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Description
I spent far too much time on this one. It is therapy art, however, and I guess the amount of time I spent on it means something. What you’re looking at is joy. Pure joy. The kind you experience when you’re three years old and taken to the circus for the first time. I’m not sure if I even went to the circus that young. I know I did when I was older, but it seems it would have been even better at age three, when the world held more wonder and light. I’ve discovered, through spending time with this piece of art, that there was a sudden shift in how I perceived the world after being three years old. It never felt sunny like that again, the colors were never quite as bright.

I like to cling to things that I remember being around me in that time when it was still sunny. A time when anything seemed possible. The television was my passport to “anything is possible” until it signed off with a test pattern at midnight. I watched news about The Manson Family, gas shortages, wars in foreign lands, and reruns of all the colorful television shows of the mid to late 1960s. Over and over, and over again.

I clearly recall being sat down in front of an old wood paneled TV when I was a toddler, with my older brother Michael telling me, “You’re going to love this.” He was right. He was usually right about these things. He introduced me to The Monkees. That’s how I recall it, anyway. This TV show was special because it included something else I loved that made me feel all lit up inside, music. It was good music. Really good. It made me jump up and down. It still does. It also provided me with my first crush and an idea of what it could be like to hang out with friends when I grew up and the boys were cute and non-threatening.

When The Monkees came back to television in the 1980s, I was overjoyed. I even had the fortunate timing to get chicken pox when MTV aired a Monkees marathon. I got to watch the whole thing in bed, itching and covered in calamine lotion. Not long after the chicken pox marathon, my brother took my girlfriend Toni and myself to see The Monkees at what was then Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. I wasn’t allowed to go to concerts, and it was a pain for me as a teenager. However, I was allowed to go see The Monkees in 1986, with my older brother Michael supervising, I think it was even his treat. I think my girlfriend Toni was 12 or 13 and I was 14. We wore mini skirts and mod sleeveless turtlenecks, head bands and dangling plastic earrings. When The Monkees (minus Michael Nesmith) appeared, Toni and I began screaming, shaking and jumping up and down. My brother appeared dumbfounded at our response initially, comparing us to Beatlemaniacs, but soon, he was also grooving to the beat. I think Toni and I were a bit taken aback to see that our Monkees had become men of middle age. Davy sported a white suit and a mullet. Sigh. But, when the music started, everything was just as it should have been. They magically transformed themselves back into their twenty something-hoods when I closed my eyes and just listened to the music. I was in the presence of Monkees, I was so delighted.

I pick little moments from my often stormy life, perfect as they can be moments, and I stretch them out in time with my mind and use them to recycle happiness. In January of 2021, when we were in full pandemic mode, my 91 year old father became sick with coronavirus. He was the person on earth I felt closest and most bonded to, having lost my mother years ago to cancer. I had brothers and a sister, but one passed away, and two others drifted away like pieces of a ship that had broken apart on the ocean after my mother died. I never married and was coming to understand that years of undiagnosed PTSD (the diagnosis de jour, as I like to call it) had interfered with everything in my life. Then I got to have the full pandemic experience. I didn’t feel safe traveling to the other side of the country, I was frightened and alone and couldn’t get to my Father as he lay dying.

It was so dark in my world that I knew I needed some light desperately to survive. Instinctively, I reached back into those furthers of my memory for the light I remembered as a very small child. A small girl with three brothers, one sister and two living parents, all in one house, watching TV together. The Monkees are part of my memory of that time. I adopted these four guys on TV as friends forever, even as I grew to be middle aged myself. While my Dad lay dying, I listened to The Monkees and for months after, like salve on all my hurts. I danced and I tried to recall what it felt like to be hopeful about how glorious the world could be.

Creating this drawing has held me together while I approached and passed through the first anniversary of losing my Father. It held me in its arms each day as I filled it with the vibrant colors I recall from that era in television, which occurred before I was born, but I gladly inherited from my older siblings. I was lucky enough to to see Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz for their final performance together at The Greek Theatre in November, 2021. I recall feeling like I was exactly where I should have been on that night, and the songs still sounded just as good, causing my body to break out into the pony and the jerk. If you know, you know.

My hope was to send this to both Nesmith and Dolenz as a sort of love letter, so, when Nez passed in December, I was heartbroken. On December 10th, I had a bad morning. It started with one of the four cats I live with scratching the drawing in the middle of the night, and then waking up to cat poop left by another under the Christmas Tree. I hoped the day would get better while I was having my morning coffee and checking Facebook for the latest on friends. I didn’t scroll much before seeing the news about Nez. I doubled over and sobbed. It felt like both The Monkees and Dad ceased to exist within months of one another. I abandoned my drawing for the most part of a week. Since I didn’t know what I was doing any way and it was really a therapy drawing with a big cat scratch right down the middle, I wasn’t sure I could make it into much, but my heart wanted to give it a try.

I surprised myself, as I often do. Indulging myself in things that make me smile and remember joy is healing me. I’m trying to follow what I love. I think it will lead me somewhere. One day at a time, one drawing at a time, one confession at a time. I’m calling this one, “The Door Into Summer”, after a song Mike Nesmith wrote. It echoes of another time when things seemed brighter, memories of those times sustain me.

