Short post for Koren

Dear cuz,

We've received the amazing quilts, and both Tess and Kevin immediately wrapped them around their shoulders - how's that for a virtual hug? Thank you, thank you, thank you! I will try to post piccies sometime soon. Need to figure out how to integrate images and art into this blogthing, anyhow.

I'm actually doing really well. Other than chemo, I'm fine. This time so far has been much easier - we have a lot fewer OTHER stressors on our plates, for one thing. The biggest complication is that Tess is now an early adolescent, so we have the sulks and pouty faces thrown in with the emotional reaction to the cancer. I know she needs to get her feelings out, but does it have to be SULK?

The chemo is so far hitting me much less - i have more brains, and more appetite. I've lost a little bit of weight, but most of the week seem to be functioning normally. My continuity is sometimes a bit lacking - i get to work, and go, now what in HELL was I working on yesterday? But perhaps that's just middle age...

Our visit to UCSF for a second opinion was encouraging, and he talked with a fairly long term view. If taxol works, I can continue to use it for a long time, perhaps years. With all the treatments now, a cancer like mine is really looked at as a chronic disease, like diabetes, rather than a death sentence. We talked about a number of other chemo drugs, and stuff is being developed so fast now that there will be new treatments all the time. So try not to worry too much.

In other news, I've been doing this extremely foofoo touchy feely art thing with a group of women called Soul Collage (I kid you not) but having a blast doing it. It's pretty structured - the board are a certain size, and they have this elaborate structure around what the different cards are supposed to symbolize. I don't seem to use them that way at all, I just love MAKING them. And it's straight out of kindergarten - cut pictures you like out of magazines or old calendars, and stick 'em down with rubber cement. The structure eliminates a lot of decisions, so for me it's just pure PLAY - like cutting out paper dolls. I'll try to send you images of a few of mine, and there are quite a lot by others out on the internet if you are interested. Just don't ask me what archetype my card is supposed to symbolize.

I've picked up a couple of weird books about artists and creative process, and I'm itching to mess with collage on a larger scale - it's taken me for damned ever to realize how many unspoken rules I learned about making art, and that I'm allowed to break them. i.e. - collage isn't "serious" art, nor is mixed media. (Can you hear my mother's voice? As you know, lover her to bits, but she did have strong opinions about things...) But I love messing around and mixing things together - text and computer stuff and photographs and paper and everything. I recently saw a show of someone I know peripherally (the husband of the woman who teaches the Soul Collage class), and it was all computer printed photos that he then manipulated, like folding or cutting them and weaving the torn pieces together. and I LOVED it. She is doing a class this spring, and I'm going...just to have a couple of hours set aside for art making.

I'm also in the process of turning our living room into an art studio. A whole table and shelves just for projects, and I don't have to clean it off the dining room table in time for dinner. It frees me up to work at a bigger scale, and be much messier.

Love to all of you!
Chris