I'm Sick

I'm sick, and haven't been around for a while. I have this auto-immune disease that I thought I was well rid of, that has come back with a vengeance. My hands and feet are swollen and sore, my bones ache, I'm exhausted for no reason. I've been worrying that maybe my toenails may pop right off.

Last week I had a bit of a cry because I thought something was seriously wrong, like kidney or liver failure. The doctor said it was unlikely, but possible and ran some tests. I hate this so much. I don't like being sick, and even more I hate obsessing about what awful things could be happening to my body.

I love the internet but one thing it is not good at is reassuring you that you are going to be ok when you enter your symptoms in diagnose-me.com or whatever ("your symptoms indicate you have.......Ebola"). It just fuels my anxiety. I need to just stop it.

I'm such a drama queen most of the time anyway that when I am sick I feel very sorry for myself and pull the whole dying swan routine. This morning, walking to the bathroom , my feet were hurting and I thought to myself "I'm just like The Little Mermaid!" and had a little sob. Seriously how much more self-pitying can you get than that!

Speaking of The Little Mermaid, look at these stunning illustrations by Sulamith Wulfing:

All images from this tribute site.

Interestingly enough, my all time favourite, Stevie Nicks, found inspiration in these paintings and then created the cover art for this album. Funny how you see something and it resonates with you and then realise that it's connected to another thing that really resonates with you.

Anyway this was meant to be a post about MY sickness and now it's ended up being about art and Stevie Nicks. Go figure. Anyway I'm going to the post office now to do some chores and try and cheer myself up.

Here's a clip from that album:

Things I'm loving right now

One of the things I love the most about blogland is that I get exposed to so many things I wouldn't otherwise see.
One artists who has really made my day:




Racheal Anilyse

via racheal anailyse

I just love these, they make me feel magical. Check out Racheals blog here. I really love the idea of illustrating a sketch book from cover to cover. I sometimes find I get visually fatigued by my reader being inundated with really amazing images, but these really grabbed me. I also really like the idea of documenting dreams in a memorable way. I've often tried to keep a dream journal but I forget most of the crucial details a few seconds after waking.

I'm always the main character in my dreams. I'm the star of the movie. I know other people who are in their dreams as spectators and are never directly involved. Most of my dreams seem to have some basis in reality before becoming outlandish and surreal. There is usually something I have to accomplish, some item I need to get or someone I am looking for, and I usually don't reach that point before I wake up. Also I seem to have several dreams each night that I manage to merge together in a way that seems to make sense at the time.

How do you dream?

Shoebox Living

Thanks to post from Old Sweet Song popping up in my reader I've spent a long time today completely fixated by Shoebox Living: Through the Eyes of a Child. This exhibition took 125 children between the ages of 8-10 living in one of London's most impoverished areas and asked them to recreate their bedroom or a room in their home within a shoe box and write a short paragraph describing what they made.

Some are charming and funny, others heartbreaking and sad (the child that created a pub because that's where he spends all his time).

This guy fucking loved cats

So today while looking for images for the soon to be designed blog layout, I stumbled upon this awesome loon who really, REALLY loved cats.
I'm sure he would have been one of those people who lets their cats lick them on the lips or eat sardines out of their mouths.
Anyway, although I didn't type in "Anthropomorphic cats on speed" that's pretty much what I got, and the man responsible for these wonderfully frightening illustrations is Louis Wain .

Now I really like cats. But you know what I like more than cats? Cats dressed as people. Even better with fishing rods.
That one up there is playing GOLF!! That's just ridiculous, cat's don't play GOLF!! Louis. Stop.



I also love it when cats have people names. I had a friend when I was a small child who had a cat called Brendan, and I remember thinking even back then that it was hysterical. Louis had a cat called Peter! Bless!

Anyway, according to the interwebs Louis went crazy after contracting toxoplasmosis which you get from eating cat shit (ok not quite, but almost). Sounds pretty dubious to me. I bet that story was made up by all the haters wishing their own cats were as cool as the ones Louis drew.



For more information on Louis and Peter see here