Toothbrush Rugs: Grocery bags as an art form- my waiting room rug & Creativity is the best medicine

I started this rug in January as a rug to work on while in the waiting room at doctors' offices and while waiting for scans. Mind you, I always have a rug with me at such events, but often it is what ever rug I'm working on, and the rugs I had started before fibro were too complicated in their planning for what I was able to deal with.

 So this one is very simple- its to be an abstract flower. The center is all yellow, the rest alternating white and yellow. Such an easy scheme I could pull off even in deepest fibrofog / agony, and as you can see, I have. At 20" it would be close to done were I to stick to my 24 - 26 inch standard, but plastic bag rugs I often make larger. I'll keep working on it until I'm sick of it. Yeh, nothing deeper that that. Really, that's often the reason I decide to finish a rug off. These are a pleasant past time. When they stop pleasing me, I move on to another one.

This craft is inherently "green" as even the needle is recycled, but I especially love the "beautiful recycling" aspect of making rugs from grocery bags. We all go through so many, and even when we take them to the store to be recycled, lots of fossil fuels have to be expended to reuse them. Not so when made into a rug. The environmental impact is zero, since I do these during "down time."

So each colored section above = one half bag. I've never calculated how many it takes to make a rug, but you can imagine it takes a vast quantity.

Shopping bags are ideal, they have the right strength and surface. My mother has made them from bread bags and newspaper bags, but these stretch out more easily and have stickier surfaces so aren't as easy to work with.

I take a bag, fold it in half, and cut it. I don't cut slits, I use one handle of the bag for one end, and punch a hole with my needle for the other. So in this you see I remain true to my prime directive that these rugs are to be fun, relaxing, easy. Sure, you could cut up the bag other ways, but this takes the least time and effort so its what I do.

Handicrafts most certainly do count as "art therapy" as much as painting or photography. They are creative, a means of expression, something on which to focus other than suffering. I take a very "holistic" view of art therapy, not a narrowly defined one that it must somehow directly relate to expressing or processing your suffering. My view is... sometimes the best way to process suffering is to take a break from it. We who live this life are supersaturated in suffering. I hardly think its necessary that everything we do revolve around it... and indeed, there is immense benefit in finding what we are able to do in spite of, regardless of, the pain and limitations under which we live. (Yes, actually have had this argument... more than once, sadly.)

Indeed, I'm sometimes reticent to depict my art- be it photography or the rugs or videos- as art therapy because that makes them relate to fibro... when really, they are what frees me from fibro, frees me to be me. I can't chop wood or ride the bongo board or very often even drive because of fibro, but these are things which give me joy and are of my essence which I can still do. I

So why do I always post these as "the art of suffering?" Because I want to encourage other people who are disabled and pain ridden to find themselves through art and creativity because for all the wonders of modern medical science- doctors and pills cannot make you you, they can-at best- make it possible for you to be you.

The birthday I wasn't supposed to have

Yesterday was my 43rd birthday, and in some ways, it was the best birthday I've ever had.

Not because we had a blowout party. We didn't, just a nice cook out where I grilled my favorite foods.

Nor because of the presents (just one from my wife, mother, mentor, and mother-in-law)

but because... I wasn't expected to have it at all.

Many times during the course of this shredding of the boundary between the sane and the insane, the probable and improbable, the earthly and hellish, the grim reaper's shadow fell upon me. Indeed, almost from the start, there was a palpable fear that my broken bone and brutal pain presaged the presence of something dire and terminal such as cancer or a brain tumor.

The fear grew and grew with each test the doctors ordered which seemed to confirm it.

It reached its horrible apex on what we call "the day of death." A scan showed something which we were told indicated stage 4 (the last, terminal, essentially untreatable) cancer.

I'd held off speaking of that horrible day in public because any words I could give it seemed so insufficient. I was lying there counting my remaining minutes, wondering how I could spend as much of them with Tess as possible while also earnestly desiring to shield her from the agonies to come as much as possible.

The next day came a reprieve... a new scan, a new interpretation.

