.  He waters generously each day.

Work has been terrible.  It is so HOT at work.  A glass greenhouse.  I arrive home, after work, limp and exhausted.  Just from being hot all day.  On the way to and from work, I pass cable guys working on power lines, guys pouring asphalt on roads and even the flaggers.  They have it much worse. At least I can go into the lunchroom and wash my arms and face a few times a day in cool water and soap.  There will be days, as the summer keeps going, when I will wet my head in the lunchroom sink.  To cool my brain.  I am drinking lots of liquids but still have muscle cramps in my thigh muscles after a long day.  I need to start bringing quart jars of iced tea to work.  Not just one.  Perhaps three.

So now, I will make a jar of tea.  Go upstairs and see if I can find a piece of homosote to use as a design wall (leaned up against the art supply cabinet) (when am I going to actually move upstairs???) All the laundry is done and all my sleeveless linen blouses are ironed (with starch) for work.  The last little bit to plant in the garden is waiting for me on the back stoop.   It's Saturday.  It's July.  Later.