The Art & Poetry of Mary Coleman

Wednesday

Today I worked on the other hand and the rest of the right sleeve. This is going to take a very long time to finish as I seem to be only able to do small sections of the suit at a time. Tomorrow I won’t have time to paint and I’m gone for 4 days after that so I really won’t be able to work on this until next week.

Yesterday I finished cleaning the house. It’s all ready for the dog sitters now. Friday we leave for Chicago at 6am in the morning. We’ll have to be out of the house by 4am to get to the airport a few hours early.

I see my psychiatrist and therapist today. Really I should talk to them about my ever present anxiety and my inability to relax. I only take Lorazepam sparingly because you can build up a tolerance to it and it can be addictive. There’s got to be something I can take on a daily basis for low level anxiety. I reserve the Lorazepam for panic attacks only. I really try hard to use coping tools to handle the anxiety but they aren’t working very well. Every day I meditate for 20 minutes, I use self-compassion mantras that I repeat in my head and try to accept my anxiety and exist with it hoping it might lessen, I listen to calming music… nothing seems to alleviate the nervousness that is always there. I’m a very high strung person.

Tuesday

Today I worked on the right arm of the suited figure. It took me a really long time to do all the wrinkles. This is going to be a painstaking process getting the entire man done. Tomorrow I’ll tackle the rest of the right arm and the glove of the left hand.

Something I struggle with a lot is starting a task. Once I begin I can gain momentum and get something done, but beginning is like pulling fingernails for me. As a result I’ll procrastinate for hours avoiding the initial step of just getting going. It’s an ongoing problem for me and mostly crops up when I’m attempting to do painting. I do not procrastinate on beginning other tasks as much as I procrastinate around doing art (well maybe cleaning I put off).

Monday

Today I worked on the rest of the little girl and finished her. She’s considerably easier to paint than the suited figure which I will start to tackle tomorrow.

I cleaned the downstairs today. It was really hard to muster the motivation to do it, but I got it done. Tomorrow I am going to clean the upstairs.