Relief
June 27, 2008
My dentist’s office windows are slightly below street level and there’s a tallish brick wall between office and street. On a nice sunny day like today, all I can see of the people strolling down the sidewalk are their heads, rolling along the wall. Puts me in mind, in a nice way, of guillotines and overflowing baskets during the French revolution.
It’s a tad mesmerizing, a good thing, as I was there to have a painful back tooth extracted from the jaw that NEVER gets numb. Fortunately, I have a great dentist (with tiny fingers), who knows just how to jolly me along until the corner of my mouth droops and she can get to work.
So, tooth is gone, she showed it to me in all its cracked and gory glory, and assured me that removal was absolutely the correct decision. She’d given me a choice between spending $4,500 to visit a specialist and see if the tooth could be saved, or spending $220 to yank the sucker out. No brainer, that. Still, it’s nice to know that my frugal ways resulted in euthanasia, not murder.
I mentioned last night’s laugh fest and how the pain completely and mystifyingly disappeared when I laughed. She nodded. “Natural endorphins, best painkillers in the world. You can get them from laughing hard, or from sex. Personally, I recommend laughing. It lasts longer.”
Good to know.
Ouch again
June 27, 2008
Addendum to my post last night: Laughter is a great alleviator of pain…but it’s relatively short-lived.
I hope the dentist has enough chisels.
The power of laughter…and Ted Sawyer
June 27, 2008
I will never again sniff at all those perky little “power of laughter over pain” people. By golly (or in my case, by gum), it works.
Earlier tonight I was having trouble seeing over the knot of pain in my jaw caused by an infected tooth. I came yay-close to bagging the evening’s entertainment–Robyn had snagged tickets to a play in the Pearl–and thought of just going home to sob in my pillow.
In the end, I couldn’t figure out a way to decline without sounding whiny. We ate a fast dinner at Life of Riley, distinguished for slow service, salty so-so food and rather large checks, considering it was happy hour. Not really worth reviewing.
Then we scooted over to the Armory building, to the Portland Center Stage, and saw “Little Dog Laughed.” Fifteen minutes into the first act I was laughing so hard that it took another 15 minutes before I realized that I was pain-free for the first time in four days.
Ouch
June 26, 2008
Ordinarily I’d be the last person to volunteer for dental demolition derby, but the way I feel now I’m about to clean out the hammers and chisels at Home Depot and bring ‘em to my dentist, in case she runs out.
My back molar cracked a couple of weeks ago; the dentist gave me this fluoride varnish stuff (really–fluoride varnish) to paint on the crack, told me to stop chewing popcorn kernels and jujubes. Then she scheduled me for an extraction in a couple of weeks, i.e., this Friday.
The varnish worked miracles; the pain stopped. On Monday my teeth felt so good that I decided to postpone the extraction until August, when hopefully the rest of my life will have settled down to a dull roar.
The tooth gods heard me, frowned, and about ten minutes later my cracked tooth met an unexpected bit of bone in a leftover steak. My eyes crossed in pain and they’ve pretty much stayed crossed for the last four days.
It’s amazing how an exquisitely sore tooth concentrates your entire focus on one small point in your lower right jaw. The dentist suggested Vicodin, but when we tried it two weeks ago, at the beginning of this little adventure, my colleagues eventually found me prone on the bathroom floor, throwing up while trying to faint. Apparently Vicodin and I don’t get along.
So I’m taking this concoction of steroids and uppers designed to reduce the inflammation and therefore the pain. It sorta works, until I move my jaw or try to enunciate a word. Or drink. Or eat. Or smile.
Or, in the last hour or so, breathe.
Thankfully, tomorrow at 3pm I will be ensconced in my dentist’s chair, proffering chisels and hammers and pliers and reciprocating saws as needed. Anything to get this horrid little ball of agony out of my mouth.
Wish me luck.
Process, art and labels
June 26, 2008
If you ran into me at the Portland Art Museum on GAS conference opening night, you would have seen me sporting a T-shirt admonishing glassists who use the term “warmglass” to describe “kilnforming.” (Incredibly nice-looking T-shirt, BTW, so many thanks to Ted for sending one my way)
The T-shirt went with the really wonderful Klaus Moje retrospective at the museum, one of the best life-journey-of-artist shows I’ve seen in a very long time. But as I watched GAS members interacting with Moje’s work, I really got to thinking about the message on that T-shirt.
