The Original Drawing Works the Best
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: art in progress

Yesterday I spent a good two hours at the library making copies of my drawing.  I was increasing the size.  Had to cut pieces, (add an arm, add a head, add the bottom of the feet) and then tape them together because the copy machine only has one size paper.  There was my naked man at 125%, 118%, 112% and 108%. 

In the evening I put the different sized men on my board.  There is already a lady sketched in, so the men had to not only fit in the board but fit in the composition with another figure.  To my surprise, nothing pleased me.  I rooted around and found a copy of the man at the original 100%.  Today's task will be to redraw his head quite a bit smaller.  I had got all hot about the length of his legs and chest but now I realize that making a small head will promise me a large body - the body will be "enlarged" in the viewer's perception with a small head. 

While I was at the library I felt a little bit of quiet fear.  Just a nagging fear of the people around me that was easily overcome with common sense and control.  Such a haunting occured when I was on the weaker drug Risperdal about 7 years ago.  Fear is a big part of many people's schizophrenia and it is definately a symptom that I will have to live with.  I'm not naturally inclined to trust, every since I was a child the world has always been split in two, with numerous acquaintences and the few, hard won friends.

I'm sticking with the Geodone.  After this post I'm planning to go to the woods for a walk with my dog.  It is early in the morning and pleasantly cool.  The energy I feel within that makes the walk possible (a natural energy, the spring in the step of normal, drug free folk) is a result of the switch to Geodone.  My mind might be weaker, but given time my body will become strong again, - and more years added to my lifetime.  Obesity always results in an early death.  I need the energy of Geodone for my physical health.

Cooking a Universe
Mood:  smelly
Topic: art in progress

In my current painting "Cinderella" I put scarlet red and royal blue in the darkest dark places of shadow.

Before I went to sleep I felt like I would burst.  So much energy.  I was high off of being bold with color.  And my experiment worked.  It worked.  Mike said the picture is starting to look sharp and clear.  He doesn't know how this is happening in technical terms, just that it seems so.  Have to put the painting away to dry today, been looking at it too much.  Don't want to smudge or blend those brilliant shadow colors. 

The scary part is that I'm all alone with my art.  No teacher or mentor or professional to look to and share with.  It almsot feels maddening being so alone, so daring, and so touched to the very core of my being.  A strong statement to make, how putting dabs of paint on canvass can put me on my knees.  Silly artist.  Why so intense?

There was a story once told in my college religion class many many years ago.  If an ignorant peasant worships a stone as if it were a God, is this a religion of one?  With the potential to be as powerful as any other conventional religion?  For some reason I always imagine a Russian peasant down on his knees in the Siberian Stepp in front of a small stone in the dirt.  This stone, it is less than ten inches in diameter.  The peasant is focused and praying to his stone.  That is my picture of ridiculous.  All that will, belief and hope placed on something so small and ordinary.  How many stones do we pass every day that are less than ten inches wide?  Why did the peasant pick this one stone, and what good, what blessings, can the ordinary stone ever bring the peasant?

I was the Russian peasant yesterday with my red and blue strokes of paint. 

Geodone Changes
Mood:  not sure
Topic: mental health

My mother said to me, "You now sound like a normal person when I hear your voice on the phone.  Before you sounded sharp.  Too sharp."

A few nights later, while my husband and I were swinging on swings, playground sand beneith our feet, he said to me, "There is one change that we both know about."

"What is that?" I asked.

"You know.  We've talked about it before."

"I haven't a clue what you are refering to."

My husband sighed. "You've lost your edge."

Then I remembered. "Mom said that you were sad.  You rather enjoyed having me so intelligent and perceptive.  I was your trophy wife."

My husband ignored my good humor.  He warned, "You may not be able to write as well as you used to." 

