Take a break – and coming back, a rest, a time out-I never imagined it becoming an imperative versus a suggestion. I dismissed having a heart attack, in fact, I went back to sleep certain it was indigestion. 

At the same time a voice inside said something was different so I got a calcium scan, something several friends had, everyone’s tests were just fine but mine, not so much.

Open Heart Surgery : October 9^th, 2024

I had a quadruple bypass and still can’t believe it today; if not for a zipper scar and the healed wounds where they took veins and arteries to perform the procedure.

I had 6 days to think about what was coming, it was like being strapped to the front of a train that’s headed for a brick wall unable to avoid it.

My concept of Aggressive Happiness^TM   was tested like never before. I learned about hospital psychosis, it is a thing, eating for nourishment versus pleasure, dealing with solitude and the importance of friends and family.

Leaving the hospital in four days post-surgery, I felt determined to get back to my life. There is something overwhelming and surreal about stepping outside of your life, taking a break, a rest, a time out.

The World Outside

The world outside the hospital window is the same as it ever was, people come into your room and go back to that place that was once so familiar but is now foreign. I listened to the highway, watched the sunrise every day and missed my life.

I learned about not having any control of what was happening around me, my house was falling apart. Two holes in the roof and several days of pouring rain, I found faith to allow myself peace amidst terrible stress.

What has suffered is my creativity. I thought I would have so many things to write since I had time, space and lots to write about. This is the first start of writing post-surgery, an attempt to describe this life-changing event.

This spring will be a photo exploration of the garden. For more photography, writing and painting-get on the mailing list at artbygordon.com. I just entered a contest in Rowlett- Paint Rowlett-the reception is this weekend.

The Garden

An Owl Haunts my garden – The backyard garden is a tangle of trees, weeds, flowers, dying plants and gnarled limbs intersecting. There is a lot to unravel if one ever thought to attempt an intervention there would be lots of cutting, the sound of saws buzzing and things breaking.

You can put it off as long as you want. Unfortunately, the trees will inevitably destroy the roof and the foundation. One can only hide the chaos for so long, if you have an HOA-you get letters, you have to pay fines or you have kind neighbors helping to thin out the forest that is your backyard.

I have almost forgotten the feeling where the sense of well-being dissolves, replaced by a feeling of responsibility and burden. The realization that the bits of pruning you’ve done is not working becomes the question: do we get a professional or do we just crawl into ourselves, ignoring the damage.

I could never imagine having heart surgery could be a welcome diversion from the state of which I’ve fought for many summers. A break from the garden, from maintaining the weeds, digging for peace in a chaotic place.

My moments at home recently, have been listening to the small flock of sparrows chatter. They love my little forest, so do the crows and the rodents that find the bird seed irresistible.

More threats of damage, more things to lose but I’ve surrendered to a feeling of well-being. I wake up every morning, I listen to the birds. I can even pick out the sounds of individual species, it’s like a treat to the senses.

Thought I might be able to get off the medication that has added to the long list of medication I am taking so I don’t have a heart attack or stroke. The idea that I could experience a sense of joy that would last beyond summer and autumn where the threatening trees would be dormant, stand down to the worn-out roof, give me just a winter to ponder the next step in my journey to keep my garden in check.

The continued songs of the birds have filled me with music. I sit with the dog, we listen, we take every moment as if it weren’t a given. I feel present, alive.

One of the hardest things, I imagine, for someone going back to prison, would be having something amazing to compare the solitude and separation to. My feeling of well-being is slowly dissolving, replaced by the same anxious notes of damage.

I notice the garden is getting darker, more entangled with vines and debri. As I begin to assess the damage suddenly instead of enjoying the silence and the feeling of sunlight on my face, I’m starting to feel the burden of responsibility. 

The costs are mailed daily, both electronically and in the mailbox-my home is sinking into this dark state. I know the feeling of helplessness, watching family try and save the house you’ve invested and all you can see is the damage.

Before I ignored the feeling, but now it seems to be destroying my serenity. I heard an owl last night, it replaced the melodic sound of the sparrow. From a dead tree that stands against the ruins of a shed, it finds me. 

It’s coo is silent at first but it persists. I am haunted as it moves about the yard. It exists in the shadows, birds disperse and I am left in a garden. Just me, a voice I can’t find to describe the loss of well-being and an owl that keeps calling.

For more stories and art go to www.artbygordon.com

For Previous story about words and pix

I have been adding words to pictures for a while now but am planning on do more series each year. The trick is to find the photographs and then write text off the cuff. I want to be spontaneous in the writing and the images instead of the the images and writing that take time and development.

The first image is of Lake Ray Hubbard, most likely on a ride home from a long day of work. When I was selling insurance, I drove many miles every day, as much as it was a job, it was wonderful to be out on the road. I find freedom and peace with the open road, although when your finances depend on selling, there is an added anxiety to the process.

This image is from my garden, I grow many different species of passiflora, this one is the maypop-it is a hardy vine that grows much like a weed. I love the flowers as they are so different than anything and they are connected to the passion of Christ, there is much symbolism.

This image is an homage to the road. I liked the darkness, it’s the end of the day out in some East Texas landscape. It is where I feel most at home besides being emerged in nature, the road is my happy place.

I’m planning on selling on my Etsy site, word art and other collaborations of words and pix, so stay tuned.

This is an image from Lake Ray Hubbard going into Rockwall. I liked the overwhelming storm and the highway disappearing into the distance. The meaning of the poem is how nature with all the strength can often be more kind then humanity and more merciful than the religions that man is involved in which often can be anything but humane-it’s the human factor that is the problem, not the belief.

