24 July 2021

   I had a really good day today.  I read a chapter in Louise Nevelson: Art Is Life by Laurie Wilson.  I did finish up ...ism: Understanding Art by Stephen Little a few days prior.

     I talked to my parents on the phone, which I always enjoy.  Continued working on my maquette for my cubist self-portrait.  Ran a sweaty mile -- boy, is it humid -- without any optical issues.

     Dr. Douglass Dean helped me find Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, by Hannes Kästner. I have been trying to find the song for years but did not know the title.

     Finished up my self-portrait that I had started the night prior.

     I put more time into this one than is typical, which created a more polished piece.  It turned out damned good, which frustrates me.

     I put in all this time and hard work to polish my art skills, and I am still getting better, and this damned cancer is going to steal a good fifteen to thirty years of art making from me.  What a waste of hard work and talent.

     In the Nevelson book, a museum was holding an exhibition and the artist would be on hand.  The curator of the show told high placed patrons that they should make a point to see Nevelson and the show because at seventy the end is likely near.

     Nevelson continued on as a highly productive artist into the second half of her eighties.

     I read that and I felt robbed ever since.  Although, that is not a new feeling, it just reopened that sore.  Typically, I just feel disappointed.  I had expected to get another fifteen to twenty-five years out of this body.

     Listened to the start and finish of the Brewers beating the White Sox in their baseball game.  Missing the in between while squeezing in Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff in, one of my top five favorite horror films, The Black Cat --the whole reason Bach music came up; the song is in the soundtrack -- on Svengoolie in between.

     To me that is a wonderful day.