Probably, at that moment, I smiled.  He is so new at this.  The Big medication change where abilities are lost and abilities are gained.  But I am an old hand.  I make my choice and stick to it.  Regret and sadness?  A small amount.  I'm only human.  But I'm also a mature woman and don't have time for excessive anger and fist shaking at God and fate.  In my head I have a picture of myself as a swimming shark.  This shark is me and I am ancient and relentless and the perfect machine for hunting fish.  But my fish is the fish of happiness.  Like a shark I will find it and I will swiftly gobble it.  Usually the ideas of sharks and happiness don't go together in most people's heads.  But they do in mine.

My prediction is that Geodone is going to be a drug for me like Risperdal.  I will lose some ability, in fact the family has already commented on what I have lost.  My husband says that I am more simple.  This is not enough information.  I push.  "Like a labotomy simple?"  No.  He says that he just has a general feeling that I am more simple.  But, he adds, I seem happy.  

Why would a girl endure such a change?  Two reasons.  First, I have already lost weight.  It won't be easy to continue losing weight, have to cut out the sweets and walk more, but the incessent hunger is now gone and I am satiated more easily.  As I write this I am wearing a white blouse that I haven't worn since last spring.  Before Geodone wearing it would have been indecent, the buttons were straining to pull apart at the bustline.

And then there is this.  My Risperdal period of art was prolific and astoundingly creative. (check www.schizophreniaandart.com).  It has long been my suspicion that there is an unequal balance between language making and image making in my mind.  Increase the abilities of one and the abilities of the other lessen, and vice versa.  Right now my imagination feels fruitfull.  Not languistically but pictoraly.  Last weekend Mike moved the track lighting in our bedroom and bolted three painting easles to the wall.  At this moment I am concidering painting in my white blouse.  It will be a foolish thing to do, but now that it is on I don't want to take it off.

Only time can prove how my art will change.  But change it will.  Currently I am finishing up canvasses that were started as long as three years ago.  Large differences will first appear in the craypas drawings (begun new and finished quickly).  I predict a return of mythological subject matter.  More dreamlike views.  Less relience on photographic source material.  And a freer use of color.   Color that is not logically related to the object.  Color that is needed only in relationship to the other colors; ie. the dress is red so paint the outline of the dress light blue and green.

It still takes a lot of hard work to create a piece of art.  Inspiration and drive is not magically raining down upon my head like a gift of mana from heaven.  Discipline is still nessesary to overcome the aimlessness of schizophrenia.

Enough.  I'm going to go paint.  More on the Geodone changes next post.

London in Vermont
Mood:  vegas lucky
Topic: family

The friendly cat, who is afraid of no body and no thing, is called "Miss Grey". 

Occationally when she is in a generous mood the dogs are "Miss Plum" and "Mr. Cerberus".  The dogs  frequently are misbehaving, but they are also very cute, so they pull at your heart strings in every direction.  Boo, the black cat who is skittish and does not like change is addressed as plain Boo.  And I am called "Miss Karen". 

This could be a sarcastic title, because traditionally young people don't get along with a step mother.  But given the evidence of how the animals are treated, how their name changes when they are favored, I'm of the opinion that my nickname is an endearment.

"Miss Karen" is also always said in sweet tones.  Perhaps her voice is always sweet.  Eh, I'm won over.

London came to us on July 2nd, one day before her 21st birthday.   My husband and I had been preparing our home for a foster child who we wished to eventually adopt.  As part of the state investigation into our home and life, we needed five letters of reference from friends or relatives.  London wrote us a beautiful letter of reference.  It was emailed for us to proof read.  Yet the original letter dragged and was slow to be sent out.  And so I wondered, did this show a bit of reluctance?

During a Father's Day phone conversation it came out that London was unhappy.  She was doing what she could to change her circumstances.  But from her perspective it seemed that the person who was going to benefit from the new experience of financial and emotional stability in her father's life would be our adopted child.  It wasn't just jealousy.  It is my guess that London was angrey at a world that had moved on too quickly, her childhood rights and privilages had ended, and any chance to live in a safe, nurturing enviornment had passed. 

