Fetal aceo

Fetal aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

I've used this image before.

This card is about when it's all - everything and everyone - it's all just too much. How at some point you can't take a thing more - a good thing, a bad thing...anything.... not one thing more. And you know all that works to make it better is collapsing in on yourself. Curling up. Not hearing or seeing anything else until you are ready...

The card was done on a base of mat board cut into ACEO format. Through the main image you can see the base papers and I think that that gives even more of a feeling of vulnerability... The figure is not only curled into a fetal position but you can almost see through her...or partly...like she's fading away. On top of the image are webby papers, gauzy papers and glass beads. There is a haze over her. Its more obvious in person...the scan shows more of the figure than you can see when you look at the card.

for sale

Know what's sick? aceo

Know what's sick? aceo
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

On eBay

Know what's sick? aceo
The mentally ill commit crimes on television that diabetics do not. Has an episode of Law and Order ever focused on a defendant's irritable bowel syndrome?Or has a raging sinus infection ever been a mitigating factor?

Nope and nope....

Bipolar Disorder isn't an identity, or an excuse or a reason to feel sorry for me, it's a chronic illness. And I'm a person... not an illness with a person hanging off a label. It hurts that I can pick a random police drama and, with reasonable certainty, see someone with the same diagnosis on trial for a heinous crime because the mentally ill commit crimes on TV that people with carpel tunnel syndrome don't.


The portrayal of mental illness in the media is endless generalizations; generalization upon generalizion until the kernal of truth is lost. We see creepy, scary folks that eat bugs. The homeless. The stalkers. The people who pee in doorways while reciting the Gettysburg address and make you want to take another way home. Those that are news worthy when they run naked at major sporting events. Movies with fun-loving inpatients who your kids would love to hang with...

What's worse? Stigma or sideshow over-fascination? Despite the media's portrayal; we are not all bug-eating door-way peeing naked streakers or hopelessly hip inpatients. There is a middle-ground to live with bipolar disorder and most of us are there; boring as hell.


Stigma is about shame. Stigma can only go on in the dark so I try and answer questions people ask me:

"It's called Bipolar Disorder, rapid cycling with mixed episodes. Uh-huh. That's a mouthful. Yes, I've hallucinated. No, not often. It's been years, I think.... The funniest one? Well--It's hard to classify the psychotic as amusing but I suppose the funniest one was when the linguine with clam sauce was talking. It did too! No, I swear. Well. What it was saying is a hard one. No matter how close I moved my ear to the plate I still couldn't tell what they were saying. I ultimately decided the clams weren't talking to me but amongst themselves."

I am willing to talk openly about my meds:

"There are a lot of drugs. Mood stabilizers like anti-convulsants that epileptics use. (I feel on safe ground here because a drug used for epilepsy doesn't pack the drooling-stigma-punch of Thorazine.) There are drugs for depression. Oh, and the anti-anxiety drugs, the sleeping pills and anti-psychotics are used (The last one can be a bit tricky. While people say they want information, I lose a lot of folks on the anti-psychotics.)"

The drug side effects:

"Some make me tired. Confused... Liver failure.... Acne.... Hair loss, except of course on your chin...where it grows.... Weight gain. No, this one didn't make me gain weight but I gained 80 pounds on a different one. Yes, that was a lot of weight. No, your right. Haven't lost it all."

When people ask if I see and hear things "like TV crazy-people do," maybe they don't want to know. "I'm just like you, silly! No one really has those kinds of thoughts. " Well, no one they know. No one with a son in their kid's school. No one behind them in the 10 items or less grocery aisle...Or shops for shampoo at the same drugstore. Or waits on line behind them at the ATM.

Hopefully, being open and comfortable about myself will lessen stigma over time even if it makes my world a little uncomfortable for a moment or two. Or nine.... Granted, copping to hearing clams speak amongst themselves isn't something most people are ready for but most people aren't ready to change their minds about anything without a little push.

