SZUSZI

SZUSZI REESE 

(Mecsek's Szuszi of Strafford)

3/10/2001--5/5/2014

Szuszi is gone. The house feels empty, our other dog is a wreck, and our hearts are heavy with loss as we learn to live without her. In the end stages of kidney disease, and having lost 10 lbs (a third of her weight)  Szuszi was soon going to suffer some pretty terrible consequences from this illness. We decided to let our good vet, Kim Jones, put her to rest on Monday while she was still pain-free, and relatively happy and content. We have known she was ill for quite a while; changes in diet and medications gave us another good year with our little sheepdog, but always tinged with the sad reality that she could not recover from her kidney disease. Below is a photo of our girl the night before we put her down. Human tears were flowing, but she, unaware that she was so sick, was fine.

We brought her home from the NJ breeder just about 13 years ago, stopping off in Wilton, CT to show the new puppy to our 7-month old grandson Aidan. Here, right,  he is with her when he was about a year old, and she is 6 months.

Puppy Szuszi in the daisies.

Aidan and a very wet and scruffy looking Szuszi, just starting to cord.

For many years, Aidan and Szuszi were best buddies, and I was brought to tears when I saw him say goodbye to her last New Year’s, knowing he would probably never see her again. It was one of the first words Aidan said …”Zyooozee” and their bond was very special. But as dogs do, she grew old .... and he became a teen-ager last year he moved with his family to California. She looked for them always, and hoped every car that drove up was full of her people.

Szuszi sashayed into our lives in 2001 and turned the life of our older dog, Bradford, upside down. First of all, for the first time, he discovered he was a boy, so, not only was she spayed, but because of his amorous and unwanted attentions to little Szuszi, he too had to get “fixed” -- although John insisted he was not broken!

Here are the two of them in our fields in October, Braddy very regal, Szuszi still a matted, happy puff ball.

She stole all of Braddy’s toys, tried to eat his food, insisted she was the prettiest one, and demanded the Alpha dog position in the house. Unlike her older companion, who was beautifully resplendent with long Rasta cords, Szuszi had Tina Turner hair that just wisped wildy about her, matting constantly, and for the first six years of her life, she had to be clipped down from time to time.

Puppy Szuszi trying to get a toy away from her big brother Bradford.

Eventually, after Bradford was gone, Szuszi began to grow her Rasta curls, and we had another beautiful, corded Puli.

And then Sami arrived, and turned the tables around ... he stole her toys, and her food, and wanted to be the boss. She resisted. They had a love-hate relationship, but were constant companions.

Szusi, before she corded, with the new puppy we named Sami in 2007

She was a friend, and protector of all four of “her” children, as well as of their parents, and nothing made her happier than when one of more of them would come to visit. She snuggled with them on couches and in beds, and barked at them when they went in the pond. Noisily chasing after them down the sledding hills or out into the wildflower fields, she worked hard  to make sure they came back to her herd of humans, where she could keep her eye on them, as fast as possible. 

Reese grandkids and Szuszi and Sami.

Walking the fields

Corded or not, young or old, she was always a Puli. Wiry and active under all that hair, the Puli has been likened to a bouncing spring. Happy and playful well into their teens, with boundless energy and insatiable curiosity, they bustle about with light-footed agility, checking out every new sight and sound -- and expressing an opinion about it.

Playing ball with Nate.

"Come back! Come back!" Mike and Lily!

Acrobatic Pulis are superb athletes, with quick reflexes who can turn on a dime and clear a six-foot fence from a standstill. In Hungary they have been herding sheep for centuries, not with the finesse of a Border Collie, but they get the job done noisily and menacingly. And with keen eyesight, acute hearing, and an innate suspicion of strangers, Pulis are also serious about their responsibilities as a watchdog. They will rush up to a stranger to check him out, and if necessary, are willing to back up suspicions with loud warning barking, from rich in their DNA. But then they jump up and lick the 99% who pass the test.

Szuszi with her cordsicles.

Szuszi helps her kids, Natey,Lily and Aidan, build a fort.

Szuszi loved her home; she was not very fond of traveling. Cars made her feel a bit rocky, and new places made her nervous until she was shown which bed she could sleep on, which couch she could jump on, and where her food bowl was. She did like to visit her kids, although our grand dog Mack made her a little worried. She hated vegetables, unexplained noises, and squirrels, birds, cats or other interlopers on her land. She was uncomfortable with other children, not hers, who played too roughly with her and pulled her hair, but she always tolerated them kindly. Szuszi did not like baths, hair dryers, or vacuums and hated going to the vet’s. But she never complained.