Even after the death sentence was revoked, the fear that something almost as bad was present remained. I had still broken the strongest bone in the body for no apparent reason. I still had excruciating pain without apparent cause.

And of course, the tests continued. All told, I spent close to a day in various machines having every inch, every cell, of my body scanned and rescanned.

It wasn't until the Fibro diagnosis came just in time for our 15th anniversary that the grim reaper's specter finally left us.

That wasn't too long ago, and the time of fear and uncertainty had been- if anything- more agonizing than the pain.

So when I awoke yesterday, it was indeed the most joyous birthday of my life.

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About the picture:

I used FotoSketcher (win & mac) to convert one of the photos a dear friend shot for this blog post. The mode used was watercolor. I adjusted the settings to produce a picture which simultaneously had fewer sharp details yet conveyed the over all setting in a very vivid way.

The other thing I was after was to dampen the color intensity.

The net effect I wanted was to convey to you how my mind's eye sees the time there. (I was on a morphine pump after all.)

You on Multiply can see the original below.

You rug folk - yes, I did work rugs, and even tried to teach people how to make them (yes, even on the "Day of Death" since I've always wanted to be remembered for three things: My steadfast love for my wife, parents, and friends, my visual arts, and my rugs.)

If hell is a fraction as bad as Fibro, then I DRASTICALLY undersold it in my sermons!

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To understand this dark humor, you need to know/remember that I was once a preacher.

Word Picture: Psalm 107 - Oh Give Thanks to the Lord for He Is Good

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I finally got these uploaded to imageshack.us using their uploader - its been a long time in coming, but wow, was it worth it! The upload was easy, drag and drop, and when it was done, they generated the html code for ALL EIGHTEEN images! This is media hosting made easy... I'm hooked!

Toothbrush rugs: Cleaning without washing, for large rugs or ones which can't be washed

While cotton poly fabrics, plastic, and hosiery rugs can usually be washed, dried gently, and left to hang, some rugs can't.

• Rugs which are too large to wash
• Rugs which are too old or loosely stitched to hold up to a washing machine
• Rugs with leather or vinyl in them, as this beauty.

Since most people outside of certain select circles and antiquarian religious groups don't have a carpet beater, there's still a good way to clean these rugs.

A vacuum cleaner works well enough on rugs which aren't old or delicate, but it'd better have a pretty strong motor and good brush to get all the dirt and grit and hair out of the crevasses and creases of these handcrafted masterpieces.

An easier way is to put the rug into the dryer on low heat or air fluff setting for about 10 minutes.

You might have to vacuum out the dryer, but that is a lot easier than vacuuming the rug!

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PS- I do have a new rug video to post!

A dear friend came up to help me out while my wife Tess was in the hospital recently. It needs a bit of post production work before I can post it, and I've not been able to look at a monitor long enough to finish that.

He also helped me figure out how I can shoot more effective videos by myself, so as you have thoughts about new videos you'd like to see or old ones you'd like to see with lighting better than that of a cheesy "Blair Witch Project" copycat video, let me know, and I'll get to them as time and my health allow.

I was just cleaning our anniversary rug to have it on my wife's return, I used the technique described above, and I decided to post it while the thoughts were in my mind.

Storm clouds swallowing up Indianapolis this morning

This was all hand held... under exposed 2 stops... stopped as it started raining.

Been trying to find places that take weather vids to upload it to... got the Weather Chnl's "weather out your window" one, but want to find others.

My first Fibro photo, and on coming out of the "medical closet" on this- the scariest thing I've ever done!

I wrote this for my fibro blogs:

• fibropathology.blogspot.com - A "mirror" of the one below, created because I wanted a presence on blogger, as many other fibro sufferers blog there.
• fibrofog.blog.com - my "personal journey" blog
• TheArtOfSuffering.blog.com - Displays the art I do as therapy, and encourages others to do likewise

With this and most such posts though, I will be cross posting here to multiply (and by extension to FaceBook.) Listig.multiply.com is my "root" blog, and will remain so.

However as I've done with the Word Pictures and toothbrush rugs, I find it worth while to have blogs more narrowly focused so people with an interest in these matters can find worthwhile material without having to sift through the eclectic range of things which interest me.

