Building Armatures (and me)

I have had such a great time exhibiting at Nude Nite in past years.  It is the only exhibition I apply to now. It is a huge difference from my past with gallery representations and  20+  yearly exhibitions and art shows all over the eastern seaboard. It was the job of my dreams and “we” (I always include Skip as a major ingredient in my success)  had such a great time and sold a lot of art! I miss what we were more than words can say.

One of the things I have suspected but have confirmed beyond a doubt is that “artist” is who and what I am”. It is all I have left of me. In past years I had plenty of descriptions I could identify with. I used to be a wife, a mother, a creative facilitator and a picture framer. Time passes and I cannot actively claim these titles anymore.

I did not know how much being an artist meant to me until this past month. I was describing this month's financial needs. I needed sculpture stands, clay, a pedestal, and of course, the jury fee.  I was met with kind but concerning responses. “Perhaps you could just go to the exhibition, enjoy the art and not put so much pressure on yourself to create, go before a jury and nervously wait to find out if my work is good enough to exhibit”.  I literally snapped back “Please do not take this from me”. This is the one exhibit I actually have the resources and space to make small pieces of sculpture.

At that moment, I realized I was really willing to stand up for my creativity. I have not stood for myself these past assisted living years. I need to create  work and then share it. This is who and what I am. This is defining me. I am rebuilding myself as a creative artist and loving it.

 

 

There is no magic here

This, more than anything, seems to explain my systematic health and emotional decline.  There is no one here who is interested in living or creating an active second chapter of life..  Everyone else and I have been stacked up in here to die while others profit from it. I do not want to die, but I do not want to live like this either. I am stuck. 

 

I don't know how to get out!

 I live in the biggest box I've ever been in my life. It is the absolute worst thing I could have imagined and I am dying just being here. And I do not know how to get out!

 

How is Brookdale the Largest Senior Living Facility? Stockholders, investing in seniors poor lifestyle.

The first picture is what they want you to think the Brookdale Lake Orienta courtyard looks like, and the second is a compilation of photos taken yesterday, 7/16/2025. I pay a lot of money to live here and they are consuming all of it. There is nothing left to enjoy life anymore. I live with constant leaky roofs, unresponsive maintenance, medications that are screwed up regularly and food that is more like an elementary school cafeteria.

I could go on, but as they say, one picture is worth a thousand words. I only have 10 pictures, but that's only the courtyard! There are so many more!  

Dump Site

I often use this as a dumping ground.

Look out, here comes a big dump.

Not all prisons are full of impenetrable bars. My prison is a 1 bedroom apartment, on the 3rd floor of an assisted living facility, my crime...I am sick (a sick heart and at one point over-prescribed pain killers for a fractured spine that was never diagnosed). I did not do anything wrong, but I did do quite a few things other people thought was wrong and they were afraid I might accidentally harm myself. Without my consent or asking what I wanted to do, I was placed here in an assisted living facility that is more like a padded 1-bedroom jail. I miss my life, I miss my home and I miss Skip. I miss my friends and family, but they all have lives of their own.  I cannot ask them to rearrange their wonderful busy lives for me when I can not reciprocate.  Everything I had and have that brought me love and life has been replaced by this place...and I have come to hate it and the life I have in it.  I have no choice about what to do with my life and I do not know how much longer I can do this. Well, I guess until my money runs out or I an dead. I hope 1 runs out before the other. I would rather spend the money I have now to play, create and be with family and friends. This is not the life I want.

I feel like a 15-year-old adolescent who has been restricted.  The difference is that this is not a bedroom or a prison but an apartment. I have tried to be a part of this community to make everyone happy. But it isn't working Bingo, childish crafts, puzzles and Rumi cube do not make me happy. This is not the life I ever wanted. I am not living, I am just here.

 

 

Greatest Accomplishment

I think Ralph must have been to my “adult living” complex before he decided to live in the woods. Both he and Henry T. Thoreau ran to the woods to escape from the people they had to see and deal with every day.

I get it, guys.

I would have run with you into the woods if I had any clue about how traumatic it would be to live in an overpriced "assisted living” apartment that pays more attention to the stockholders than the residents and building maintenance. I guarantee the stockholders are not dodging garbage cans in the middle of the hallway to catch the roof leaks( yes, that is plural, 3 of them).

I could go on and on, but I will leave this one. There are so many more stories, observations, and complaints to share, but I will end today's grousing now and figure out how to achieve Ralph's greatest accomplishment. 

 

Well....DUH...

 

Well…DUH

I can now clearly recognize the medicated ones because I am one of them. I quite frankly do not think I need all of these pills, but maybe a few of them.  I could delve into the brain science behind it, but that would likely bore everyone. Besides, my family feels like they can safely go out of town knowing I am well-medicated.  

We are the ones that have to survive in this assisted living facility looney tunes.  It is a full-time job keeping anyone happy here with all of the egregious things that go on. So if we are all somewhat sedated the staff and owners of this huge stock exchange corporation get away with a multitude of violations but  they still collect the astronomical rents! After all, there are stockholders to pay!  