While Mike was at work I sent him an email.  The idea popped into my head that we could invite London to live with us, on our dollar, while she returned to school.  The foster child was not real yet, just a future phantom, and we had real family that had real needs to minister to first.  Since our apartment is only two bedroom the choice had to be between one child or the other.  Our resources are limited. 

The first night London was here I asked her to dream a bit.  If she could get anything out of her stay with us, what would that be?  London said her first wish was to re-connect with her father and simply enjoy his company.  Her second wish was to stay long enough to get her Bachelor's degree.  A friend had warned her that his Associate's degree had done nothing to help him find work.   This news delighted both Mike and myself because we wanted, when London was ready to launch into the world, her to go with as much strength and advantage as possible.

Mike had been secrety hoping for some time that we might open our door and have London stay with us.  However, he rightly guessed that the only way it could happen without my feeling resentment (a new bride wanting a young child of her own.....) would be if the idea was first suggested by me rather than him.  So he played a waiting game and kept his finger's crossed.  Never did I feel pressured or manipulated.  Quite the opposite.  Interesting husband I have.

Happily, London is a young woman who brushes her teeth every day, makes her bed every morning, does laundry frequently, and takes her dog into her shower with her.  Thus she always smells fresh, her dog's fur is soft, and her room is always neat when you walk by and look in.  Our apartment is old so the walls are very thick and we can't hear her hardly at all when she talks on the phone or listens to television.  Most of the time she is on her computer.  A self proclaimed "geek", London's obsession is Japanese anime and internet role playing games.  Both fantasy pursuits she takes seriously and spends long hours quietly entertaining herself.  There is an enormus amount of writing involved in the online roleplaying games and from what I hear she creates very popular, memorable characters.  My guess is that one day London will become a famous published author of science fiction or fantasy books and people will look at her life and exclaim with envy, "You get paid for doing that?!"

Tonight
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: family

Walk down the street one block.

 

The river is deep in one spot.

 

Tree branches overhead.

 

Both dogs swim.

 

Walk in with my dress on.

 

Moss on the rocky banks.

 

Walk home.

 

Peace in my heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

How a Picture is Made
Mood:  crushed out
Topic: art in progress

When I start a painting I start badly.  What saves the final work is rough draft after rough draft.

I wanted to do a picture of "The Lady" who I mentioned yesterday.  She is an African woman dressed in white.  Her dress is all lace and antiquated.  Her posture is stiff, her deminor is grave and elegant. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next, what was needed was a place to put the Lady in.  She needed a background and perhaps another figure in the painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Imagining a male nude is one thing, to draw it I always use a photographic reference.  I have a small art library at home.  Usually there is never a photograph of exactly what I want so I use multiple photographs and rather morph them together; an arm from here, a back from there, a foot from somewhere else.

 

This pose was proving particularly difficult.  So I asked Mike for help.  On his computer is an artificial picture maker called "Poser".  In Poser the human figure can be twisted and turned, mounted, muscles pumped up, pulled at with gravity, and the light source manipulated.  Using this sketch I asked Mike to make the same pose in Poser and print it out on a piece of paper. 

What I got was a great reference for correct proportion.  Poser is a library of human anatomy ratios.  While figures are turned in three dimentional space the perspective of the nude is continuously corrected. 

It is rather like playing with a doll in your computer.  Mike is particularly good at the program because it relies upon mathmatical instinct.  The method of using the program is not like a video game where, as you move a stick, so the figure rotates and moves.  There are a lot of numbers to be manipulated in the Poser program; and Mike is good at numbers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally I was ready to put "The Lady" in an appropriate setting.  What is appropriate for someone from the spirit world?  This is what my imagination came up with.  Beauty and wisdom in a savage place.

