Habotai silk, acrylic, and metallic guttas and dye; 9.5" silk hoops. These were probably painted during the summer.
see also
Lilies, silk (art)
Cyclamens silk (art)
Celtic beasties on silk (art)
Celtic beasties on silk 2 (art)
Tuesday, December 31, 2002
Lilies, 2 silk (art)
Habotai silk, acrylic, and metallic guttas and dye; 9.5" silk hoops. These were probably painted during the summer.
see also
Lilies, silk (art)
Cyclamens silk (art)
Celtic beasties on silk (art)
Celtic beasties on silk 2 (art)
Celtic beasties on silk 2 (art)
After 9/11/2001, I must've designed 50 Celtic hoops. Few were painted in with dye as the acrylic gutta I was using didn't sink through the silk (it's like a batik barrier), so I had to also re-gutta the back, It proved to be too tedious. So, few made it to the color stage: 9.5" hoops. Habotai silk, acrylic gutta and dye.
Monday, December 23, 2002
Neil’s uncontrollable rage
Neil‘s rage is becoming unpredictable; any time, I don’t second-guess his wishes and needs, or if I question his presumptions, he flies into a rage where the usual outcome is that I need to move out, or, am evicted.
I cannot reach him when he gets this way; it is an explosive, unpredictable rage. There is no rationale behind his statements, but he says, in essence, that I’m not offering support, therefore I don’t care for him.
His methodology is becoming pathological. He doesn’t talk to me, doesn’t give me the larger picture and expects me to know what is going on. He sees no value in my time choices, or that I might have other plans. He assumes that I should guess his needs and clear everything in order to meet them when clearly, if the tables were turned, he’d not be offering me any support, and certainly not unconditional support.
Why is he always so angry with me? He doesn’t see the cause-and-effect. Every time it happens I retreat more and more. Soon there will be nothing left but ambivalence. His unpredictable rage leaves me shaking and scared. It’s as damaging as physical violence. There’s a pathology present, and I don’t think I can handle this any longer, because it’s increasing in frequency and happening over things that don’t warrant this kind of behavioral reaction.
The world never sees this side of Neil. The Jekyll hidden behind the jolly façade. Today’s episode revolved around a tooth extraction. He didn’t ask me to drive him, I had to ask him if he needed a ride, as I was going to run a few errands, get a printer for his classroom, etc. While he was in surgery, he exploded and blamed me for not anticipating his needs. He wants me to sit and wait in the waiting room rather than to come back in an hour. The rage was palpable.
He’s created a series of complex responses, and a tight defense from which there is no winning the argument. If he had said, I want you to sit and wait for me in the waiting room, then I could’ve brought something to do, and made other plans with the printer. Since there was a possibility of work attached to this contact, now I look bad for not showing up on time.
His needs are always greater than mine. That is the message I’m getting. I tried to reach him before he went in, that he needs to tell me, and that I can’t second-guess the minutia. If I had an asked him if he needed a ride, what would he have done then?
I’m living with a madman, and I don’t know if I can deal with it any longer. He is scraped raw, and his methodology is to blow up when he feels I’ve slighted him. The thing is, it’s not rational. He deliberately inflicts pain in a retaliatory manner. Reason is not at all present.
I try hard not to use the accusative language, to be calm and reasonable. But he’s off and running. I never threatened him with leaving, etc., I try to stay within the moment and deal or resolve the problem present problem, but it’s no use. He is unreachable. I tried to tell him that I needed a little more information from him.
I think part of the problem is that he doesn’t anticipate his own needs and he is angry because he perceives that I don’t “support” him in a time of need. I am trying to take care of other business whenever I can.
The drama conflict has a similar MO to that of alcoholism. I kept asking him if he needed help, if he needed me to come in, and if he had only answered me, I would have offered full support unquestionably but because I asked, instead of assumed I’d be going in with him, it pushed his buttons.
Again, it comes down to his not telling me his needs or expectations, and my having to second-guess them. Having to second-guess his needs is similar to the role of a child coping with alcoholic parents. He should be able to calmly and nicely articulate his needs.