There is chronic terrible food. I had a chicken enchilada last week, with no chicken in it, they listed rainbow sherbet as sorbet, and yesterday’s 4^th cookout made me so nauseous I threw up like I never have before. The roof leaks are chronic and everywhere.  Most of the medicine technicians, a fancy word for pill pushers for whom I pay dearly to have, are grossly underpaid. Most of them do not understand English and have no idea what pills they are giving us.  Administration has even devised an almost foolproof way to simply the distribution but they still screw it up. 

I will give some of them credit!  The fact that they can work in this looney toon farm is a true tribute to their caring about us. There are some that I have come to know and they do care but the administration does not back them up.

Yep, for the most part I am well-behaved and medicated.

Djembe Drum Day

It’s Djembe day!  The sound, when tuned, is amazing, but there is something moving about how it is made.  This one is hand-sculpted out of a single tree trunk.  The outside grain is sanded smooth, well mostly, while the inside is just chipped away to produce the sound. 

Lately, it has been popular to make them here in the states out of molds, fiber glass or plastics mixed with sawdust.  I am certain that they may sound as good, but I think there is something spiritual about being hand-made in Africa with no painting or decoration, just the natural wood grain. I spent the better part of an hour just unlacing the old head while the goat skin head is soaking in the bottom of my shower.  I thought that was a great place to soak it and keep it flat. Then I cleaned and oiled the outside. The heading and lacing will begin as soon as I give my hands a moment to rest and have the arthritis medicine to kick in. 

I really was not thinking about my hands when I began this project. 

…..but I cannot wait to hear it when it is finished!

Provided I Don"t Fall Down

 Signed up for my first-ever Tai Chi class.  The ad said it was good for balance and flexibility. I will even get a certificate if I finish, provided I do not fall down and break something first. Today we had 30 minutes of tai chi description, 15 min. of filling out 7 pages of paperwork to participate in a free class!  I had no idea this was sponsored and funded by the State and Federal Government until they pulled out the paperwork. I really was ignorant about how litigious the government was until I was served with the first 4  pages of liability releases, then there were 2 more pages that seemed to be some kind of verification that real people who could read and sign their names had actually shown up for the class. The last one was a doctor’s release with a list of symptoms that needed a doctor to sign off on. Several of mine were listed, but I have seen tai chi; it is not like I am signing up for an aerobics class.   

I had to smother my laughter as the instructor, a nice elder gentleman with a thick German accent was explaining a very Chinese concept. German and Chinese, just does not seem right. With the last 15 minutes, I learned how to breathe, gesture strength, unity, and respect (but forgot the 4^th) one).

From here on out, I will NOT be on the first row. I will copy what the person in front of me is doing, desperately listen to understand the German-Chinese movement directions while I frantically try to muffle my laugh.

Why I like being alone!

So many think I would be absolutely normal if all I did was get out of my room, join a group like bingo or Rummikub. Maybe even attend one of the programs where they have “guest” singers with a boom box background.  I have heard from several residents that they were good. I have to consider the sources.

So for the next few days I am going to post this on my door.  Maybe that will help them understand!

Creativity Does Not Cancel Out Creativity

For the best part of my last few years I have been constantly coached to be happy, to live in the now, do not look back, and I believed them. I have tried desperately to let go of the past and make the best of what I have now. It is impossible! What I do, where I lived, the ones I loved, the people I admired were gone. 

I tried to appreciate what I have now.  It may be what most people feel is a good life. It is a safe and comfortable place to live. But it’s beige life. The food, the facility and most of the people are a smudgy shade of beige. It was then I realized that creativity could not cancel out my grief with a beige life. It just does not work like that. Creativity does not cancel out loss. I had laid down most of my creativity to be a part of an assisted living community. I failed at it and became even more miserable than I thought possible..

A friend brought me some of my old unsold art and other funky tidbits from my long gone glorious happy studio. Now I am looking back, I am embracing my failures, my losses and my successes they are what make me who I am.   I am looking back to recover my strength, my creativity and my ability to be alone in my little studio space. I have to look back if I want to be me. I have got a long way to go. But just figuring out this part is a huge first step!

...when no one is looking…

 

So, here is the deal: nobody here wants me or my art. I guess I was spoiled at the art shows where there were many positive comments and purchases. I live in a place where conformity is celebrated. I so dearly miss having artists and creatives regularly in my life. They inspire, cheer and even egg on the different ideas.. They thrive on creativity and eccentricities. They applaud audacity.  We will risk friendships, family and strangers that do not understand us but we will do it anyway.

Then, when no one is looking…

I think they wish they were more like us.

 

Think I will play my drum and think about it.

 Since I have been here I have felt like such a nothing.  Everything that defined me was left behind when our home and studio was stripped and sold. It seemed like the reasonable thing to do at the time. I was moved out to an assisted living apartment that I am still trying to adjust to.  I have tried so hard to leave that hurt behind me and begin again, but I have been exceptionally bad at it. It was the most wonderful sheltered part of my life and my love.

A friend of mine dashed in the house months ago and rescued the unsold prints and other studio tidbits some time ago and stored them. She brought them back to me today. It has felt like a big chunk of my life is mine again.