 

 

A Religious Experience
Mood:  cool
Topic: art in progress

My husband knows what a religious experience is.  I don't.  He was born and raised in the Bible belt and had his first of several when he was seventeen. 

A few weeks ago I told him about a conversation I had with my four imaginary spirit guides.

Being a person with schizophrenia, you must understand what I mean by imaginary.  They are no different then the images I see in my mind before I paint or when I am planning a painting.  I never visually see my guides in front of me as if they were a hallucination.  One of them, whom I call "The Lady" has visited me twice before in a dream and each time she visits it is to teach me something.  The first time we meet the lesson was about communication.  And the point, or punch line of the the dream was that it was time to tell Micheal that I loved him.  Which I did in a letter the next day.  The day after that he wrote me a letter saying that he loved me as well, and this exchange, three years ago, was the start of our real love relationship.

Two guides I met through a psychic I was friends with back in Winsted, Connecticut.  I now have a picture in my mind of Genevieve Schweizer, my dead grandmother, and a gaurdian angel.  If I talk to them in my imagination, they respond either by a physical gesture, additional imagry, or words.  Again, the things are never seen or heard as real voices or hallucinations - it is communication through the old fashioned, much used process by which I create imagry for my artwork.  It is a bit like having a dream while you are awake.  A daydream.  Only the plot is never very long.  Spirits don't muck about.  They aren't shy and they aren't misleading.  Whenever we are told a new idea that idea may take us a day or two or more to understand, but such confusion is like the lifting of a vail.  Once the vail is gone you see and understand perfectly well.

So, what happened three weeks ago.

I was lying on a fold-out bed at my mother's home.  Mike and I were there to give Mom's carrage house apartment a new tile floor.  It was the middle of the day and I was resting while Mike worked.  The room was dark, all the shades drawn and a ceiling fan whirled quietly.  My four friends were clear in my mind's eye.  And the five of us began to have a conversation.

I asked the Lady why I couldn't image her face smiling.  I mean, I could imagine it, I can imagine anything, but the picture was a characture of a smile.  I was putting on her face what I wanted, manipulaing my imagination and the effect was a certain farce.  All the time I have ever seen her she is very somber and dignified.

"Why won't you smile for me?" I asked her, silently, in my imagination.

"When you learn how to create in joy I will smile for you" she promised.

See, if you have been reading my posts you know that I work at my art wether I want to or not and at times I push myself almost like I am a machine.  Always I have seen myself as a process person, the final product is the end result of many small steps each carefully measured.  I am not messy, spontanious, or instinctual.  I am intellectrual and driven.  This is not just a style of work, this is the style of my personality.  It has been so for years and years.  I am after all the daughter of a research scientist.

Other things were discussed.  But this exchange about art was the most significant.  While I was with my four friends I had a feeling of being a cup full of wine.  Full to the brim with a dark, sweet, liquid.  Of this feeling the four told me that this is the way that they always feel on the other side of life.

At that time I had just finished painting a bedroom in our apartment the prettiest color green.  I was preparing for the arrival of Mike's daughter London and her dog Cerberus to come live with us while London is going to school for her bachelor's degree.

Part of my good feeling was the love of a job well done.  I created a room of serenity and peace.  What London thought of it or did with it was beyond my control.  All I knew was that I had prepared well for her visit.

My spirit friends pointed out that this is what they do in the spirit world.  They prepare a world here for us.  What we do with their gifts, whether we can see them and appreciate them is out of their control.  But they are fullfilled with the act of creation, making a metaphorical room for each of us to inhabit.  They are a step ahead of us in time just as I was a step ahead of London in time.  I made her room while she was still living in Michigan, no doubt wondering what life would be like living with her father's new wife.

I am not certain what I told Mike of my waking dream.  It all seemed so ordinary.  Honestly, it was quite a surprise when he said, you've just had a religious experience.  

