BACK ON TRACK

Carpal release surgery was performed on my right wrist on Jan 17th--and the healing curve has been much different than that of the left wrist. The left surgery healed quickly and neatly, and feeling came back into my left fingertips immediately. This right wrist incision was icky and oozing for two weeks and is still very painful and puffy, but ice works wonders. I have no tingling and pain in the right fingertips any longer, but the feeling hasn't come back yet either. My doctor says to give it time.


In the meanwhile, I've been researching and testing and messing around with a screenprinting lightbox setup. With rain and clouds for the past weeks, I've had nearly no chance to sun-develop my expensive little StencilPro silkscreen units. I also decided I wanted control over the process so a sunprint doesn't get ruined by a cloud passing by and blocking the sun's UV light.


I spent $40 at OSH on a fluorescent light fixture and then had to try to figure out how to wire it. I finally spliced a cheap lamp plug onto the "hot" and neutral wires in the shop unit with its two 20w cool white rods. I use an extension cord to turn it on and have the unit lying in an Ikea storage box usually full of my grandson's wooden blocks. The covers slide over it and I use that to hold the image and StencilPro unit. I can later use it for real, grownup silkscreening when my wrists have healed and I have enough control to coat a screen evenly.


My first lightbox test was with the Dotted Horse image up above. More on this later (if it works and I don't flip all my circuit breakers).


For the last weeks, I've been driving around to and from physical therapy, paying bills, visiting used bookstores, and watching things on the street. While in Emeryville, I thought I saw a new fountain shooting water into the air near Harlan Avenue. Then I realized this wasn't a fountain. A car had hit a fire hydrant and the water was gushing straight up into the air 10-15 feet. Which was why when I'd flushed the toilet at Home Depot a few minutes before, there'd been no water pressure.


There are so many interesting things going on in the street, but when you work inside an office, you miss it all.


Hooray! The lightbox worked. Now I've got to complete the process and I'll write more about it when it's completed. Glad I did it, because it's pouring outside again today.