The djembe, rocks from the Zen water garden and my work bibs (although I still managed to get paint on just about everything) were among just a few of the things that were part of my everyday world when I was still Cheryl. They are memories of my amazing happy past and they are more precious to me than gold. I have no idea what I am going to do with all of the art right now, but I will play my (needs to be tuned) djembe drum while think about it and remember all of those amazing happy times.

Therefore.....

Coming off 2 successful and unique sewing projects, I immediately jumped into the next one. 

I was on an “I can do anything” high. Unfortunately, I ignored the “3 Strikes” rule.

The top was all cut out when I got anxious to see how awesome this design would look when I finished it. I laid all of the pieces out on my bed and                      

                                       It looked like SHIT!

The Secret of Surviving Assisted Living is..... DO NOT GET YOUR PANTIES IN A WAD!.

When you live in a place like this, finding like-minded people is next to impossible; you have to really ferret them out. But for the most part, I have been anointed the weird one. I know because I can hear them whispering behind my back. What they do not understand is that with their hearing aids, they have no idea how really loud they are. There are NO secrets here. Gossip is the number one activity here!

The best way for me to survive is to keep to myself, stay in my room and make stuff and give them the least amount of gossip material I can, but they always find some. 

Most of my days are spent “making” it does not matter what I am making just making something. However, in all fairness are days that I destroy stuff too, but not on purpose. I have even learned how to accept and even enjoy my failures.  Especially some of the clothes I have made. But those failures are great learning tools, too. The trick to assisted living is don’t get your panties in a wad about anything.

NOT about what they think......

 Most of my life, including my art career, I depended on what people thought of me.  If I was well-behaved enough, I was a good little girl. As I grew older, I struggled to be a popular teenager, a good wife and a successful mother. Even in my older years, I had to be a good artist so they would buy my work. Now, I have to follow facility rules, see docs, have tests, take meds, and never complain.  I never felt good enough when I was just me.

Following necessary rules is one thing, but years of mashing me into socially “normal” roles defined by others must end. Maybe it is time I quit complaining or caring what other people think.  It is time for me to just be me. The way I think…the way I do things is going to have to be enough to be beautiful from now on.

Today I am grateful for: friends that are helping me sell my stuff, Luda, the housekeeper that takes care of my apartment, the good med-techs I have (but there are many more incompetent, disagreeable ones)

New Things from Old Things

I like trying new things; I like them even better when they work! Sewing is something I have always enjoyed. However, for every success, there seem to be quite a few failures. While emotionally, I am learning to embrace my failures, financially, failure is another issue. Sewing fabric, like art supplies, is not cheap and is getting harder to find. I am on a really tight budget…So, please do not tell anyone I swiped a tablecloth from the dining room for this art/sewing project.

I got my blue circles appliqued on, but it is missing something, so I am trying some markers out to see how the pigment holds up when washed.  The thin line seems to hold up after washing but the thick line is bleeding.  Here’s the fabulous surprise! The thick line bleeds out to a dk blue.  Still waiting for it to dry to see what happens before I mess up another table cloth!

Today I am grateful for: great friends, a safe place to live and and a great “supply” of fabric!

Oh yes this is better!

Not a fashionista...but not an old lady either!

Digging through “stuff,” I found this great pin that I bought years ago in a folk art gallery. It was and still so much fun….I think it is time to create some kind of top that I can show her off on. I love the red hair, and I wish mine still was! 

I am not a fashionista, but I have comments about how “different” my clothes are. I am not exactly sure what that means, but if it is, and I do not look like everyone else in here I will take it as a compliment! I have had a great time focusing my sewing towards more fun artistic creativity. I am even making my own patterns (I cannot afford or find real store bought patterns) There have been some colossal failures. But the good ones I can wear and smile, and for sure NOT have the old lady style!

NO KINGS

 

It is not bad enough that I live in Florida, home of the retired Trumpers.  But living in an assisted living facility is a whole new level of political unawareness. They do not know what they do not know. This is a FOX network dreamland. 

I cannot physically protest anymore, but I get tickled when I ruffle some feathers around here. Perhaps get someone to think for themselves just a little.

I posted this sign on my door and someone just stuck their head in

to ask. "What does it mean, NO KINGS?"

Start...Stop...Wait...What!

I could be the only person to fail a medical test before I have it.  I was scheduled to have some cardiac tests by one doctor, but another doctor felt my heart may not be strong enough for that(cardiac stress). They canceled them….Wait…What?  I am usually the one turning down repetitive tests and exams that tell us the same thing over and over again. My heart is broken; they cannot fix it. Why keep spending money and getting my hopes up to find out “How broken is it now?” 

I let my guard down and was excited about this earlier in the week. There was a possibility, they would show I could have new/different meds to increase my quality of life. Unfortunately, it feels like I missed that boat. I have been here before and for a really really long time…I know how this works.  I should have known better. I get a little dose of hope and “this might help” thoughts and I am ready to go for it again. I should have known better.

(and just in case you missed it, I have not figured out how to embed music on my posts, however, I have had 2 spectacular failures!)