When we returned to Vermont I began preparation plans to pull apart my paint easils and bolt them to the walls of my bedroom.  I am going to be painting standing up.  Now that London has arrived there is far less space in the apartment - no place for a standing easle.  Frankly, her exuberent pup Cerberus can and does knock many things over with his tail.  My paintings can be hiked up to the ceiling while they dry.  No elbow, tail, or wet nose will harm them.

The mystery of what it means to "create in joy" is still present.  But I am certain that pulling apart my easles and mounting paintings on the wall is a first step toward a new art.  There are other guesses mulling about in my head.

What a lovely challenge is offered.

I'm back!
Mood:  bright
Topic: art in progress

Just a note before I go to my volunteer job at the Museum.  I'm dressed in black silk - starting to fit into my clothing again because of Geodone.

Today I am taking a photographic reference book with me so that I can draw a male nude to include in my next painting.  He has the head of a deer.  Big question.  Should I put a loin cloth on him?  I want the viewer to see that he had a well developed, broad chest (all the better to hold a head with a big snout and big set of antleres).  To see the width of the chest the man needs to be tilted toward the viewer.  Strick profile would hide his genitals, especially if he is in mid stride.  But what I want is a three quarter view of his torso and that would include the thing that gives the painting a sexual charge. 

My gut tells me that this character (for he is that, something and someone from my unconscious mind) is completely nude.  And that there is a reason for his nudity.  He is a force of nature, fey, bold, and primitive.  And then there is the rest of the painting to concider.  The other character is a woman clothed in a very modest dress with fabric starting under her chin covering everything down to the ground.  You can see her feet but not her hands.  The male's nudity is pictoral contrast to this other creature, pure and simple.

Is there any way to draw a penis so that it doesn't look sexual?

The Orange Tree Grove
Mood:  on fire
Topic: art in progress
Just finished. Took pictures this morning. Very difficult to capture the look of the original. This is an oil painting done on paper mounted on board. It measures (I'll have to get back to you).

Painting
Mood:  spacey
Topic: building business
I painted for three hours this morning. There was very little joy. It was simply the work that needed to be done, and I pushed myself. The underpainting is starting to look complex and lush. The multiple thin layers of transparent pigment has given all the objects a weighty, substantial look. Getting hungry with anticipation for the time to come when the underpainting is complete and I can start adding a top coat of color.

Mike said that my slow creative process is unusual. This whole process of preparation shows unusual creative restraint, and many amateur artists he has met don't have it. Creativity pushes some people with a rush of energy, and they move boldly froward with paint, canvass and brush. I tried that method once, and only once, and the canvass quickly was put out on the curb with the garbage.

Yesterday I found an interview with Aaron Holliday, the schizophrenic painter I admire who painted "Baby Fish". I felt sad for Holliday because he took the same gamble that I am taking, trying to stand on his own two feet an make money as an artist. It backfired when he lost his social security income. Now he has no medical care for the schizophrenia and that is a very dangerous position to be in. The disease can be progressive, with psychosis worsening and brain damage resulting in an even lower level of artistic productivity. Un-medicated it is possible that he could lose that ability to make art for several years or even, forever. Somebody has to talk straight to Holliday about the severity of his illness and what he needs to do to defend his gift and his sanity. Somebody needs to say things that would break his heart, I bet that none of his caretakers has the guts to do it.

Holliday's story illustrates what Mike and I call "The Myth of Recovery", where patients get subtle (and not so subtle) signals from society that full-time employment is possible, and levels of higher functioning can be attained through either education or willpower. In my recovery it is true that after many years (10 to 15) I can now write better and make more sophisticated art. But what has not changed is the hours during the day that I am sick. The proportion of low functioning hours of illness compared to high functioning hours of health has not changed.

It is my favorite daydream that I am magically granted the gift of eight working hours per day. I can paint non-stop for that amount of time, and oh, what wonders I would produce! My skill would leap forward as I learn from accident and experimentation. And at the end of a year I could stand in the middle of a room in a gallery and see my most recent work covering every wall.

