Dawn’s Bountiful Harvest

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  Dawn’s Bountiful Harvest 2018
  Lisa Leigh Payne

Dawn’s Bountiful Harvest done in 2018 in the midst of a terrible bout of fibromyalgia and these few days I had help coping with the pain. Then, that was over. And back to misery and little to none production. Fibromyalgia, and pain in general, have a way of stealing everything away from your life. The simple joys of dishes and sweeping are impossible, and a smile might actually hurt your face.

My best friend, also with fibromyalgia, says the pain reminds her that she is alive and she is grateful for another day. Finding gratitude in the small things. Sometimes with fibromyalgia, that bountiful harvest is very hot water in a tub or shower. Whatever are the little things to be grateful for, recognize each day for the new things it brings: HOPE.

Perhaps Dawn’s Bountiful Harvest is HOPE? HOPE , a feeling of expectation and desire. Optimism is the positive and Pessimism is the negative, being expressed with the word “dread.” So, with whatever expression we define our intention for the future, we are either hoping or dreading. And, the middle is apathy, what is that?

Here is an article on Apathy, and just the consideration of Apathy has made me do a sketch.

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evolution-the-self/201604/the-curse-apathy-sources-and-solutions

Here is a quote from the article. “But independent of etiology, the ultimate consequence of all these conditions—and others, too—are pretty much the same. That is, for all who suffer from apathy, what’s lost is the fundamental hope that personal happiness or fulfillment is possible. ” That means that a person who is apathetic either does not care at all for a particular issue, or they do not care for themselves. One is self-centered, especially if apathetic on certain issues like racism, greed, and exploitation, this is the outward apathy. (Narcissism?) The inward apathy is almost a non-recognition of the needs of self, the loss of interest in things to come, either good or bad. Neither hoping, nor dreading. Like in a sensory-deprivation tank where the water is exactly 98.6 and there is no (external) stimulus. Perhaps the (internal) stimulus*, the person inside, has been so battered that they fear coming out, so rather than admit they have needs, because asking for those needs to be fulfilled resulted in abuse, they hole up, and refuse stimulation at all. So, is apathy really a deep-set fear? That person is afraid to acknowledge their own needs to themselves. I think I have been there. (*The stimulus is our being, existence, our spirit what have you, the conscious.) This, touching your inner peace. Your being.

Dawn’s Bountiful Harvest 2018 mixed-media collage, is composed of recycled jewelry, ephemera, beads, buttons, found objects. https://www.etsy.com/listing/662496124/dawns-bountiful-harvest-2018?ref=listings_manager_grid

Artist’s Statement

Lisa Leigh Hill Payne

My fascination with embroidery begins with the simplicity of the needle, thread and cloth. Through my work, these familiar materials transform the cloth’s surface into a complex and organic design. Historically, embroidery was used as a symbolic language on clothing; I have broadened this use of embroidery to include the expression of my own philosophical considerations. My creations illustrate the unseen connections between the universe and the essential spirit.

I develop my designs from a feeling or a concept that emerges in meditation or while sketching when my mind is elsewhere. Laying down the stitches is a therapeutic process and a dynamic is created as I attempt to distribute the color or density of the stitches to find the answer to the piece’s puzzle. Primary, I use intense hues so that the sensuous experience of the colors grabs the viewer’s attention and elicits contemplation.

My work has evolved from scattered mark making to the symbolic and non-representational. The symbolic pieces moved me to toward a deeper spiritual expression that evolved into the abstract pieces. Much of my work involves a convoluted and mysterious line of thread. My desires is that this line will draw the viewer into a labyrinthine exercise that engages them in a visual and physical experience. I wish the viewer to get lost in a sense of timelessness and to realize their connection to the infinite universe. For me, this realization is a spiritual experience, to find oneself in time and at the same moment, in infinity.

My personal spiritual process is reflected in my pieces. The abstract detail provokes my own reflections and I am drawn to further contemplation and illustration. I have found that in creating fiber art, I can represent a spiritual ideal with a familiar medium making simple and accessible what seems to be abstract and complicated.

Quora question: Can morphine help emotional pain?

Someone really asked this.

Yes, it can but is a bad solution for emotional pain. A terrible solution for emotional pain. People die from morphine, heroine overdoses every day. Like 99 a day in the United States.

Morphine, heroine, will make you feel better but you will quickly become addicted using those as a solution to emotional pain.

A person with emotional pain needs to find out the source of that pain. I am bipolar so for me my emotions were intertwined with a chemical imbalance in my brain. So the healing was two-part. First was a medication prescribed by a psychiatrist, then therapy with a psychologist. What happens with bipolar, a chemical imbalance in the brain makes your emotions unreliable. You might feel sad when everything is going right, overwhelmed and anxious in simple situations, or happy in dangerous situations. Your mind, or mine did, works to make sense of the disconsonent emotions and finds “reasons” for them. For example, anxiety: people are staring at me; sadness: my best friend really cut me down; happiness: this drug makes me feel better. Your mind will try to make sense of emotions (caused by chemical imbalance in the brain) by tacking on plausible explanations.

A person truly, really needs to find the source of emotional pain. Healing can take months or years, but once identified the process is worth all the efforts. When a person uses drugs to “fix” emotional pain, the source of the pain is buried deeper and deeper, and like any physical infection, it festers and creates more pain. Eventually emotional pain will become so intense that it will surface in other ways, unrelated to the original cause.

Do not ever fix emotional pain with morphine or other morphine based substance. You will end up addicted and perhaps dead before the emotional pain is better.

HUMOR IN LOW PLACES

Best laugh in the projects

The biggest and most satisfying laugh I got in the projects. You know when you are flat broke dumpster diving is never out of the question. You have guests that are weird and strangers visit. So this big fat guy sat on my bent wood rocker and ripped out the woven seat so I threw it away. I was very disappointed as that chair was a gift, just before my first son was born.

A few days later I find this awesome papasan chair of rattan needing a bit of cleaning and painting. I already had a giant, round pillow and brought the thing to my front porch. I loved that thing and brought the pillow in when it was going to rain.

I sat outside on the porch as one is wont to do in the projects. I had no phone so this was the way to interact with the world. This lady walks by and notes the papasan chair, “Where’d ya get that chair?” I told her I found it in the dumpster. I was a great find and I absolutely loved it. She laughed and told me it had been her chair. I laughed too. “That’s cool. There’s some good stuff  in the dumpsters,” I say.

“Sure is,” she says. Then she tells me that she also found a fantastic chair in the dumpster. I’m like wait. “Was it a bentwood rocker with a torn seat?” “Yes.” My eyes are tearing up. I began to laugh. She said she loved that chair and it would work with a little fixing. “Did you see it too?”

“No!” I exclaimed. “That was my chair!!!”  We both rolled laughing until we had tears in our eyes.  High fives all around for dumpster diving and connections.