grey

Yesterday there was a moment I thought I would die.
A very small piece of cracker went down wrong. My airway constricted and I could not breathe. Panic set in and breathing got more difficult. Foresta was there and I tired to get him to help me. But what could he do. There was nothing blocking my airway, the Heimlich would do nothing. I tried to calm myself, he got me water. I knew I had to calm myself; focus on breathing, slowly my breathing became easier.

It all happened so fast and at the same time seemed like a very long time.

It has happened one other time. It’s like I breath in a small piece of food and bang, airway constricts and I cannot breath. I think I need to pay attention when I am eating, eat slower, and chew, chew, chew before swallowing.

Asphyxiation, I felt like death was so close.

It is strange to think how easy it is to die.

Last night lying in bed I thought about death. I thought I could have let myself die, but I did not.

I wonder if I could ever let death come easily.

The other time this happened someone said I would have passed out, relaxed and started breathing again. I wonder.

Today we did a bike ride. It was grey and cold. I saw what I assumed where homeless children and adults. I have seen a lot of homeless recently.  I can see it is very difficult.

I am very grateful today to be alive and have a home.

done

I woke up with a pounding headache and upset stomach.

Maybe it was the food we ate last night.

I could not stay in bed, it was 5:30am and I had to get up.

With one hour to spare, I’m done, project 4, this semester’s final project.

Next week I play catch-up.

lucky me

Yesterday Michele Guieu’s installation “Lucy Darwin and Me” opened at Art Produce.

I had the good fortune to help Michele a little on the installation.
As thanks for the little work I did she let me choose a small piece, and I love it.

But, it is I who am grateful.

She was gracious enough to give me this opportunity to be part of the creative energy to help realize her vision.

It is a gift to have such an opportunity to work with an artist and I thank her for this.

The exhibit itself I find stimulating. All aspects from the writing on the window, the large mural painting, the small drawings & photos, the beautiful photos her parents took years ago and the video, I can enjoy individually and they work well contextually together. I am lucky that the exhibit is in my neighborhood because I will get to experience it more than once before it comes down.

Congratulations Michele!! And thank you.

nurture nutrient

We recently watched a William McDonough lecture which we recorded from the UC San Diego TV channel and it was a recording from UC Santa Barbara.

I have been familiar with the Cradle to Cradle book McDonough co-wrote but had not had time to find a copy and read it, so having the opportunity to see him lecture turned out to be extraordinary.

From the Publisher
"Reduce, reuse, recycle" urge environmentalists; in other words, do more with less in order to minimize damage. As William McDonough and Michael Braungart argue in their provocative, visionary book, however, this approach perpetuates a one-way, "cradle to grave" manufacturing model that dates to the Industrial Revolution and casts off as much as 90 percent of the materials it uses as waste, much of it toxic. Why not challenge the notion that human industry must inevitably damage the natural world, they ask.
In fact, why not take nature itself as our model? A tree produces thousands of blossoms in order to create another tree, yet we do not consider its abundance wasteful but safe, beautiful, and highly effective; hence, "waste equals food" is the first principle the book sets forth. Products might be designed so that, after their useful life, they provide nourishment for something new-either as "biological nutrients" that safely re-enter the environment or as "technical nutrients" that circulate within closed-loop industrial cycles, without being "downcycled" into low-grade uses (as most "recyclables" now are).
Elaborating their principles from experience (re)designing everything from carpeting to corporate campuses, the authors make an exciting and viable case for change.
He talked about how everything we produce should be thought of as a nutrient, how there are “natural” materials that are carcinogenic, how planned obsolescence of products, like cars, that are nutrients (not cradle to grave) will create jobs and be good for the us and the earth.
As we heard him talk about planned obsolescence we both intuitively thought this would not be good, but then I realized that things like cars, and computers would work with the model because as technology improves the newer product would be better and if the old one does not go into landfill and create toxic waste what’s the harm. Right then he explained it much better than I just thought it, but basically the same idea. And jobs would be created; technology would keep developing, and creatively would flourish.


To me this concept should become our model.

Now I must read the book.

Now I will have to see how I can apply this model to my art practice, art, nutrient ……..