In terms of recovery from schizophrenia it is true that over the years I have become more skilled. After the disastrous onset of the illness and global loss of cognitive ability, I am now more skilled at social interaction, at writing, at using art materials and at using a computer. But note what my education and advancement has cost me - I could not work any type of standard job while I was building up this narrow range of skill. There was a choice I had to make about 15 years, a fork in the road with two directions. First, I could work a part-time job, about 15 hours a week. The job would earn me extra money but I would have no energy left over for creative work. My friend Rocki went this route, first as a part-time student and then as a part-time worker in a library re-shelving books. She is a creative person who enjoys writing songs and short stories, and while she has talent, she had little time left after work in which to practice. Understand that since Rocki has a disease like my own, a lot of her time is spent, like me, simply being ill and withdrawn.

The alternative route was to discipline myself and write and make art as a self-taught, self-motivated agent. It was a terribly lonely route. There was no promise of either publication or if the artwork would sell. Very few people were interested in my progress. And while I was on disability it was in my best interest to work steadily in private and accrue skill, looking forward to the one day when I might, only might, burst forward upon the art world fully formed, like Athena from Zues's skull.

I wonder what Roger Ricco would say about my art?

And should I approach NARSAD with an artwork, and try to get some publicity through their agency? The only trouble is that NARSAD is political and they like really "upbeat" images to represent mentally ill persons, like pretty flowers and landscapes. Oh, and they don't like the work to look too childlike or primitive either. Better to show how "sophisticated" at using "artistic technique" the mentally ill person can be.

I went to the Ricco/Maresca gallery to grab a picture of Holliday's work. Well, the website was updated and Maresca no longer has Holliday listed as an artist client. The interview below took place three years ago. So I guess he didn't sell. There is just one schizophrenic client left, Ken Grimes. I was really happy to see new pictures of Grimes work. I don't know if my work is as strong as Grimes. Good, Better, Best. The world is judging you. You have the choice to listen or not.

Poor Aaron Holliday.


The Art of Aaron Holliday

The artwork of Aaron Holliday can range from the surreal to the startlingly realistic. His pencil drawings are lush and intricately detailed; and his oil paintings employ the same attention to detail combined with a riot of color and depth.

By the time he was 13, Aaron Holliday had turned to drawing to alleviate his loneliness. Born in New York and raised in Los Angeles by his grandmother, he gradually withdrew from the world.

Eventually, he became so focused on drawing that he refused to go to school and had to be hospitalized. Mr. Holliday spent 3 years at Los Angeles County Hospital. Now 54, he currently resides in an assisted living facility.

Completely self-taught, Mr. Holliday works closely with the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression Artworks (NARSAD) to display and sell his artwork to the public.

The Ricco/Maresca Gallery in New York found out about Mr. Holliday through NARSAD and now has several of his pieces on display.

NARSAD Artworks showcases the talents of many gifted artists who happen to be mentally ill in an effort to help raise their self-esteem, as well as their income.

In addition to original artwork, pieces are available in the form of gift cards, calendars, lithographs, and postcards.

The group also raises money for projects that advocate on behalf of the mentally ill, and it promotes public education to destigmatize mental illness.

According to Roger Ricco of the Ricco/Maresca Gallery, Mr. Holliday's "work is extremely realistic, in contrast to primitive or brut art. He has this amazing skill to paint his ideas or draw his ideas. His paintings are surreal, but they also are very real in a way." "Birds on Scarf" has a translucence that helps give the painting a multidimensional feel.

Mr. Holliday's work brings together diverse sources and interests. "Ultimately, when [these interests] become a picture, they're almost perfectly real and at the same time; there's almost something wrong with it, in the sense of something is not normal, and I don't mean in a medical sense, but in terms of reality. What you end up with is a picture that looks like a room, and then you realize that everything about it is strange, but beautifully and wonderfully rendered," Mr. Ricco said.

