Dr. Ismail's Tooth Fairy

I just noticed that I haven't written anything in my blog for about 2 weeks....I have a good excuse (of course). About three days after my Art & Soul experience I came down with a horrible head cold...my first in a long, long time. I'd almost forgotten how mushy my brain gets when I am sick...there's no hope for anything resembling rational thought...just little jumbles of
pictures and words that dissolve almost as quickly as they appear. I always feel as if my brain melts when I have a cold. It's not a runny nose that I get...it's brain melt. Almost two weeks of brain melt, disposed of on hundreds of squares of Kleenex and Puffs tissues. I'm all better now so it's time to get writing and doing stuff again.

I just finished this 12x16" mixed media piece I call Dr. Ismail's Tooth Fairy. She's going to be a gift to my wonderful dentist who is in the process of reconstructing my entire mouth. I've been very hard on my teeth, what with grinding and clenching. Wound up with TMJ....first my jaws started to hurt....then, with every movement, it seems...I would hear pop...pop....pop....pop. I could feel the pops too. Over the years my pearly whites changed from pearly to a sickly yellow...and, due to the grinding and clenching...they started to wear away and crack and shift. For years I haven't smiled a toothy smile in a photo....it was hardly worth it because my teeth had been ground down to ugly little nubbins with sharp, serrated edges. It's not a pretty picture. Well, all that is changing. I've been wearing, what Dr. Ismail calls a splint...kind of a retainer...to correct my bite and stop the jaw popping TMJ. Not too long ago I had to be fitted for a new splint....because, while eating my lunch one day (the only time that I was supposed to remove the thing)...one of my dogs managed to get hold of it (I still don't know how that happened) and next thing I know....he's chewing my expensive retainer into little plastic pieces. And he seemed to be enjoying himself too! I felt like a little kid having to call and tell the Dr. that the dog had eaten my splint. The Dr. didn't scold me (he had apparently heard quite a few"the dog ate it" stories)...he simply made me a new one (just as expensive as the first). Next week the real work starts....my mouth is going to become a construction zone...or re-construction zone. When done...I'll have a gorgeous smile. The sexiest smile an almost-70-year-old ever had. And you can bet that I'll be showing those teeth off in every photo that's taken of me from then on!

Back to the painting: My scanner couldn't scan the whole 12x16 inch size of the painting....and I still have one more thing to do before I can call it finished: I have to attach the TOOTH! I carved a golden molar out of polymer clay....that tooth, along with its own tiny wings, is going to live in the Tooth Fairy's hair. Then, I'll probably take a photo and post a picture of the entire painting.....with fewer words. I realize that, because this is My Blog, I can write as much or as little as I wish.....but then you, as reader, don't have to read what I've written. So I guess that's fair. I wish you all a wonderful St. Patrick's Day and rest of the week.

xoxo