At most gallery openings I attend, patrons examine the work, speculate as to the artist’s intent or inspiration, respond to the content or pattern or colors or lighting or whatever, gasp at the prices, talk about how hard it is to make this art, etc., etc. What they don’t generally do is get down-and-dirty about the processes. The artist may volunteer that info, or a smart gallery rep may use a difficult process to justify the price, but I’ve rarely heard non-artist patrons getting all that technical about the mechanics behind the work.
Getting GASsed, finale
June 22, 2008
I wonder if there’s a word for “beyond exhausted?” I’m certain there are words for “beyond contented.” Pleased. Delighted. Charmed. Enchanted.
Yep, those work. So…the Portland 2008 Glass Art Society conference (mostly) ended last night, and I’m pleased, enchanted and plumb wore out.
Learned a great deal, got all kinds of energizing ideas for new work and validation (or redirection) for work in progress. Viewed up-and-coming products like kiln controllers and extruded shelves, lamination services and lighting systems. Saw more tattoos than I’ve ever seen outside a sailors’ bar, including some that were every bit as much works of art as the stuff hanging on gallery walls.
Getting GASsed, Day 1
June 19, 2008
Whew. Long, fun day at the Glass Art Society’s Portland 2008 conference, an impressive opening day.
Some great talks and demos, still meeting old friends and discovering new ones. Inspiration abounded, but I have to admit that the technical exhibits held the day for me.
I love having this many manufacturers in one room, ready to solve my problems. The great folks from Digitry patiently worked through my notions of a kiln controller that holds and releases steps in a firing cycle based on pyrometer, humidity and time readings. They also gave me some great tips on building the system to text-message me when something important happens in the kiln…and then lets me change cycles from the phone (or the nearest web browser). See, I’ve got this idea for a casting kiln that THINKS about what’s happening to the glass and mold inside, and responds appropriately…
Getting GASsed, day 0.5
June 18, 2008
Pre-conference day at GAS, and it was a GAS. Unless you’d signed up for studio tours or somesuch, all there was to do today was register at the Portland Hilton (and if you’re a volunteer, wend your way to my table to check in), and see who’d already showed up.
Well, that and–if you were among the select few who got in before it sold out–attend the pre-conference reception over at Bullseye. It was definitely the hot ticket in town–with grilled meats from a Bullseye lehr–but unfortunately stuffed to the gills and we turned a lot of people away.
But my seat, across from registration, was the best in the house: An amazing number of people I knew, or wanted to know, or just wanted to ahhhhhhhhh over, like some starstruck groupie, turned up. An even more amazing number became instant buddies and there were times that our little check-in table looked more like some hilarious cocktail party.
Uhm….
June 14, 2008
I’m told I’ve now become a covergirl. Or at least that my alter ego, the pate de verre self-portrait I did for Cynthia Oliver’s group collaboration, has made the cover of Glass Craftsman.
I haven’t seen it myself and there’s nothing on their website about it, but I’ll take everybody’s word for it. I gotta admit I’d rather be writing about than written about, so it’s not an entirely comfortable feeling (insert chuckles from the 3,000 or so people I’ve written about, now getting their revenge). But it was awfully nice of Glass Craftsman to do it, so thanks.
If you’re coming to GAS this week, that particular piece is gracing the upstairs showcase at the Museum of Contemporary Craft in Portland. It’s in excellent company, across from the GAS international student competition and next to some really excellent work done by other members of the Oregon Glass Guild.
(PS. If you do see visit, yes, the spectacles are different. Alas, the originals were part of the great garage disaster and I hastily made new ones in time for the show.)
Bee determined
June 9, 2008
I was shooting the iris–great stuff–but the angry buzzing in the rhodies behind me was finally too distracting.
Apparently wet rhododendron blossoms don’t lend themselves to easy nectar gathering. As I watched, bumblebees tumbled out of blossoms, righted themselves and headed back for more. They slid down the soggy petals, scrabbled for footholds, got stuck and buzzed themselves out.
I trained my camera on one patch of blossoms where the buzzing was especially frustrated. Sure enough, a bee was stuck between two flowers, trying to push his way into the clear. As he emerged, I took my first shot. [Read more]