Birthday

This is a detail of a painting I am working on. That rectangular shape is the start of a birthay cake. My mother made a cake for me when I was three or four, at the end of the 1960's, or five months into the 1970's. There is a photo of me sitting at the table in the apartment my parents were renting on Montgomery Ave. in Ardmore, with my mother standing nearby and another young person, who I cannot now identify, looking off to the left. The photo is square, the original Instagram, but black and white, not murky 70's color.
 
In this painting I started painting the cake and the white table cloth in green because I felt like it. I wanted to have my feeling supersede any intrinsic requirements the subject may have presented, for the sake of my ongoing connection to my work. Sometimes when this allowance is made surprising connections are made, or depths are revealed that feel true to the subject. And sometimes the self-satisfying decision can just express my feeling, which is also valuable. If I don't like what I do I can always paint over it.

I am finishing a semester of teaching, one in which suddenly, half way through, we had to change everything and do it online. Making the strange new experience meaningful for my students was the goal. I hope it was achieved, at least to some extent. Now I need a rest.

A week from today I had planned to leave on a month-long trip to Madrid. Thirty days in the Prado, and getting lost in the oddly-angled streets and small public squares of Madrid. How nice would that be. But of course that trip is not happening, the Prado is still closed and Madrilenos are just now emerging from strict COVID lockdown in which citizens were fined 600 euros for unauthorized presence outside of their homes.

Like the rest of the world, I do not know when, and I say when, travel will resume.

This canvas that I was painting on, then looking at, with the start of a birthday cake, already had the start of a sky, with cobalt blue. I worked on that sky some more too, along with the green elements. I like what is happening with the sky, and I'm not sure there is actually enough room on this canvas for the cake as I wish to present it. I am also not sure about that combination of cake and cloudy sky. It is reminding me of the song MacArthur Park, which is undercutting the meaning I intend for the piece. If you are not familiar with that song and want to get something stuck in your head like barnacles on the side of a boat google it. There is the Donna Summer disco version, and the original one from the 1960's. (Be advised, I don't actually recommend doing this.)

It may be that that painting will end up being a sky painting, and the cake can appear on another larger canvas at some point in the future.

What I did yesterday, on my birthday, was take the #5 bus to a doctor's appointment, to discuss treatment for a tendon I tore in my right shoulder. It turns out that I actually tore two tendons, one turning a door knob while holding a basket of laundry, and the other lifting my bike over a fallen tree on the trail. I was dismayed to learn that the tear to my biceps tendon, from turning the door knob, cannot be repaired. The damaged tendon is already encased in scar tissue. But the surgeon said that this is not considered a significant loss, and I choose to believe him. The other tear, to my supraspinatus tendon, is a good candidate for arthroscopic surgery, to encourage strengthening of the connection of the tendon to bone and to reduce inflammation. I hope to schedule it for this summer.

Recovery from this surgery is slow, with my dominant arm in a sling for six weeks, and a three to six month gradual return to desired functionality in my right arm and shoulder. Projects will be on hold. I have stretchers for 18 paintings at the ready, but it may be awhile before I can test my arm strength stretching canvases. I will see if I can find something suitable to paint the birthday cake on, while I can still paint. The quarantine will continue, coexisting with recovery from surgery. I will keep working within undesired limitations, with dreams of those limitations being eased in the future, like a sunny afternoon. I will cultivate gratitude for past experiences passed off as commonplace. Difficult as it is, I will accept and try to embrace this discipline.