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First, the art

This image is the first one I created for the project.And here is the original

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First off, I love taking pictures of things in shadow (not just myself) because its visually compelling and has nice symbolism to it.The concept of the shadow is a powerful one.In Jungian pyschology, the shadow is the part of our "self" (id, psychae, what ever) which is hidden, repressed, not integrated into the whole.Scripture talks of this world itself as a shadow, as in 1st Corinthians 13:12, the verse which lent its name to my "Word Pictures" project. A compelling image I did with this verse is here.The top image was created from the original by running it through one of PhotoFiltre's engraving filters.The result is exactly what I was after, for it conveys quite vividly how the pain and related aspects of fibro distort reality, darken and warp the suffer's experience of it.Yet you'll notice the gold bits. No matter how thick the fog or overwhelming the pain, there is yet good to be had and embraced. This is a good practice for anyone, but for someone living with a chronic disease/syndrome, its essential.My 2nd eldest brother would appreciate that black and gold are also the colors of his alma mater- Purdue. Don't think that was in my mind when I created it, but its a fun thought.So this image depicts what is for me the most oppressive and distressing aspect of fibromyalgia- "fibro fog."I can't say that working with photography clears the fog... rather it renders it irrelevant. For some reason, no matter how thick the fog, how heavy the pain, I am always able to tap into my dynamic creativity.I become lost in the project, and in this, I find my greatest relief.Besides showing how I cope with and transcend Fibromyalgia, it is my hope that these blogs have the following effects:

• They encourage others to likewise tap into their core, embrace and express it
• They give expression to the experience of chronic suffering more effectively than words are able to.

Now why it was scary

It was a difficult decision... coming out of the medical closet about this.The two reasons above are very compelling ones. It has always been my way that when life dumps a load of manure, I compost it and grow flowers from it. This has not changed with the onset of fibromyalgia, only the means available to me to do so.I'm not easily scared either...

• When I did my chaplaincy residency, I was the resident for the Trauma and E.R., and relished the opportunity to be in situations most people would give anything to have nothing to do with.
• When we lived in Chicago, I embraced the city
• When the opportunity came to preach my father's funeral sermon, I was honored to take the task upon myself.

Things don't scare me, what scares me are more existential concepts- injustice, xenophobia, hatred, and the like.Yet... anyone who has been needy or suffering knows the pain which comes when people turn away from them in their time of need precisely because they are needy.As a Christian, when this happens I find myself thinking that in this I share something in common with Christ, of whom it was prophesiedIsaiah 53:3 (English Standard Version)He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief;and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.That doesn't make it fun or pleasant, nor something I wished for myself.I never woke up and said, "Why should my wife have all the fun! I want to have an incurable complex and ruthlessly painful condition too!"(You see, my wife is disabled with migraines, has been for half a decade.)A Psalm of lament describes this experience most vividly.Psalm 22: 6But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. (ESV)When we lived in Chicago, I conducted an informal ministry to the street volk, of whom this is even more true. I saw people not even bother to step over them... they literally walked ON them.I was honored to receive permission from many to share a bit of their life and story online. A lot of it is pretty raw and graphic, this is one of the few fit for a family audience:

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I'm sure anyone who's ever been in a time of need and found friends fleeing fast as their feet can carry them understands.Here is an artistic project I did with photos with this fellow, whom I miss and for whom I pray ever day.

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But this is more than a collection of symptoms, a medical term, this is an opportunity...

• to speak words of comfort to others who are suffering,
• and to use the skills with words and the visual arts to give voice to our experiences.

I hope it does at least one of these for you.

Coming out of the medicinal closet - In a picture (low grade steganography at its best!)

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You'll probably need to click on the photo to read.

Coming �Soon? - Listig [4]2.0

I am so frustrated to not be able to keep up online... I can't even keep up with myself.

But some major things have happened, and I'm going to have to figure out how to talk about them, and I'm going to have to figure out how to resume reading your posts and interacting with you all.

I've never experienced anything like this... this "DDOS" attack which has become a way of life. There has to be a work around, a hack, a crack... and I'll find it.