"You might see a reflection in a mirror that you wouldn't expect to see, or the reflection goes back five times. From the art angle, his work stands on its own."

Many of Mr. Holliday's pencil drawings feature an eagle and a Native American character. In one, the eagle is soaring above mountains and a stream, with the full span of the bird's wing illustrated. In another, "Yellow Hawk", the bird is perched atop the outstretched arm of the Native American man with a forest backdrop The man is wearing long braids and a feather. Like all of Mr. Holliday's other works, these are finely detailed.

In some of his more surreal works, a huge eagle stands on the ground next to the Native American man, and they are almost the same in height.

And in yet another, two chubby-cheek infants are framed against a backdrop of lush flowers. The work is titled "Babyfish" because instead of legs, the lower bodies of the infants are fish tails that appear to be submerged in clear water.

Mr. Rocco is particularly impressed with the quality of Mr. Holliday's paintings. "They are very elegant and probably historically accurate," he said.

Mr. Holliday's work can be viewed online at www.riccomaresca.com . He lives in Southern California.

The Artist's Reflections
There's no inspiration behind my work. A picture comes to mind, and there it is.

The length of time it takes to create depends on the piece. Each drawing takes about a month. A painting takes maybe a month and a half. It's really nothing shattering or scientific. It's just a thought I have in my mind.

Well, I'm not dead yet, but I want to say I've been painting all of my life. But I was drawing like this since I was a kid.

I've never been to a gallery. Ricco/Maresca Gallery is the first I've ever known. I've never even been there. It's the first gallery that's shown my work.

The drawings are simply pictures I put on canvas or on paper. It's a thought. I don't have a private collection of work. When I finish a piece, NARSAD takes it, and it goes into their traveling show.

I don't work every day at this. I may not work for months, and then I get the feeling to work. I'm working on a piece right now that I've had for a year. I hadn't worked on it for about 6 months, and I'm getting back at it. I get the feeling to work, and I do until I get tired of doing it. And then I don't want to do it for a while.

I've been diagnosed with schizophrenia, manic depression, I know it's called bipolar now, but this is years ago, back when I was in [Los Angeles] County Hospital when I was a child.

I'm not under a physician's care right now at all. I'm trying to get back on supplemental security income (SSI). I left SSI because I thought I could make a living on my art, but I cannot do it. I'm not doing anything for my medical care right now. I am diabetic and NARSAD helps me with my diabetes care, but as far as having a doctor, no.

My problem is schizophrenia. I hear voices and things like that. Sometimes good voices; sometimes very nice voices; sometimes very angry voices. But I'm not dangerous. I've never hurt anybody; never wished to hurt anybody. I hear the voices every day. Sometimes medication takes the voices away. But I don't want to be on medication.

When I have a clear mind, my work is beautiful, but when my mind is not clear, it's slightly schizophrenic. It's not terrible or ugly, but it's surrealism style.

"Babyfish" is slightly surreal. "Yellow Hawk" is not. The eagle on the Indian's arm, that's a normal position. If the eagle was carrying him, that would be surreal. Babyfish is slightly surreal 'cause babies don't have fish tales, but if you go to an aquarium and you see young fish, you think baby fish. And there are other pieces like that too, especially among my oil paintings. I have a piece called "Rhapsody." It's supposed to be music, and it's a big swirl.

I'm working on "Garden Path" now. It's of a woman in a garden, set in the 15th century, Dutch style. You know the saying "rose-colored glasses," and "going down the garden path," meaning you're not paying attention to your life and you're just about flowers and going down the garden path, and not doing anything with your life, well this was my thought behind the drawing. The woman is holding flowers, and she's in an old country garden. It's beautiful. It's coming in real good. It's a pencil drawing. I've been working on it for a year, more or less.

I really want to try to make a living from my art. I could not get a job doing anything. What kind of job could I have because of my illness?