Somewhere there are frogs

Apple picking in the fall is great fun

Sooz in "her" garden

Szuszi lived the good life here in Vermont. She adored having the freedom a doggy door offered her,  so she could be outside, patrolling her fields, casing the pond, smelling the flowers, chasing geese away from the pond, and she especially liked to “help” John and me in the yard …. busily carting off briars and brambles, pruning bits, plant clippings, rocks, even logs from delivered fireplace wood. She carted our clean socks and underwear to "decorate" the living room, and unmade our bed when we were away.She leapt wildly and noisily into the snow John shoveled, and ran in front of sleds and tractors; she chased hockey pucks all over the pond, apples being picked, and croquet balls being hit. She loved cocktail hour and the possibility of a dropped bit of cheese or a peanut, and her favorite things to eat were chicken livers. On hot days, she was known to take a quick dip in the pond, although mostly she patrolled the edges, looking for frogs.

So much to do, so much to smell.

Couch Potatoes. This was always her perch, and we had to replace several pillows as a result.

Sooz loved parties.This was her last one, 
New Years Eve, 2013.

And the one place she liked to travel to was to Lake George to be with Maddy and Jerry. But she didn't like the motor boat.....

 She is greatly missed by John, Sami and me. The most loving of girls, she was as a good a doggy as there is. And although they had a love-hate relationship, Sooz and Sam were companions, and he is not handling her loss any better than we are, spending the past three days under his chair, the bed, or the car, and crying a lot. The house is quiet, lonely, and empty without her, as are we. 

Rest In Peace, Soozie Boozie, Sooz-A-Looza, Szuszie Girl .... my angel girl. 

 

It's Not Like Riding a Bike

When you get back in the studio again after a too-long hiatus, painting doesn't happen easily. Rediscovering myself as an painter after many months has been hard -- it is not like riding a bike or a horse after many years, because it is not totally instinctive or rote. Although the rituals of working in the studio and the basic skills are always there, they need to be encouraged back to the forefront. And there must be inspiration, a muse if you will. But I think the inspiration  and excitement are coming back, in that once again I have some ideas, and I WANT to paint.

I decided that in order to free myself up, I really needed to work large for a time. So I  started work on a very large piece, almost 5 feet high. I am painting over an old abstract 
canvas I did back in the 80's which never worked for me, and which  is  partially overlayed with tissue paper, to provide texture. 

At first it was a disaster. Nothing came together.  The first 
couple of forays into the studio left me feeling as if I was 
just wasting a lot of time and paint. Because of its size, I 
found I was working the canvas in quarters, and not really "feeling it" as a whole. I worked it upside down for a time,
 to keep it from becoming too representational.


 I had started out doing another forsythia to combat the three feet of snow around my house, claiming every view from the windows, but my heart was not in it, and what I ended up with just sort of evolved by playing with the paint. 

I think about California a lot with half my family now living there, and somehow this piece speaks to that emotional 
connection. It is now in the "take it down from the studio 


and look at it for a week" stage, but I think it is finished. It is tentatively titled 

             " Trees make a long shadow and a light sound"





And now, a few small winter scenes to finish, and onward to  abstracted seascapes for the Nantucket gallery.

Evolving, I Hope

Several readers -- I guess I have a few-- have asked why I do not post blogs anymore. No quick answer to that. It has been a hard year for me, heath-wise, and I kind of shuttered the windows and hunkered down. Nothing fatal, but hard nonetheless. 

A bit more than a year ago I sought help from an orthopedist and a rheumatologist at Dartmouth for a lot of unexplained flu-like pain I was having, and my total exhaustion. Many tests and conversations later, and I was diagnosed with arthritis of the hands, feet and knees -- which I already knew-- bursitis of the hips and knees, and get this, fibromyalgia. Once they told me that, and I googled what it was, a lot of things made sens ... I looked up the symptoms and saw this:

• Chronic muscle pain, muscle spasms, or tightness, a feeling of having the flu
• Pain in a number of diagnosed pressure points during flareups, or chronically.
• A low tolerance for pain (in other words, you feel feel pain more than most people do.)
• Moderate or severe fatigue and decreased energy
• Insomnia or waking up feeling just as tired as when you went to sleep
• Stiffness upon waking or after staying in one position for too long
• Difficulty remembering, concentrating, and performing simple mental tasks ("fibro fog")
• Sensitivity to one or more of the following: odors, noise, bright lights, medications, certain foods, and heat and cold
• Feeling anxious or depressed
• Numbness or tingling in the face, arms, hands, legs, or feet
• Irritable bowel syndrome symptom, irritable bladder
• Tension or migraine headaches
• Jaw and facial tenderness
• Reduced tolerance for exercise and muscle pain after exercise
• A feeling of swelling (without actual swelling) in the hands and feet

I can totally relate to all but a few of these things. I felt so vindicated, so much less "crazy." My pain, tiredness, sensitivities, need for anxiety medication all had a reason! BUT -- what to do about it?