I miss and love you all, I want to be back here, sharing in your live, your joys, your sorrows, your sometimes lame, sometimes twisted sense of humor...

Rug folk... The rugs have been a lifeline for me, a way to stay sane as I've waited for exams, diagnoses, tests...

I think the last shoe has dropped, that my life is no longer going to be an ongoing jack-in-the-box experience.

This is a good thing. I know I'm not terminal, I know what I'm dealing with. I am both blessed and stressed.

I don't want to roll out Listig 2.0 until I have the bugs worked out though... so till then...

Message to Sophia & vague health / life update

Sophia,
   Thanks so much for your kind comment! I am glad to have given you information and encouragement.

   I am intrigued by the type of meditation you mentioned, but when I clicked on your name, it would not let me leave you a private message.

If you leave a comment to this post, it will make me approve it before its published, so if you want to leave more info for me that way I can read it and NOT publish it if you'd like.

   The doctors do have a pretty good idea of why I've been in so much pain, but I'm still not sure how many details I want to be sharing in public.

   Suffice to say... in an astonishingly freaky turn of events I'd never believe were it not true of me... I have a syndrome as complex and intractible as my wife's.


   I keep working on the rugs in doctors offices, while waiting for scans, etc. I've gotten a plastic bag rug almost half done. It is two tone- yellow and white. I'm using a repeating sequence to make it look like an abstract painting of a daisy or sunflower.

Quite looking forewards to doing some new tutorial videos one of these days, but as long as my world keeps getting turned upside down every week or so...

Outflanking pain by embracing beauty - as demonstrated and illustrated by VIDEO Humming birds in the morning set to Beethoven's tempest

Both the content and the construction of this video are very telling of how I'm surviving even though the torment of my body- far from subsiding- has increased, and the medicines I have available to me do not effectively deaden the pain or spasms or address the other related issues.

I've always loved nature, and by soaking it in I find peace and experience God. I barely even watched TV when I was a child, I was always outdoors.

So its very fortunate that when my body went kaput, I was in a place where I could so easily access and behold nature- weather, plans, animals. Those three months I couldn't walk, I could still look outside and see birds on the feeder, the dogs playing in the snow, and scenes like the one in the picture above.

Its nice that I can move around now, but the dynamic is really no different. I am so fascinated by plants and animals and weather that I can get distracted by watching them or taking pictures and video of them... that time I spend focused on the beauty around me outside, or in honing and presenting it in a video, is about the closest I come to having relief from my promethean torments these days.

The other things which are powerful enough to draw me out of my own personal daily hell are

• Touching, talking, being with Tess
• Lending an ear to a friend or family member
• Engaging and embracing the beauty of the natural world by working with it in the yard.

Indeed... one day in the hospital was especially dark... so dark we didn't think I'd be here assiduously NOT talking about it now. I got through that day by holding Tess, working on a rug, and lending an ear to a friend in need.

Before I went to the Seminary, I most communed with God by helping people in sorrow and by being in nature. Nothing has really changed there.

Perhaps that will help you understand why I'm not angry at God about this. God has provided me a safe, comfortable, beautiful place to live where I can always experience Him through His Creation.

God has given me Tess now for 15 years.

He's given me people who love me, and who need my love... people who help me and who need my help.

I don't expect God to be some sort of prayer-operated vending machine. He's under no obligation to relieve me of pain or restore my health. He has been true to His promises though, the way He always has been.

Its DEEPLY ironic, but in this time when my body and mind alike are greatly impaired, I am the most fully and richly me I've been in ages. It all comes down to embracing and being surrounded by

• Beauty in nature
• Love
• Truth

And receiving them with gratitude. Sure, it takes a lot of creativity to get through each day, but its that very creativity which gets me through.

Creativity first takes me out of myself- which is a good thing, something I desperately need given the pain, torment, turmoil of my body and nervous system.

Then it fills me with peace and beauty... my words don't reach far enough to quite make this connection, but maybe if I say it this way:

- Creativity for me is a form of meditation / prayer ... creating art is not primarily a manual act but an existential experience.