Instead, he uses it as a platform to show his rage. Of course, he blamed me for it, another trait. I’m always to blame for his rage for his lack of clarity, or ability to ask or articulate his needs. This pushes a button on his danger scale. I should not be in this position of coping, or having to second-guess his needs.
He is amazingly self-absorbed and can’t seem to see that his behavior is questionable, at best. Too easy for him to make me the scapegoat. Gaslighting. He has built it up in his mind a series of false cases. He says that I’m not supportive that I abandon him when things get tough, which I’ve never done. I’ve been amazingly present for him. My crime is that I won’t be manipulated, nor will I take this abusive behavior.
Added 12/24/2023 After a few of these psychotic episodes, I told him that he ever threatened me with eviction again that I would leave. In 2001, right after 911, I was scheduled to go to the Azores with my aunt and cousin. He completely lost it even though I told him I was going. He wouldn’t even say goodbye to me, nor go with me to the airport. I found a postcard that referred to it. I think we had another big episode in 2015. And when he did it again big time, in 2018, I left. It took me nearly 20 years to reach the melting point.
Added 12/24/2023 After a few of these psychotic episodes, I told him that he ever threatened me with eviction again that I would leave. In 2001, right after 911, I was scheduled to go to the Azores with my aunt and cousin. He completely lost it even though I told him I was going. He wouldn’t even say goodbye to me, nor go with me to the airport. I found a postcard that referred to it. I think we had another big episode in 2015. And when he did it again big time, in 2018, I left. It took me nearly 20 years to reach the melting point.
I found some other notes as well, which may have come out of this experience.
I was treated badly, I lived rent free, though I was paying $200 a month. The cycle is like a knife. Betrayal, inner burn internal war. Finances, school. I was five points of pressure. My wantoness, that totally doesn’t make sense. I was never a wanton woman. lol.
More notes: stress I started looking outside the self. My list included these thoughts. We need to apologize to each other, you need to apologize for your actions. You need to find a way to cope with stress that works. Take your brain chemistry seriously. Take your meds. Write a mood journal for one month. Things I can say (positive language vs. accusative language): I’ve noticed you’re under less stress when you sleep and eat well. You’ve created this stress in your own mind and you’re making it your reality. You’re not making it easy for me to help you. If I wasn’t here to help, you would have lost your job. You keep thinking negative thoughts. You have to learn to deal with your anger. Get stress under control, not quitting, not getting rid of it completely. Stop bullying me. It’s domestic abuse. Threatening to evict me in retaliation is not rational. If he wants to be successful at his job, he has to find a way to deal with stress. Breath, meditation, Meditation – lithium? Low energy over the weekend meaning he was out of meds. He thinks that the ashram and meditation will replace his meds. He needs to mellow out. He has control issues. He’s afraid to relax. He doesn’t trust that things will work out, or that the universe is conspiring against him. Anger is unresolved desire. What if at work every few weeks, the boss said you’re fired, then changed his mind. That’s what I’m living under.
Saturday, December 21, 2002
Thespians on the Town
Clearly, we've left the pub. Or the theatre. Or both. Or not. Thespians, all. Irish, at that. Either we're in San Francisco, at ACT, or in Piedmont—ca. Xmas 2002.
Kate said: that is me in the back row after a game of pool!
I don't remember a game of pool... Who is taking the photo? Lucy Faulknor?
Johnny Mac and Kate Perry both moved back to Ireland.
We lost touch with Joe Hakik and Owen Murphy.
Back row, left: Joe Hakik, Owen Murphy, Kate Perry, Maureen Hurley,
front row: Neil O'Neill, Johnny Mac
added 4/2016
Wednesday, December 11, 2002
Short Plays angst emails to Roy Conboy
EMAIL FROM ROY CONBOY
Great class once again last night. There's been so
much excellent work in this class. Best part of my
working week. Thanks.
Monday, December 9, 2002
MY SULLEN CRAFT, OR PURSUING MADNESS
MY SULLEN CRAFT, OR PURSUING MADNESS
. . great nations write their autobiographies in three manuscripts: the book of their deeds, the book of their words, and the book of their art...... the only trustworthy one is the last.
