Patti Edmon Artist

Invisible Illness (Awareness) Week  has begun! In keeping with the theme, another of my choices is to be my best possible self. And that includes reaching out, sharing, caring, helping when I can... all qualities of being a good friend. There's an old saying, to make a friend you first have to be one. True, but. Sometimes those of us with chronic illness get overlooked, passed by as though not being able to  able make the party means we don't need to get an invitation.  The text I used in this piece of art, called Thoughts on Friendship, is an excerpt from a friendship 'manifesto' I wrote several years ago, after experiencing what I call being tossed from the merry-go-round. When life as I knew it ended and, unlike those with visible injuries and acute illnesses (especially cancer - God forbid), the carousel kept right on turning without me. Don't get me wrong, my family has always been really supportive and I do have good friends. But there were a coup...

My best friend and her daughter made these delightful, amazingly cool hair clips, which they plan to sell in an Etsy shop soon. They gave my daughter and I one before they left our house last Wednesday; right now they are on the final leg of their journey to Berkeley, where Karen has lived for two years. Karen has been my best friend for years - many, many years, since we were the age my daughter is now, eleven years old. The stories and adventures we've accumulated over the years could fill many a volume. It has been very difficult to live so far apart and saying "see you next time" hasn't gotten any easier. Karen came to Kentucky to retrieve her 20-year old daughter, Marina, who had been staying with us since the first of April after deciding, wisely, to start a new chapter in her life. Karen and I spent a wonderful week together before they packed up the car and set off for what has been a thankfully calm, albeit very scenic adventure. I log on to Facebook in the m...

I walked into the living room on Saturday and my DH had a news program on; I heard something about a professor in Georgia killing three people and I turned and walked out. I am old enough to remember when the news was a function of society rather than a self-contained industry. I try not to bury my head in the sand, but I can't take 'news' in very large doses. Later that day my son was watching another of my favorite new trends, the Hundred Stupidest Stunts Ever, or something like that. A guy was riding a bicycle down a ski slope trying to reach 100 mph. I'm not sure if he set any records though he broke a number of bones, popped a lung and sustained other injuries. But he lived. Unlike Natasha Richardson, whose death I still mourn, (she fell and hit her head while taking a lesson on a beginner slope); I shudder to think of the untold resources - the medical costs and the camera crews, production teams, air time - consumed as he captured his flight of fancy. Within 2 da...

ahhhh, another reminder of Valentine's Day. Romance, the scent of roses in the air mingled with chocolate and sliders? That's right, you can, if you have a reservation, enjoy a candle-lit dinner with table service at White Castle. 49-cent sliders served on a silver (OK, maybe it's plastic) platter. I haven't been to the WC in decades though I do have some fairly extravagant memories of Valentine's Days past.  Like the year I decorated my (then) boyfriend's car, bumper to bumper with shaving cream, streamers and balloons, then made sure his coworkers were watching after the receptionist rang up to tell him he'd left his lights on. Rather than being embarrassed, he drove through town honking back at other drivers, even making a drive-through run at the bank. Fast forward twenty-two years and, since I asked him to make cards for the kids, I'll probably get one too. Jim is an illustrator after all, with his own line of greeting cards at Oatmeal Studios. That...

My bff (remember Frog & Toad?) Karen, recently finished a Biographia project, compiling, distilling, translating an amazing woman's life journey into gorgeous, handmade books. Karen is a master at listening, something we could all use a lesson or two in, and her writing is, well, visit her blog and you'll see.  If there are people who have at least one of everything they need, I can assure you this is the kind of gift that opens itself for generations to come.  Another childhood friend, Carol VanZandt , whose work is in collections around the world, creates stunning works that are unlike anything I've imagined. In Boston and then while living in Japan, she studied with masters of the art of Japanese Calligraphy; I find that meditating on her images, even tiny and on screen, charges the creative neurons. My friend Karin,  Beyond Words , posted yesterday one of the most amazing journal pages on pain and its relationship to spirit and body. Her recent surgery and lingering...