That'll have to do. The video and my discussion of it is below. You'll see that this video quite well fits in to the sort of pattern I described earlier today... it wasn't at all technically challenging... the major "tasks" for me were cutting out the parts of the video where there were no hummingbirds (I shot these on a tripod for 10 minute spells the last couple of mornings) and finding the right music. Beethoven's Tempest is PERFECT for these frantic, frenetic creatures!

But taking time to do these things did me more good than taking any of the score of pills I've taken today... and such is usually the case. Even when I take the maximum amount of medicine I'm allowed, my perception of pain never drops below a 7 on the pain scale.

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Of course without a high end camera of the sort they use for "time warp" its impossible to catch the action of these frenetic fellows, but I love the way the sunlight catches them in the morning, and they often perch on this feeder.

The music is public domain from musopen.org, played by Paul Pitman

The segue image is an old public domain image from a Russian language encyclopedia

The music suits the subject perfectly, and when when my body itself is in a tempest, I need to embrace and loose myself in beauty.

For more on this piece of music see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piano_Sonata_No._17_(Beethoven)

For more on hummingbirds, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hummingbird

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby-throated_Hummingbird

Diabetics be warned: More cute baby papillon dog videos

Ambrose in a basket at 4 weeks - almost walking

Ambrose at 3 weeks sort of walking on one of my mother's toothbrush rugs

Ambrose about 2 months wagging his tail and playing in and with a basket

Rushing water - Hoosier Zen - Video taken on our 15th anniversary outing

Today is our "liturgical" 15th anniversary- we were married during the church service on Pentecost Sunday.

Our other anniversary is June 4th.

This portrait of Tess is stitched together with Microsoft Image Composite Editor

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My wife and I went here today for our 15th anniversary. We honeymooned near Lake Superior, so for our anniversary we wanted to be near water too.

I hope others can use this either as stock footage, or to loop to just go to a nice relaxing place, thus the lack of title slides.

This is how I outflank pain: Majestic clouds- panoramics, synths, and video

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These are the panoramics created by Microsoft's Image Composite Editor.
I also shot video clips tripod mounted, so you can well imagine how stunning they are from these. I'm looking to see if there's an easy way I can make them available to other artists the way that I get creative commons licensed music from freemusicarchive.org and archive.org

I also have at least one project I'm working on.

I didn't expect much when I uploaded these to PhotoSynth, but they came out among the best I've done.

Here's the first

Here's the second

It seems to be axiomatic that the more pain I'm in, the more photos and video I shoot. Several reasons...

• Pain takes away my ability to think or process, but not to be creative
• Without the ability to think, process, even stand up without passing out... there's not a lot else I CAN do
• I often find my best recourse to be not heavy narcs but creative arts. While I'm engaged in them, I can loose my awareness of myself, and thus of the pain. Other than when I had a morphine drip in the hospital, when I'm doing creative things is the closest I have come to being out of pain for the last 6 months... .

Unfortunately, editing, mixing, posting, talking about what I've created... these draw on energies and clarity of mind I don't often have.

So my stunning videos will have to wait.

The project I've started with one of the cloud videos will too... the concept was easy to come up with- I noticed how the clip resembled the roaring water of a waterfall when viewed sideways- but execution...

As for outflanking pain...

Every expert of war from Sun Tzu onwards has taught that you never meet an enemy at his strongest point, you look for a weak spot, you go around the side (which is outflanking.)

This experience-which-is-so-far-beyond-"pain"-as-Mt-Everest-is-higher-than-a-hill laughs at medicine. The meds kill one pain, another arises.

Meeting the enemy head on with medicine is NOT working, and has NEVER worked.

Granted, I'm thankful for what relief I can get... together with Tess, my mother, my dear ones, the pups, the birds, and the Military Channel, I'm able to make it through each day, but only in loosing myself and going outside myself do I get any respite.

This can occur with Tess, when doing light landscaping, and when engaged in the visual arts.

I don't know if this flanking maneuver is something others in a similar state could do- I dearly hope no one else IS in a similar state!- but while "that-which-is-beyond-pain" wins every day, I still make the most of each one. What ever time I'm allowed when my body isn't shaking with spasms of pain, I'm embracing or creating beauty in one of these forms.

