TIMOTHY  EVAN  JOHN

BAD DAYS IN THE STUDIO WITH PARKINSON'S DISEASE...FINGER DAUBS WITH WORDS
(DIARY ENTRY March 1: 2019)

Most of the work I show here on my website is the result of my good days in the studio...

Of course it is,  because I want to celebrate those good days and show I am still able to create the way my mind and body has always done...

but those good days are not the norm...

most days I find it a struggle.

Most days, I find myself just playing with the paint, with my fingers, feeling its oiliness and remembering its smell... then I touch my painted finger(s) to the paper trying to ignite creation of some sort...

 

I think over the past few months I have done about 100 of these daubs on scraps of paper...
 

I want to feel that connection... to try and spark some inner memory between my head and hand.

 

I have thrown many of these daubs out in the rubbish...but on some I have written words about how I was feeling at the time....my handwriting... is a scrawl, and hardly legible, but I got my feelings down, the best I could.

Parkinson's also creates a symptom called "micrographia" where handwriting reduces in size to become minute scratchings...

 

it is very frustrating...especially for someone who loves hand writing... and of course for someone who is an honorary brand ambassador for beautiful pen company MONTEGRAPPA it is even more frustrating!

Thankfully with a concentrated effort, I can force an increase in the size of my writing

...but it is still very hard to read.

 

I have translated my scratchings to each of these daubs.