About ten years ago I went to a seminar with a speaker who couldn't make a strong point without swearing. And he made a lot of points. After about an hour a proper-looking woman got up and said she wasn't accustomed to hearing that kind of language. The speaker bolted to within an inch of her face and let loose a string of expletives with a ferocity unequaled to anything since the big bang. The audience held it's collective breath and after a minute the speaker screamed at the now pale woman, "Are you f-ing accustomed to it yet?"

It was a point well taken, with me anyway. People live at their own comfort level until they are challenged. Being that in-your-face does have a place but it isn't usually necessary. Just living visibly in the bipolar middle-ground can be enough. Even if people seem a bit queasy at first about talking shellfish I hope living openly will widen the middle-ground and give me a bigger place to live over time.

JUST PASSING TIME ACEO

Time has a problem and a bad reputation. People blame a lack of it their failures but don't like an excess of time either.
If they only had the time to spend with their family...exercise... go back to school. If they only hadn't been so pressed for time they would never had chosen that job...that car.... that husband. Having lots extra time is seen as something that will get you into trouble... Too much time to fill is seen as a retired man who gets on every one's nerves... Too much time between where you are and what you want is seen as excruciating...

People talk in time... My biological clock is ticking. No time like the present. Time stands still for no one.... Idle hands are the devil's playground... A watched pot never boils. And on and on... I suppose there are sayings about time where slowing down and enjoying time is shown as a good thing - For example - Take time to smell the daisy's. But to be honest that one always reeks of 1960's Flower Children and doesn't really ring true to most people. I think they can see the value of it but not the practical application.

But the truth is time is a constant... it's your impatience that's the variable. And it's up to you to see the golden value in your time - to capture all your seconds and than file them away as memories. If you sit back and think about time, it's given you a lot. The passing of time gives you all the good things - all your good experience. Your joys. Your quiet moments between the fray.

Perhaps Memory's gift is gratitude but Time's gift is patience. If you take the two in tandem you can truly be a happy person.

CHILDREN HURT FOREVER ACEO

On eBay beginning the evening of May 31

I've never used the same image for two different auctions running at the same time before.

The story is sometimes when I'm making a card I will try it two different ways. Most times only one will work and the other will be awful. Or if the second isn't bad... it's not good enough to list. But in this case there was something about both of them that was tugging at me.

I intended to use the image to describe eating issues. It's what I was thinking when I worked on the picture in the first place but as I looked at this card it seemed to be saying something different to me. That happens sometimes. Art sometimes takes on a life and meaning all it's own... and I'm just the vehicle.

When I looked at the card this morning I decided to list it even though there is a card with the same image already listed because this card is about something else.

This card is about how when you hurt a child you change them. They change the second they are hurt...they change who they will be and they change the way they look back at themselves. In a sense people who hurt children change not only their presant and future...but their past as well.

So much is gone. Their voices... their smiles... their frowns... their kisses.... and a way to tell their secrets.

Hurting a child is a terrible thing.

HELP ME ACEO

BUY

This aceo is based on one of my earliest drawings. It was originally done in marker and there is really nothing on it but bold dark color and the word help...small and in yellow at the bottom of the page. The word is even hard to see because at that point the world is dark and closing in...and your pushed down by it... Your faded and fading.

I've tried to use this image before - I know I've had failures but I can't recall if any of them worked as well as this one. Something about it works for what I was feeling that day. And feel everytime the world is foreboding. The days I feel translucent, pale and like I'm not on Earth anymore. Like I don't have the weight anymore, the mass, to be on earth... Gravity isn't keeping me here... and I'm just dissapating into some sad pale mist.

The card is done on mat board cut into aceo format. It started with a background collage with multiple art papers to enhance the main image. The main image is of a peice of art work I did several years ago.

Dark Thoughts Aceo set

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It was the mood of the night not the color that I was feeling. Beaches bring on a lot of moods in me... I tend to see in them what I'm feeling at the time.