—John Ruskin
Maureen Hurley
CW 881, Chernoff
Poetics of Indeterminacy
Dec. 9, 2002 (this was not the final draft I turned in, 'tis lost.)
It is safe to say that I am obsessed, driven by my craft, and because of my avocation, that much of that time I am at war with myself. If I am lucky, the muses line up like so many planets and the basis for a work of art is produced. Then the agony of revision begins. The obsession that requires my undivided attention to polish it into art is more than the sum total of the act of creation.
I was ten when I first heard the muse—either that, or I was displaying early signs of madness. I prefer the Graeco-Roman tradition where madness and inspiration are linked to direct contact with the gods rather than with modern scientific explanations. I was gazing west, daydreaming some small pre-Joycean Epiphany in late summer. I don’t know why, it was as if time itself was suspended from a thread of sky. Then, out of the blue, a voice like Hamlet’s father’s ghost, announced: “Remember. Remember everything about your childhood—because someday you’ll need to remember, because you’re going to be a writer.”
“Oh?” I nearly jumped out of my skin. Not a being, except for my cat Winky who wandered up to greet me; surely he didn't suggest that I become a famous writer. Besides, he was a soprano, and though brilliant with diphthong vowels, he had trouble articulating fricative and plosive consonants. The resonant voice immediately amended that statement: “Well, maybe not exactly famous, of course, but well-known...” and then it mumbled something under its breath about “maybe in small, but important circles. I felt insulted: I was going to be famous, why was this friggin’ disembodied voice reneging? I tried to ask it: “Important to whom?” But I was holding audience with a puzzled cat in a landscape of long ridges articulated by ravines of dark oaks and bay trees, iron dust, horse manure and dry summer grasses seething in late afternoon. Panic and guilt set in because at a tender age—somewhere in that eternity that stretched between the ages of three-and-a-half and four—I had promised myself to become a visual artist just like my mother.
One of my earliest memories is of watching my mother make black India-ink lines on creamy paper that magically transforming into a three-dimensional object even I could recognize: a broken Christmas ornament, a guilty cat. Much to her annoyance, I literally drooled on her drawings, I was hooked on illusion. All through school I declared myself to be an artist—even though I was informed that one didn't major in a given field until college—as my school counselor so aptly pointed out. It took nearly twenty years before the prophesy of the pen took root, and another twenty years to hone my craft.
I was ten when I first heard the muse—either that, or I was displaying early signs of madness. I prefer the Graeco-Roman tradition where madness and inspiration are linked to direct contact with the gods rather than with modern scientific explanations. I was gazing west, daydreaming some small pre-Joycean Epiphany in late summer. I don’t know why, it was as if time itself was suspended from a thread of sky. Then, out of the blue, a voice like Hamlet’s father’s ghost, announced: “Remember. Remember everything about your childhood—because someday you’ll need to remember, because you’re going to be a writer.”
“Oh?” I nearly jumped out of my skin. Not a being, except for my cat Winky who wandered up to greet me; surely he didn't suggest that I become a famous writer. Besides, he was a soprano, and though brilliant with diphthong vowels, he had trouble articulating fricative and plosive consonants. The resonant voice immediately amended that statement: “Well, maybe not exactly famous, of course, but well-known...” and then it mumbled something under its breath about “maybe in small, but important circles. I felt insulted: I was going to be famous, why was this friggin’ disembodied voice reneging? I tried to ask it: “Important to whom?” But I was holding audience with a puzzled cat in a landscape of long ridges articulated by ravines of dark oaks and bay trees, iron dust, horse manure and dry summer grasses seething in late afternoon. Panic and guilt set in because at a tender age—somewhere in that eternity that stretched between the ages of three-and-a-half and four—I had promised myself to become a visual artist just like my mother.
One of my earliest memories is of watching my mother make black India-ink lines on creamy paper that magically transforming into a three-dimensional object even I could recognize: a broken Christmas ornament, a guilty cat. Much to her annoyance, I literally drooled on her drawings, I was hooked on illusion. All through school I declared myself to be an artist—even though I was informed that one didn't major in a given field until college—as my school counselor so aptly pointed out. It took nearly twenty years before the prophesy of the pen took root, and another twenty years to hone my craft.
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