Color Provides the Power to Inspire

Each new day with this myopic macular degeneration diagnosis is deeply affected by the things around me.

Morning questions

When I awake each morning, I am carefully checking, ever mindful of what I see or don’t see.

Is my “good eye” the same? Are there any new unnatural waves or obscuring blobs blocking what I see with this eye today? Can I read the clock? With a quick switch of the hand, I check the “bad” eye. Is that blob of obscurity the same as it was yesterday? Can I still see what I saw yesterday? Is the number on the clock any clearer today? This is just all before breakfast.

Checking and re-chicking

As I go through my morning routines, starting the coffee, opening the blinds to see the new day, stepping outside to grab the morning paper, I’m looking. Looking around me, taking in so many colors and shapes and views, always seeking a new subject. Any idea to work into a new art project of the day. Admittedly, I am also reviewing what is actually in my line of vison for this new day. Constantly checking and rechecking, reaffirming that all is the same. This is the phrase I want to hear in my head. All is the same.

Arting

Being retired has its advantages, schedules are pretty fluid, unless I have outside commitments to attend to, the itch to get into my ‘art office” starts early in the day. So in between typical household chores, be it laundry or cleaning or baking or eating, my rewards for a job well-done means more time “arting”. A process that usually begins with the word what, what am I going to do today, what medium will I use, what direction will this project take?

Color

The bottom line to all of these questions circles around color. Constantly searching for just the right color, just the right shade, just the right direction, is so intricately tied into vision. Always in the back of my mind is, yes, I can see this, the vivid yellows of the sun, the soft shades of the blue skies, the dark shadows that accentuate the subject of the day. I can feel each touch of color filling something inside me, something deep in my soul and I truly love the process. It is a power, I believe, that drives me to constantly creating this art.

My inspiration

As each day goes by, I find that what my eyes are seeing today are what is really keeping me moving forward. Even with knowing that there could potentially be a day in my future that I will need to add yet another LED lamp or two to my supplies. A day when magnification will be a necessity to enable me to really see what needs to be seen. A day when I’ll have to admit that the intricate details of a subject are just beyond my being able to capture them.

But until that day strikes out at me, I will continue to create, continue to fill my soul with as much color and as much vividness as I can. It truly drives me forward.