SEEING CLEARLY

 

The "sizzling" earth seems to be cooling down.

Several nights ago, it was minus two below zero here in rural Tennessee. Below zero! That's cold enough to over-freeze the moonshine. Frost bite on the possum's tails.

I'm admittedly worried about my fragile rural house which is unattended in the Arctic wilderness. The negative possibilities are endless.

I had an appointment with the optometrist yesterday (Wednesday). Coldest day of the year - - I think it was 12 degrees. I had to wear crappy second-hand borrowed clothes, because my new clothes were "lost" or "misplaced." Hhhmmm....

The second-hand clothes are all black. I looked like the Grim Reaper....in a wheelchair. I was accompanied by my faithful nurse Henny, who is near 80 and nearly deaf. She shouts everything, but has a distinct hillbilly charm.

Do you remember the good ol' days when you visited an optometrist? You read an eye chart and get a prescription for glasses. A simple procedure.

Nothing is simple nowadays.

After a forty minute wait, I finally had to consult with half a dozen people - - who took tests on me and my eyes, diagnostic tests, scans, and procedures. Questions, questions, analyzations of what my eyes were like when I was ten.

After an hour, I finally saw the doctor. He was incredibly goodlooking. I'm intimidated by goodlooking doctors.

Well, he went over every aspect of my eyes. I'm profoundly near sighted (as if I didn't know). My severe astigmatism improved (!) over the years. My retinas look good - - considering I had emergency retina surgery on both eyes years ago (that's another horrifying story I could tell).

He suddenly slipped into the bad news mode. I have cataracts in both eyes. Will get worse, of course. Surgery is recomended. He said that new glasses won't help me. The surgery will improve my vision so drastically that I most likely won't need glasses.

I'm skeptical. Never heard of such a thing. Tempting, but.....is this a scam? Everyone I know has had cataract surgery. Was everyone talked into it??

I listened carefully to his pitch.

He was hustling me like a two bit barker at Coney Island.

He was persuasive. He was damn cute. He could have sold me beach front property in Kansas.

I acquiesed. I submitted myself to him completely.

(I'm being funny...?)

I'll get the surgery. Against my better judgement.

I don't know how the hell I get into these things. Why why why isn't life simple anymore??

Presently, I have no clue when or where the surgery will take place. Definitely out of town. Possibly in Cookeville.

So what else is new?

I have too many ailments to mention. My back, hip, legs. The edema has nearly vanished. Blood pressure is good. My blood work fluxuates. I'm supposedly dehydrated. I am extremely anemic. I'll skip the other things. 

I finally received the new charger for my cell phone after two weeks. I desperately needed it.

I plan to order some new clothes so I won't look like the grim reaper next time I go out. If I ever go out.

Jon, never exactly seeing clearly

❤️

What are your thoughts concerning cataract surgery?

THROUGH THE EYES OF MARGARET KEANE

One of my blogger friends, Lady Caer Morganna, recently wrote a post on her blog For the Love of Cats that intrigued me. It was about one of her favorite artists, Puerto Rican-born Cyra R. Cancel, who creates fantasy cat art. Cancel's lovely paintings of wide-eyed cats suddenly reminded me of the wide-eyed Keane paintings.

Cyra R. Cancel    (link)  

The unique and intriguing Keane paintings of children and animals were immensely popular in the 1960s. When I was about twelve or thirteen I had four Keane cat posters hanging in my bedroom.

At that time, it was universally assumed that the paintings were done by an artist named Walter Keane.
It wasn't until many years later that I did some research and learned the truth.

Walter Keane never painted the pictures. They were all created by his wife Margaret. The story is long and intricate, but I'll try to condense.

Peggy Hawkins (Margaret's birth-name) was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1927. A botched mastoid operation damaged one of her eardrums and left her partially deaf. She became fascinated with painting at an early age. She attended classes at the Watkins Institute in Nashville and later studied art at the Traphaugen School of Design in New York City. By the mid-1950s she began a career as a portrait painter.

Her first marriage to Frank Ulbrich produced a daughter but ended in divorce. In 1955 Margaret became smitten by a suave, charming real estate agent named Walter Keane. They were quickly married in Honolulu.

It wasn't long before Walter began taking an uncanny interest in Margaret's paintings. He eventually abandoned real estate and began promoting, exhibiting, and selling his wife's paintings throughout the United States.

There was one major issue that Margaret initially knew nothing about: 
Her husband was promoting her paintings as his own. According to him, the artist was Walter Keane.

At that time in her life, Margaret was timid and withdrawn. When she finally discovered what her husband was doing, she remained silent due to his bullying and constant threats.

She finally divorced Walter in 1964 and eventually summoned the courage to go on a radio show and announce that she was the real creator of the paintings.

A reporter from the San Francisco Examiner arranged a public "paint-out" between Margaret and Walter in Union Square.
Walter never showed up.

In 1982 Margaret Keane sued Walter and USA Today in federal court for an article claiming that Walter was the real artist.

The judge ordered Margaret and Walter to create a painting in the courtroom to determine who was the real artist. 

Walter declined, claiming he had a sore shoulder. Margaret produced an impressive painting in less than an hour. She won the case and was awarded four million dollars.

Margaret never got the money, but stated that all she really wanted was to establish the fact that she was the real artist ( a federal appeals court upheld the defamation verdict but overturned the $4 million damage award).

Margaret Keane is still alive and painting today at age 94. She lives in Napa County, California with her daughter and son-in-law.

Keane's paintings reached a peak of popularity in the 1960s. At that time her artistic output consisted mostly of children and animals with the trademark uncanny wide eyes. 
Unique, mesmerizing, mysterious - - sometimes almost creepy. 
Margaret eventually expanded her artistic repertoire and minimized the ubiquitous hypnotic eyes in her portraits.
Her work is still popular, especially with collectors.

Margaret Keane

 

This is one of the cat posters I used to have. Don't know whatever happened to it.

 Numerous celebrities commissioned Keane to paint their portraits. This is one she did of Joan Crawford.

Margaret Keane in later years