I can only think that when I took this picture I was feeling a bit reflective... heavy...dark. The image isn't crystal clear but more suggestive. You can see movement in the light and a bit of shimmer...and hope. But oveal all it's dark.. very very dark.

Your fences frame your life

the fences frame you
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

AVAILABLE

I was looking at my photographs the other day and realized I had a lot of shots of fences. At first I thought it was odd. Why would I have taken so many pictures of barriers? Things blocking my path? Objects that stopped me on my path?
I started to work with the pictures and realized that I loved the images and found them beautiful. If the fences hadn't been there I would have continued on my way - walked ahead and never noticed the scene beyond.

Fences - barriers in your life - can be blockades. Places that you stop and feel you can't go forward but maybe there is another way to see them.
The things that stop you give you a frame of reference. They show you where you are now... They show you what's in the future... They shift you.
Stopping to assess your life is never a bad thing. Knowing what could be a ahead is important... Figuring a way to get past a hurdle is growth. Maybe the fences in your life are as important and the open paths. Maybe stopping to see where you are and figuring out how to move ahead is a gift.

Maybe fences are the picture frames of our lives. A pause, a still picture, a place to refect back on how far we've come and to see what's beyond...


ACEO 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch done on heavy mat board. The background collage uses several art papers and acrylic fixitives. The photograph was placed on top of the collage and the entire card was sealed with a glossy acrylic medium.

This is a photograph taken close to my home on a walk.

looking outside

looking outside
Originally uploaded by popcornfeet

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How many times do you sit behind the windows in your home and watch the world go by?


Sometimes I just don't go out ...No that's not right - I can't go out. Sometimes I just can't. The world is too big and too bright... too scary... too loud.
As gray as my life seems inside, it's safe. I'm safe.


Behind the windows I can watch the hoopla of life and not get hurt.


Aceo 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 on heavy mat board. The card was done in two step - there was a background collage put on first to accent the main image and than the photograph was added. All layers were put on with an acrylic sealer.


The picture was taken at Drexel University.

When the world goes gray

gray days, originally uploaded by popcornfeet.

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What do you do when your home... or shopping...or at a doctor's appointment and suddenly, you look up, and the world's lost it's color? It happened to me. I was walking into my doctor's office fumbling with my keys and I looked up and world in front of me had changed. Or maybe I'd changed.

Something was missing. The color, the sparkle... the life had seeped out the edges of my vision. The world had gone pale and flat and sad.

Or maybe it was me...

Why does this happen? What makes the color go? Where does the sparkle go?

I don't think some people know what this feels like. It's sad and lonely in the gray place.

This card was done in standard ACEO format of 2 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inchs on heavy mat board. It started with a background collage with multiple art papers to enhance the main image. I used two brand new papers layered and I love the effect with the black and white photograph. The photograph is one I took a while ago and I have used in different ways, it always seems to call to me.

Cape May Sky in the abstract

This is a mixed media 6 inch by 6 inch piece I just finished! It's called Capy May Sky.

Even though it appears simple doing it was a time consuming process. First I applied mulberry paper to gessoed masonite and than painted the

background. The clouds came last.

I guess you could call it an acrylic mixed media painting on mulberry paper on masonite... although that is a mouthful.

The image was based on a photograph I took a few years ago. I kept drawing drawing it and each time kept simplifying the elements. At some point it didn't really look like a sky anymore and that is where I liked it best. From a distance it's 'sky'... up close its color and shape.

Nighty night

Contact tracyreinhardt.art@gmail.com for purchase information

Unframed $75.00

Nighty-night is a 6" x 6" acrylic painting on masonite. I just finished painting it - in fact it doesn't even have the glossy sealer on it yet.

To me it's like every peaceful night I wished for as a child. Clear sky, shining starts, bright moon to see your hands, and soft hills of grass to roll down.

It's peace to me.

