September 29th 2010

There are dates that we remember.  Good dates like birthdays, weddings, graduation and retirement.  Bad dates like loss of loved ones, natural disasters.  We all remember where we were on Sept 11^th, some of us even remember where we were when we heard that President Kennedy had been assassinated.

For me, September 29^th 2010 will always be etched in my memory.  It was the day I lost it, the day I fell into the well of depression, the day that everything changed.

The first thing I lost was my ability to write and read creatively.  Suddenly, the thing that kept me sane was lost to me, just when I needed it the most.

My psychologist suggested I try to replace the writing with something else for the meantime.  “dabble” he said, “try something different”.

So I started with stained glass.  The classes were held in a damp basement of a stained glass store.  There were eight students.  I decided on a bird pattern. It was hard to concentrate on the pattern and when I went to grind the glass I dropped it on the floor.  My bird now had a wounded wing.  When the teacher offered to fix it, I told her it was ok for the bird to have a wounded wing, for the bird was me.

Then I moved to Hot Glass.  It was hot alright, with a 4,000 degree oven.  I created two paper weights.

After that my next foray was pottery.  I enjoyed this more.  The wet clay had an earthy smell that was familiar to me.  It was a powerful moment even though I can’t remember where the connection was.  I made several pieces and returned to paint and then glaze the pottery.

Using a piece of macaroni shaped like a snowflake, I transformed the inside of a bowl into a work of art.

My last art class was Mosaic.  I think this may be my favourite.  I have a historic connection to this medium, since I trace my heritage to Venice.  My first mosaic piece tried to capture the essence of Venice.  The art of Mosaic requires precision and a lot of patience.

All these classes carried me through the period of my writing desert.  In the end, I discovered that I did have artistic creativity other than my writing.