Chronicles in Ordinary Time

“…and the monstrous creatures of whales”

          I recently went through a period of weeks where I thought I had a fatal illness. As far as the doctors have been able to determine, my sensory neuropathy isn’t going to be fatal; but it might be even more uncomfortable than it has been.   This isn’t necessarily great news; I’ve been dealing with chronic pain for about 30 years, and that the thought of things getting worse isn’t particularly exciting. So I now go through my days with little feeling in my hands [and everywhere else]; a diminished ability to look closely at my work [my eyes don’t converge properly], and a diminished sense of balance.

When I was dealing with my questions of death, I realized that I wasn’t concerned about Eternity–I took care of that in 1973, when I gave my life back to my Creator. I was concerned about things undone. I have a granddaughter living states away that I barely know. I have illustration projects I haven’t completed.  And I don’t feel that I have done much about influencing the world in a positive manner.

So I have returned to the concept of blogging. Do I want the world to know the struggles I go through to create illustrations? Not really. I am generally a very private person. I write with ease; I’ve been writing technical opinions for nearly thirty years. I have lots of opinions; but I find that most people are concerned about their own opinions, rather than being open to new ones.

A couple of years ago I helped chaperone a ‘high-school lock-in’. During a card game/ice-breaker, we were asked, “what would your dream job be?” I fortunately did not have to answer that I already have my ‘dream job’— it just isn’t quite what I imagined it would be. For the last 11 years I’ve earned a living as a Building Code Consultant/ Illustrator; in reality, I use every Building Code project as an opportunity to work as an illustrator. To a degree, I ‘collaborate’ with myself– doing research and technical writing as a “Consultant”, and then handing the project over to my in-house “Illustrator” to help the final product easier to understand through the use of images.

Twenty years ago, when I decided it was time to start pursuing a career as a children’s book illustrator, I started collecting images of work that I wanted to emulate. I recently received a Canadian image-promotion magazine, and discovered that most of the photographers had Photoshopped their images to make them look more like drawings/ paintings; and the illustrators’ work tended to look like cartoons. I’ve caught up with the images I wanted to make 20 years ago; but the parade of taste has changed course.

          Still, I persist. Each and every day I am sustained by the Love, Mercy and Grace of my Creator…

Tags: artist depression freelance illustration neuopathy pain persistence

This entry was posted on September 5, 2011 at 10:25 pm and is filed under art, careers, children's books, depression, Illustration, neuropathy, pain, self-employment, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.