Painting on Dementia

I’m back! I know, I know….it’s been a while. I’ve been a bit busy….things have happened….

The OldMan was diagnosed with dementia, with a side of Alzheimers. Over the past few years we noticed him forgetting little things like names and dates and then it grew into forgetting how to make spaghetti or how to use the phone. Then he started doing crazy shit like putting tin foil in the microwave and confusing shredded cheese with pasta and boiling it. So we had him checked out and JACKPOT! He has BOTH dementia and Alzheimers! As crazy as it sounds, it was a sigh of relief.

A painting of our kitchen when I was growing up

You see The OldMan is one of those gifted folks who is his own worst enemy. He has spent the better part of 70 years (he’s 90 now) reminding himself of the failure he has become….until Dementia freed him. It literally has erased the word “regret” from his vocabulary.

His mission is Dementia. Each time I see him I am greeted with a “Hey, did you know I have dementia?” and each time I respond with a “You don’t say?” He pulls out his Merck Manual (aka: his bible) and reads me all the info on dementia and how he’ll need more care and how it affects your brain and your memory…and then he’ll re-read it to me all over again two or three more times before I leave. He is going to cure himself so he’s made me order him special vitamins and Chinese oils to increase his brain function, because….did you know?….He’s got dementia. 

The Lone Ranger Saves Jesus Christ
(but he was a little bit too late!)

He has also started painting again. This is the man who graduated at the top of his class from UCLA in painting and art history and yet stopped painting because he thought he wasn’t good enough. So imagine my surprise when I showed up to his house some weeks ago and he was sitting in his painting chair (something he hasn’t done in 20 years) dressed in a t-shirt and adult diapers, holding a paintbrush while studying a new painting on his easel. As I got closer to it, I realized it wasn’t a new painting….it was an old painting that he’d been tweaking. And so every time I came over, he had tweaked it again. So I started documenting the changes. I call it Painting on Dementia. 

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

Week 5

Week 6

Week 7

Week 8

Week 9

Week 10

I’ll bet in a few months, the painting will be of a pair tits with fuzzy slippers, but I don’t care….at least he’s painting again. There always is a silver lining….I’d say this is it.