Last month, I restored an older painting (on the left) by matching the colors of a print from a 30-year-old slide of the artwork (on the right).
Impermanent – not lasting, ephemeral, temporary
A month ago, I tackled a restoration project for one of my older paintings. It was once a colorful illustration of a bouquet that adorned an ad in People Magazine. It is the only advertising illustration I have ever done where I was allowed to add my signature.
My painting medium is watercolor dyes. They are different from traditional watercolors, with their brilliant and intense colors. This comes at a price, as the colors will fade if displayed.
Throughout my career, I have used dyes exclusively for all my paintings. I keep most of my originals in boxes. They have not faded, but the ones that are displayed have.
My mother framed and hung the People Magazine bouquet and she loved it. Sadly, UV light destroyed the colors and over the years the painting became a whisper of what it once was.
My motivation to bring that painting brought back to life was so I could gift it to one of my children. This time, I would make sure to use a protective fixative and put UV resistant glass over it.
Initially, I wondered how it would be to paint over something that was 36 years old. I began on an iris. What a difference it made to add the color back! The paper accepted my dyes, but it was spotty and rough. I had to use a little colored pencil to smooth it out once the paint was dry.
I worked on this project for over a week. When I was finished, I was eager to scan my restored painting. Because the original painting was done 30 years ago, it had never been scanned. All that I had to work with was a decades old professional transparency, which I scanned instead.
The new scan was slightly different from my other version, but both were beautiful.
I needed to put an acetate cover over my art to protect it, but I didn’t have a large enough piece (I had tossed the old one.) It was 11×14 and most of my artwork was 8×10. I ordered a vinyl sleeve on Amazon.
I put the painting in my top desk drawer and covered it gently with a clean piece of cardboard.
The crowded desk where I do my artwork.
The past two weeks were tough. My A/C stopped working.
I live in a very old building. (I have to walk that back a little, since I am one year older than this building!)
My parents moved here when I was a year old. I moved out to get married at 21, and returned at the age of 54.
I remember well when my parents got central air over 30 years ago. They were the only ones in their coop to have it, and my mother (who was always hot) was in heaven. My parents would constantly fight over the thermostat controls, but it was definitely a game-changer in their lives.
I especially appreciated central A/C when I moved back into my former family abode after my divorce.
Replacing that old compressor would be a huge expense – somewhere around $8,000 or more. So when the A/C quit two weeks ago, I was worried. My usual guy told me he would come in two days. This was during a major heat wave.
The first day was an ordeal, but I made it through. The fans really did help, but it wasn’t fun.
On the second day, my usual guy called and apologized. He said he wasn’t up to the job. It seems that he had had open-heart surgery a month before and wasn’t ready to work yet. I felt badly for him, but I wish he hadn’t put me off those two days.
I immediately started looking for someone else. I was thankful that a tennis friend gave me a referral. His name was Carlos and he was able to come the next day.
I proudly made it through another day where the temperature was over 100 degrees.
Carlos was warm and friendly, with a toothy grin. He examined everything and told me that my compressor wasn’t the problem. Whew! He replaced a small part for about $100. The air came on and I was practically dancing.
After he left, my thrill didn’t last long – the A/C stopped.
The general consensus from most people was that it sure didn’t make sense to put money into a system that was over 30 years old. Sadly, most new units today last about 8 years. The compressor I had was far beyond that, because they built things to last in the old days.
Now I needed a new motor and Carlos found an aftermarket one for about $600. With labor it would be $750. When he refunded me for the first part I’d paid $100 for, I told him to go ahead.
By now, I had gone almost a week without A/C. However, the weather had cooled down and I was thankful. Carlos put in the new motor and the A/C was working again.
Until it didn’t. The next day there was a loud noise in my backyard and everything stopped. This was a new problem and very likely the compressor unit.
But Carlos was undeterred. It seemed that a fuse had blown and a few wires were blackened. I held my breath to hear the verdict. My compressor was okay! A new fuse box and a few other things would have it working fine again.
