Today is Day 43 of the Art Apple A Day Retrospective – for information on the project click here.

Day Forty Three – November 12, 2010

Looking back 10 years ago today…

This apple was very popular. I think it struck a chord with thoughts of being pigeon holed in the medical bureaucracy. At least I think that was a big part of it although when I created it I was thinking about my personal free spirit. Fast-forward to 2020 and I am seeing it in a whole new way – isn’t that the lovely thing about art, we all see what is relatable to us at the moment in time we view a piece.

Today, I looked at the image and title and I was flooded with thoughts of how society puts us into emotional cages. Being diagnosed with a chronic illness is a powerful cage we are taught to think is inescapable! I had those thoughts for years and it isn’t a happy or powerful place to be.

A couple of years ago the figurative cage in my mindset started to fade away as I learned new ways to consider my present moment. It’s like my acorn story – how we choose to see something creates the world around us. If I were to create this piece today… the apple (me) would not be sitting tentatively in the door of the cage, it would be way over there looking back at it and waving the other apples (imagine with me) to come along with me way way far away from that sweet little (disguised) cage to the sun filled meadow where we’d be free from the confines of the way we think we have to look at illness.

To see my original Day 43 post ~ Don’t Cage Me In ~ from 10 years ago click here or on the image above.

And the story will continue tomorrow…