Our mother's day card - for ours and all others out there

Tess wrote the verse.

Mother's Day gift/card pink tulip photos uploading - Special FX by "Image Analyzer"

The rest of the Word Pictures based on the mother/daughter pink tulips will have to wait, but as promised, the best pictures of that shoot are being uploaded to all the usual sites.

The special effects you'll see on some of them are from a freeware program I just became aware of, Image Analyzer.

I was drawn to it because it promised an automated way to make photos extracted from a video or taken with a camera phone have higher quality / resolution (as per my challenge before the latest eruption of demonic pain hit)

In toying with it, I discovered a filter called "increase local contrast." It produces very artistic effects I've not encountered with any other program. That filter alone will guarantee it a place in my toolbox.

So... Pixelpipe.com is uploading the images to Multiply and Facebook as we type this. Its time for me to take more meds and go to bed, so the remaining Word Picture versions of these will have to wait.

Any of the Word Pictures I've done with the commandment would work well for a mother's day card if the lady is of a faith tradition where it is relevant. Add your own text to a space in the picture, add the picture to a card template, what ever.

There's countless ways to make a custom greeting card with an image... I'm sure multiply and vendors advertising on Facebook would be delighted to provide you with this service.

I hope some of you are able to make good use of these. I'm still on the darkside of the moon, so tschuss!

Make your own personalized mother's day card! Use my mother/daughter pink tulip word pictures!

I chose the mother/daughter pink tulips for this verse because the image so naturally brings to mind family, offspring, parents.

Any of the images from that series with the verse from the 10 commandments would make a great mother's day card.

Download the image, add your own text, or print the image and write something on the back.

Here's my latest version of it... I'll work on posting the others and the unedited pink mother/daughter tulips after the line of storms we're under all sorts of weather alerts for passes through.

Today's art / puppy therapy

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You can read about the video on Youtube.

Had to make some feeble attempt to approximate some form of existence beyond/besides my Promethean condition.

BEST free software to batch extract stills from video: SuperC - also good for conversion, audio extraction, etc.

I've been trying to keep posting content others can use while I weather the drastic increase in intensity of my body's storm.

So I wanted to post the stills from the butterfly on lilac video.

While GOMplayer can do it, there were some aspects of its operation which made it less than idea. For a single image cap, its great, but for doing a series within a video, or the entire video, it falls down.

Irfanview has the capability in theory, but it doesn't seem to like Vista 64 professional, and to get it to extract images from an avi file, you need to go looking for codecs, installing package after package until you find one it likes... and even then it has a tendency to crash. Pity, Irfanview is one of the great success stories of the open source software movement. I have a friend whose employer could provide any image editing software on the market, and they use a customized version of irfanview.

I tried several other programs which promised this capability and didn't.

A particularly appealing program turned out to be "snoop-ware" Softwarepile Free Video Studio Decompiler.

Fortunately McAffee's siteadvisor toolbar caught the danger.

If you don't use this great free tool, its = to driving a car without airbags or seat belts.

Finally I tried Super (C). This article does a better job of explaining what it does than I can. Its a very powerful media manipulation program. It doesn't rely on external codecs, so it works seamlessly on any computer.

The interface is a bit hard to figure out, but its simple enough to use once you get used to its Control Panel / Windows Management Console like interface.

It was quick, it worked great, and doesn't much with the performance or operation of ANY other software, while ALL the other programs I tried did so.

Here's their homepage. I expect I'll be enthusing about other things I can do with it in the future.

Attention spam commentators... my blood work shows abnormally high testosterone levels, so I have no need of your enhancement products

I have changed the requirements for leaving a comment to include the word verification and the use of some sort of id.

I just don't have the resources to weed through a lot of people who have an untoward interest in my personal life... which is matched only by their ignorance of my preferences and prowess. ;>

I'd also like to be able to respond to people who stop by and leave well wishes etc., and since right now my brain is about as sharp as a butter knife, I need this to be as easy for me as possible.