Description
I spent far too much time on this one. It is therapy art, however, and I guess the amount of time I spent on it means something. What you’re looking at is joy. Pure joy. The kind you experience when you’re three years old and taken to the circus for the first time. I’m not sure if I even went to the circus that young. I know I did when I was older, but it seems it would have been even better at age three, when the world held more wonder and light. I’ve discovered, through spending time with this piece of art, that there was a sudden shift in how I perceived the world after being three years old. It never felt sunny like that again, the colors were never quite as bright.

I like to cling to things that I remember being around me in that time when it was still sunny. A time when anything seemed possible. The television was my passport to “anything is possible” until it signed off with a test pattern at midnight. I watched news about The Manson Family, gas shortages, wars in foreign lands, and reruns of all the colorful television shows of the mid to late 1960s. Over and over, and over again.

I clearly recall being sat down in front of an old wood paneled TV when I was a toddler, with my older brother Michael telling me, “You’re going to love this.” He was right. He was usually right about these things. He introduced me to The Monkees. That’s how I recall it, anyway. This TV show was special because it included something else I loved that made me feel all lit up inside, music. It was good music. Really good. It made me jump up and down. It still does. It also provided me with my first crush and an idea of what it could be like to hang out with friends when I grew up and the boys were cute and non-threatening.

When The Monkees came back to television in the 1980s, I was overjoyed. I even had the fortunate timing to get chicken pox when MTV aired a Monkees marathon. I got to watch the whole thing in bed, itching and covered in calamine lotion. Not long after the chicken pox marathon, my brother took my girlfriend Toni and myself to see The Monkees at what was then Jack Murphy Stadium in San Diego. I wasn’t allowed to go to concerts, and it was a pain for me as a teenager. However, I was allowed to go see The Monkees in 1986, with my older brother Michael supervising, I think it was even his treat. I think my girlfriend Toni was 12 or 13 and I was 14. We wore mini skirts and mod sleeveless turtlenecks, head bands and dangling plastic earrings. When The Monkees (minus Michael Nesmith) appeared, Toni and I began screaming, shaking and jumping up and down. My brother appeared dumbfounded at our response initially, comparing us to Beatlemaniacs, but soon, he was also grooving to the beat. I think Toni and I were a bit taken aback to see that our Monkees had become men of middle age. Davy sported a white suit and a mullet. Sigh. But, when the music started, everything was just as it should have been. They magically transformed themselves back into their twenty something-hoods when I closed my eyes and just listened to the music. I was in the presence of Monkees, I was so delighted.

I pick little moments from my often stormy life, perfect as they can be moments, and I stretch them out in time with my mind and use them to recycle happiness. In January of 2021, when we were in full pandemic mode, my 91 year old father became sick with coronavirus. He was the person on earth I felt closest and most bonded to, having lost my mother years ago to cancer. I had brothers and a sister, but one passed away, and two others drifted away like pieces of a ship that had broken apart on the ocean after my mother died. I never married and was coming to understand that years of undiagnosed PTSD (the diagnosis de jour, as I like to call it) had interfered with everything in my life. Then I got to have the full pandemic experience. I didn’t feel safe traveling to the other side of the country, I was frightened and alone and couldn’t get to my Father as he lay dying.

It was so dark in my world that I knew I needed some light desperately to survive. Instinctively, I reached back into those furthers of my memory for the light I remembered as a very small child. A small girl with three brothers, one sister and two living parents, all in one house, watching TV together. The Monkees are part of my memory of that time. I adopted these four guys on TV as friends forever, even as I grew to be middle aged myself. While my Dad lay dying, I listened to The Monkees and for months after, like salve on all my hurts. I danced and I tried to recall what it felt like to be hopeful about how glorious the world could be.

Creating this drawing has held me together while I approached and passed through the first anniversary of losing my Father. It held me in its arms each day as I filled it with the vibrant colors I recall from that era in television, which occurred before I was born, but I gladly inherited from my older siblings. I was lucky enough to to see Michael Nesmith and Micky Dolenz for their final performance together at The Greek Theatre in November, 2021. I recall feeling like I was exactly where I should have been on that night, and the songs still sounded just as good, causing my body to break out into the pony and the jerk. If you know, you know.

My hope was to send this to both Nesmith and Dolenz as a sort of love letter, so, when Nez passed in December, I was heartbroken. On December 10th, I had a bad morning. It started with one of the four cats I live with scratching the drawing in the middle of the night, and then waking up to cat poop left by another under the Christmas Tree. I hoped the day would get better while I was having my morning coffee and checking Facebook for the latest on friends. I didn’t scroll much before seeing the news about Nez. I doubled over and sobbed. It felt like both The Monkees and Dad ceased to exist within months of one another. I abandoned my drawing for the most part of a week. Since I didn’t know what I was doing any way and it was really a therapy drawing with a big cat scratch right down the middle, I wasn’t sure I could make it into much, but my heart wanted to give it a try.

I surprised myself, as I often do. Indulging myself in things that make me smile and remember joy is healing me. I’m trying to follow what I love. I think it will lead me somewhere. One day at a time, one drawing at a time, one confession at a time. I’m calling this one, “The Door Into Summer”, after a song Mike Nesmith wrote. It echoes of another time when things seemed brighter, memories of those times sustain me.