Carlos told me that my unit was amazing – it was “top of the line” and built like a tank. He was curious what my father had paid for it. I was able to pull out a receipt to show him and it was $2,685.
I found myself having conversations in my head with my father. What should I do, dad? Should I keep it going? Carlos seemed happy to do these repairs, but was this all a scam?
Two days of heat later, Carlos called and said this next repair was going to be $300. I was relieved it wasn’t more and told him to go ahead.
The most difficult day was when my A/C was finally fixed, and prompted me to tell this story. Somehow, all my challenges seemed related to impermanence.
In the morning, a fuse blew in the house. My younger son was busy figuring out the problem. Unfortunately, our modem wasn’t plugged into the surge protector, so it was fried.
Between the heat and my computer crashing, I was stressed. Mostly, it was because I was dealing with a fractured family relationship that had disintegrated months before. I had received an unexpected email message and I wanted to respond.
Finally, the power came back on and my son left to get a new modem. It was finally quiet. I decided that making a phone call might make a difference. A text or email would have been easier, but I wanted to be authentic and brave.
The call went fairly well. Things might never be the same, but at least it wasn’t completely broken anymore.
Five minutes after that call, Carlos texted me that he was on his way. I found myself crying, because I was soaked in sweat from all the stress.
When the A/C came on this time, I wasn’t sure whether to rejoice.
The total cost of all the repairs was about $1,000 in total. I felt I had no choice; it was a necessity. I hugged Carlos and he said to let him know if there were any other problems. Before he left, he patted the old unit and told me it was a great one.
My old unit wasn’t going to last forever. Was I pushing hard to hold onto something that would fail tomorrow? Would I get another year out of it, or maybe five?
I listened for my parents’ voices and strained to feel their love. I was exhausted and emotional from my day. I knew that there were things to celebrate, but the sadness inside of me couldn’t be ignored.
I opened the door and brought in an Amazon package. It held the vinyl sleeve I needed for my flower bouquet painting.
But when I went and opened up the drawer where my painting was, I was horrified. The painting was ruined!
Then I vaguely remembered bumping into the water container near my watercolors the day before. It was crowded having a fan on my table and I was reaching to turn in on. Even though I had wiped up the small puddle, somehow it had made it into the drawer and wet the cardboard that was covering my painting. That chain of events destroyed it.
I tried to absorb this huge disappointment. I had worked so many hours restoring that beautiful painting. I was grateful I had scanned it, but the original was no more.
I told my younger son what had happened, and he said, “Mom, you’ve painted how many illustrations? Thousands? This is the only one you’ve ever lost this way. So that’s pretty good.”
His words soothed me immediately. I was a proud parent, because he understood how to find a positive spin – I felt my sadness dissipate.
And then I started to put together the insights that seemed to tie everything together.
Impermanence – so many lessons were held in a single day.
My fractured relationship made me sad. I had thought family ties were solid, but it wasn’t so. In my mind now, nothing was guaranteed. Disappointment was a heavy weight upon my heart.
And the fact that life was going by, with the certainly that death can always surprise us – made it even worse!
I certainly learned that lesson when my 5-year-old son, Jason died.
My faded painting was clearly impermanent and I had thought I’d fixed it. But it wasn’t meant to last. Things can change over time or in an instant.
I’d extended more life to my old A/C unit, but it was still temporary.
Perfectionism certainly wasn’t serving me. At least my A/C unit was now working, my family relationship was improved, and I had a scan of the ruined painting.
Accepting that nothing is permanent is tough with things we want to maintain, but it’s also a good thing for difficult situations.
My mantra to get through a broken ankle in 2019 was ‘”This is temporary!”
If there was a cure for everything in my life – it was love. I love creating and there would be many other paintings for me to work on.
Love was why I made that difficult phone call.
And I could feel my parents’ love as the cool air soothed me.
This diary entry was written in 1979, when I was 19 years old.