For more images and a growing group of word art check out my website.

A Lesson in Art: Explaining space through distance and Perspective: There’s a cavern in California called the Moaning Caverns. My son and I explored it on a trip to California,  when him and I were much younger. So what does the cavern have to do with a lesson in art and Perspective?

You can fit the Statue of Liberty-minus the pedestal- in the first and largest single cavern space in California but looking up you would never have imagined the space to be so large.

What is missing is perspective, large to small rocks, colors, etc-you know the distance is there but there are no cues to prove it to your eye. In creating art with depth, you also have no cues to explain  distance and allow the viewer to truly experience the space you’ve created because it is on a flat dimension.

Have you ever photographed a great expanse of a landscape and you couldn’t understand why the results were less than spectacular compared to how it  looked? It all has to do with cues that explain distance and perspective.

Art Lesson: Visual Cues act as Tools

In art you have several tools to explain to the viewer what you are trying to describe:

Color: The change in color denotes distance.

Value: The shades of color, intensity, etc. all show the viewer there is distance and gives the image its perspective.

Perspective: The eye sees images that get smaller as they sit further back into the distance, giving these cues give the viewer the dimension that is really just an illusion on a flat canvas.

Converging elements: To further support perspective-a line that moves through your image allows the viewers’ eye to go where you intend them to go and experience the image and the artists’ intention of space.

A work of art is much like an illusion a magician creates, the control and the process in which the Artist leads the viewer through the flat image will allow the viewer to experience a painting as it was intended.

For more artwork from Artbygordon go to www.artbygordon.com

To see recent works in pastels on black

HOMEWORK: Photograph an expansive landscape with no thought of perspective or color, etc. Next photograph the same landscape only instead choose  a dominant image to showcase and allow that image to lead the viewers eye into the photo-make a note of the difference in the final product and share your experience.

Love of birds: photography of birds near and far – The breeze is still cool. it’s early and the chatter of birds continues before the oppressive heat silences them. Their voices will be replaced by cicadas which is a whole other conversation.

A bully of sorts is the mockingbird. It has no song of its own but mimics every other sound until they control the whole conversation. From a high perch, the sanctimonious mockingbird boasts and shows it prowess at singing other’s song.

The Starlings and English sparrows, they don’t belong here. These outsiders tend to overcompensate, throwing indistinct comments and chatter blending into the background.

The thrush and the robin, they are both songsters, they sing, they share their own beauty, usually from the shadows. Each having a song that should rise to the center of attention, instead they sing quietly, hidden, even modest.

The Woodpecker has OCD-it tends to screech and chip, If it’s not banging it’s head on a wooden perch, it’s searching, obsessing, always building something.

At a certain point, they all go to work, collecting twigs, bits of hair and our paper waste, that never seems to run out. Cowbirds are transients, working in fields, always moving on: they put their eggs in other nests. They are the thieves, the underachievers, taking up space in a nest made for a songbird but the cowbirds don’t sing.

The twitter of birds, all the actors on a stage. Nature doesn’t fall that far from humanity it seems, all we hear is the mockingbird, it’s constant chatter. How we long for the songbird, the diminutive warbler, the brash and beautiful oriole, we could use more beauty and depth instead of the incessant chatter of birds that can’t sing.

Visit Blackland Raptor Center – A morning filled with nature: What a wonderful way to start a weekend.

Visit Blackland Raptor Center – A beautiful spring day, the dog insisting we walk before I go anywhere and the morning hours quickly slipping away; I almost didn’t go to first Saturday at the Blackland Prairie Raptor Center. I’m glad I went, as always.

This time, they had a bird at every station, it was different then normal, they usually have them in the amphitheater and I’m always just a little late.

The first bird was the black vulture, didn’t get any shots, again, a little late. I did get to watch the Kestrel, a beautiful, jay-sized falcon and as always, I always come away with more knowledge. The blue on the head is more defined on the female. I also learned that the larger the bird the longer their life; they have a screech owl named Sweet Pea-19 years old.

There is a feeling I always get when I’m at the center, I am with my people-people who love nature. I had seen and photographed Sweet Pea on several of my trips to the refuge.

I have a whole portfolio of photos of the these birds-check them out. Every time, not only do I learn something new about them but I see something about them I hadn’t before. It never gets old. I also learned about Parkhill Prairie from talking with a guide on the Prairie Walk-ask them about Blue-Stem Grass and it’s importance to the Blackland Prairie.

Other articles about visiting the Parkhill Prairie and Blackland Raptor Center.

February 2016 Raptor Center- 10 things I learned

January 2018 A trip to the Raptor Center

A trip to the Prairie: My Secret Garden

Parkhill Prairie 9.2018

The next thing I did was walk the trails along the pond and overlooking Lake Lavon. I found frogs and turtles, looked for snakes and rediscovered my peace and love of water.

When you study nature, you can’t help but realize the smallest details and learning where we fit into A

Artbygordon

I missed my son, who would be scrambling for fishing pole, as I watched the many bass that cruised through the shallows after small bluegills. This is what I used to do when I was very young and that same peace and calm came rushing back to me. How small our world is when we see the details in nature and for that moment, everything is okay.

I watched many near misses of bass chasing the bluegills but I believe they weren’t actually hunting but instead gaurding their nests on the flat rocks. When you study nature, you can’t help but realize the smallest details and learning where we fit into our environment.