I started working at the Nursing home, affectionately known as "The Home". It is like entering another dimension. I go to work at 2:00 and work untill 11:00. I have made many friends, both with residents and co-workers. In the "Home" there is an alarmingly compressed sense of joy and dispair. Habits, and ordinary ritual progress monotonously so, as if it is the only hope to maintain ones history. An atempt at maintaing ability. Behaviors, and personalities are magnified. When I walk into some ones room it is as if there entire being which they have developed over the years is injected into every volume of that space. What I once considered to be small tasks become points of intense focus and determination. The environment is extremely psycologically potent. I am going to attempt to write about my experiences there, as a way to decompress and remember. My experience at the "Home" is in service to the experience of others, which merits contemplation. Because the life experience of the residents is so much vastly greater than my own. My off time is mostly spent recovering. It is not possible to paint while recovering. I don't expect to. However I have made one painting in the past couple weeks called Blind. Actually it was painted in one day, but the idea for painting was pondered for several weeks. The Vertical blinds are from the Home, and common in many Hospitals. I find the pressure between the inside and outside of the "Home" to be very strong, psychologically. Many people want to go home, and are waiting to go home, but feel stuck. In the painting I wanted there to be a question as to whether the viewer is inside looking out, or outside looking in. So that there is an occilation between locations, which is what is happening in the residents head.