The candy has been passed out, the lights turned off, orange and purple candles extinguished, and I'm packed. Our plane leaves Lexington in a couple of hours, destination Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, to attend the Sunday wedding of one our long-time best friends. They don't have kids so of course they didn't plan their big day around Halloween and the Thriller re-enactment that follows, which my son is played in for the first time (snare drum). So, it has been an interesting mix of last minute laundry, costume details, and packing, wondering what the heck I'm going to wear to a wedding on the beach. I'm leaving a horrendously messy studio layered with Christmas ornaments gessoed and painted, in a sea of found objects, buttons, ribbon, charms, piles of images and papers, glitter and trim to finish them, along with the cards, collages and jewelry I'm making for a Holiday Bazaar - in two weeks. That's way before I start my holiday preparation, so it has been a...

I've kept a written journal nearly all my life, dozens, no hundreds, of notebooks -  from the 89-cent spiral bound notebooks (for morning pages) to hard cover books - zillions of letters forming  a record of my life, the better and a lot of the worse parts in detail that I don't think could be any more vivid, even if I had known how to draw. I made money writing, ad copy, articles, public relations and marketing campaigns, technical copy, video scripts.   I made the leap from personal essays to writing short stories and an entire universe opened up. In search of help I wound up with teachers who are among the best in the country, the list of authors they've edited reads like a literary Who's Who; they've taught at Iowa Writer's Workshop, edited Esquire Magazine, published novels... How did I get in that program?? Naively, of course, by responding to a classified ad for editing services in Poets & Writers, sans credentials. It wasn't until after I'd s...

I love the first days of fall, when the nights are chilly and the mornings crisp, the mums and summer blossoms that linger as the trees begin their transformation. I love walking around the neighborhood and discovering all the different ways people express their sentiments about the changing season. I love Third Street Stuff , which now carries my art pieces (yay), always has a warm and inviting atmosphere and a coffee shop that serves freshly roasted brew and a kind of cake - I don't know the name of it but it should be called instant addiction. And pumpkin chai. I also love Hendrick, who makes my pumpkin chai, latte or whatever I'm drinking that day. His smile, like his attitude and his spirit is, well, the best word I can think of to describe him is real. A deep and positive word and a hug from Hendrick have made more than one of my days. I love enchiladas. Especially when my mother makes them and my dad drops them off.  She has been sending me dinner once a week, knowing th...

It's Like Christmas in October! When I signed on to participate in Art in a Carton, a few months back, I thought it sounded fun, like a way to connect with a variety of artists I'd never met and, well, just a cool idea. I didn't think about the fact that it would begin with a carton. Filled with incredible art. The package I got the other day from Susan - who lives in Germany - was packed with exceptionally high quality pieces. the matchbook and carton are beautifully embellished.  The notebook - is actually a cover with a pad of post-it notes inside! And just when I'd gotten over my addiction to post-it notes. At one time I had lined pads, flags, tiny rectangular ones, in a variety of colors... What a great idea. The thing I like most about this project is the lack of restrictions. Whatever fits in a carton. The packet rattled, like it was an embellished seed package, but I couldn't find any trace of labeling, so I had to open it - very carefully (I still can't...

This is one of my favorite photos, taken during a heavenly late-September vacation in Vermont, a place where one can easily pause in the midst of sublime beauty. If only I could time travel... Found the video at the bottom of this post on Sherry's blog,  Esprit d' Art ,  she'd found it on another blogger's site, who'd gotten from another blog... at any rate, it's well worth the watch.  How often do we take time out to really think... about what might be going on with people we encounter on a casual basis, whether or not they cause us a delay? One of the benefits of living with chronic illness is moving at a slower pace than many people. Over time, it results in living in the moment, paying more attention to the small stuff and taking in more detail. On a bad day it's like standing on the ground while the rest of the world whirls by on a merry-go-round; no stops, no tickets. Invisible illness becomes invisibility. After three years I've learned to appreci...