Fences

ACEO AVAILABLE

I was looking at my photographs the other day and realized I had a lot of shots of fences. At first I thought it was odd. Why would I have taken so many pictures of barriers? Things blocking my path? Objects that stopped me on my path?

I started to work with the pictures and realized that I loved the images and found them beautiful. If the fences hadn't been there I would have continued on my way - walked ahead and never noticed the scene beyond.

Fences - barriers in your life - can be blockades. Places that you stop and feel you can't go forward but maybe there is another way to see them.

The things that stop you give you a frame of reference. They show you where you are now... They show you what's in the future... They shift you.

Stopping to assess your life is never a bad thing. Knowing what could be a ahead is important... Figuring a way to get past a hurdle is growth. Maybe the fences in your life are as important and the open paths. Maybe stopping to see where you are and figuring out how to move ahead is a gift.

Maybe fences are the picture frames of our lives. A pause, a still picture, a place to refect back on how far we've come and to see what's beyond...

ACEO 2 1/2 by 3 1/2 inch done on heavy mat board. The background collage uses several art papers and acrylic fixitives. The photograph was placed on top of the collage and the entire card was sealed with a glossy acrylic medium.

Black sands

Not for sale
I'm happy with this painting. It's one of the first I'm really very happy with. The subject makes me happy and I'm also happy with how it came out.

What doesn't thrill me is my problems photographing the artwork. That is a work in progress....

6 " x 6" acrylic on masonite

A detail close up of the clouds












... and shore line....

I've been looking a lot at the daily painting sites. I think I may have to start listing in order to continue my own daily painting obsession. Perhaps the paintings aren't ready but I can always go back to selling photography and ACEO's

This morning's sky

The sky this morning was so full... of peace, of deep meaning... and a something that could only be described as promise.

Sometimes optimism is only a matter of physically looking up and seeing what is always there.

The sky over Bedminster, NJ April 29, 2008 6:30 a.m.

August Night, a very long time ago

Once all that mattered was how many fire flies filled the spaces between blinks and nothing happened so bad that it couldn't be washed off once you were safe at home.

Acrylic on mulberry paper on canvas. 16x20

Exhaling with the tide

This is an acrylic painting on 16 x20 stretched canvas. The sides are painted black like the edges of the painting - it all flows together.

I started doing these horizons recently to loosen up my tight view of the world. I love my photographs but they make me a little obsessive.

There is something wonderful to me about the misty, haze and far off in the distance feel. I like the lack of foreground. I like the lack of 'the now'.

New Jersey Shore Photograph

This is a photograph I took of a boat docked somewhere at the Jersey shore. I've always liked it.


There is something quiet about it that reminds me of the paintings I'm doing.

Working looser and getting erfüllte Sehnsucht

So. The tight way I work is getting to me. While I like the art I've been doing very much it's gotten to be a bit like a migraine. Tight. Very tight.

In an effort to loosen up my head and my thoughts I bought some canvas and paint. It's a very scary thing because I'm not a painter. I've never painted. The largeness of the brushes and the wetness and runniness of the paint makes me crazy but I thought it was called for.

What has happened has been magical. I started painting everyday in an attempt to learn how...and also to exercise my relax-muscles.

I'm enjoying the process more than I thought and enjoying the results. When I walk past what I've done my whole body feels a collective 'ahhh!'. Like a peaceful exhale. The things I'm doing are simple and loose up to a point. They are acrylic paintings done on canvas that has had mulberry paper collaged onto it prior to being painted.

The rough surface is visually pleasing and I like it much better than working on canvas. All the things I've tried on just canvas have been done over...and over and over... until I cover it up with paper and do it with the fun nooks and crannies.

I have a series of these misty blue and green landscape type paintings - one color fading into the next...fading to black at the edges. erfüllte Sehnsucht, I call them.

Considering myself...

I spend way too much time considering my problems... My pain.. My. Self.