Today was an art day...

(all links open in a new window)

I spent most of the day working on a digital art journal page for Tangie Baxter's Art Journal Caravan. Also treated myself to the new Loreena McKennitt album The Wind that shakes the Barley on iTunes . Listened to it meanwhile I was working on my page. Besides exploring all kinds of issues during this year I also want to learn more about Photoshop CS5 and how to use it for my art. I think I am doing well with the basics and I am always keeping my ears and eyes open for techniques which I can adapt to work on an art journal page digitally and emulate some of the effects I can get when I work on a page physically.

When I worked on the page below today, I wanted to explore how I felt about phobias. This subject really hit a spot in me. I have acrophobia, caused by a medical condition--Vertigo. I just found out last year about the medical condition and finally things started making sense. People would always tell me to "just face your fear" and whenever I tried I would get physical symptoms and was always told "it is all in your head." Well, last year I finally found out it truly is all in my head *lol* but not in the sense as the well-meaning friends and relatives thought it is.

Here is the journaling from the page:

Acrophobia -- Fear of Heights

In my case I remember always being afraid, strangely enough however only when those heights are associated with man-made structures. Last year, this finally started to make sense after I was diagnosed with benign paroxysmal positional vertigo or BPPV. The vertigo associated with BPPV
is due to loose crystals — or ear rocks in the inner ear. Within the inner ear, there's a little pouch called the utricle that contains about 1,000 little pebbles made of calcium carbonate. The tiny rocks serve an important purpose: They stimulate nerve cells when we move our heads — and send signals to our brain that guide our sense of up and down.

Normally BPPV is treated with a series of simple head movements aimed at putting dislodged ear rocks back where they came from so they can be cleared away by the immune system. Unfortunately, this treatment can't be applied to me because I have had my neck fused and no doctor is willing to make the adjustments.

This has led to the condition coming and going without me having a whole lot of control over it. Some things have become almost an impossibility, for example, riding in an elevator, flying in an airplane,
going on the top floor of a high building. My fear of heights comes from early childhood experiences of vertigo; not understanding what was happening just made me fear heights.

Credits (in no particular order):
Journey 12 by Tangie Baxter;
The Good Guys Conspiracy by Julie Mead;
52 Ave Money Talks by Studio Rosey Posey;
AJC 11 Parcel 43 by Tangie Baxter;
SG Alphamasks by Tangie Baxter;
Ecology by Lynne Marie Favreau;
AJC12 Parcel 3 by Tangie Baxter;
2012 Toppers by Tangie Bxter;
White Wash Overlays by Sherrie JD;
gesso mats by Tangie Baxter;
Journal Anthology 2 by Tangie Baxter;

Have a great day!