The normal course of action is for the doc to prescribe heavy duty pain killers for the arthritis, bursitis and fibro. Because I am on Coumadin, that was not an option. All I can take is Tylenol. So I searched for for more holistic things I could do. First thing I kept reading these admonitions----GIVE UP GLUTEN, GIVE UP ASPARTAME, GIVE UP PROCESSED FOODS, and if you eat meat, eat only pasture fed and free range and organic, local if possible.  So I did all of that, (although I was already eating very little processed food or supermarket meat or chicken) and within a few weeks, the flu like symptoms went away, and the tiredness gradually improved. It was like a miracle. I had been a Diet Coke addict, drinking at least one a day. After I quit, a month or two later I drank a half of one, and whammo, pain was back. For me anyway, it is a lethal thing.

Then I also started having monthly massages, another thing that really helps, especially when in a flare.

Life began to improve, slowly. By summertime, my mood was improving as well as my health. Time at the beach always helps me.I think for the first time in my life, I had been depressed. I am still unhappy over the state of my health,  but when I look around and see what others are going through, I feel very fortunate. Four friends are fighting cancer right now, and I cannot compare my problems to theirs. However, the inevitable -- at my age (72)-- of the now constant stream of funerals and illnesses of loved ones is taking its toll, and the Effexor is not keeping me on an even keel. I feel so sad so often because of the loss and/or pain of my friends, and my fear of losing them.

The end result is that I have not been painting. I have not done  anything all year except seeing family and friends, a little gardening, a lot of work writing for the book for my Skidmore 50th reunion, and taking on an obsession to find homes for rescue dogs. I did not even read as much as I normally do. This hiatus seems to be what I needed, but this month, I did finally get back in my studio. I need work for a local gallery, will need work for my Nantucket gallery come summer, and have a two-woman show with Skidmore classmate Judith Pettingell coming up in September. I need some new work.

So far my efforts have been a disaster. Nothing is working. I wail "I cannot paint anymore!" But I think I just need to start playing in the studio, with no end result in sight, no aim, no goal, and see what happens. I am probably trying to paint last year's paintings with a this year's soul and outlook. I think I am transitioning. At least I hope that is what the problem is.

 As I created work for the show last year, I thought a lot about consistency again. This is a controversial subject in the art world -- often between gallery owners and the artists. The Gallery folk want to see a consistent style, palette, whatever, and be assured that the same type of work they signed on for with the artist will continue to come in from the artist. Gallery owners are looking for a common thread running through all of your work that holds it together, and makes it recognizable to their clients from one year to the next. 

But we artists hear the word and feel a cold-sweat break out. We  understand the concept, and even see the validity of the gallery owner's viewpoint, but does it mean we don’t have any latitude to experiment and evolve? To my mind, real consistency can become a straight jacket to creativity. I remember how my friend Nancy Gerlach said, after leaving her successful pastel landscape stage and entering into the study of abstract printmaking in her 70's, that she just wasn't THERE anymore --  where the landscapes had come from. 

I know some painters, certainly the old masters, even the Impressionists, and my friends Michael Moore and Henry Isaacs, are able to maintain a very consistent and recognizable body of work throughout their careers. Others grow as their visions change, either rather abruptly and dramatically as Eric Aho did, moving from a realistic and simple, striking impressionism to his current expressive abstractions which are far more cluttered and busy.

 What I settled on for my show a year ago, in an effort to be consistent but also to evolve, and in an effort to present a cohesive show, was to utilize the same subject matter. By focusing on two subjects over the course of a few years, I did not become bored at all, but rather found that that the more time I spend painting forsythia and seascapes, the more I begin to see that there is an infinite variety in the nuances of any subject. I have done this before: Early on I did over sized up-close in-your-face flowers, mostly roses and iris. I did the same thing with horses: in my past are a LOT of paintings of horses' eyes.

  Constable went from painting a realistic landscape to an expressive one. There are a few whose work underwent quite dramatic change over a short period of time, such as Guston who turned away from abstraction towards a narrative representation, combining a cartoon style with the luscious brushwork of his abstract paintings. I remember the shock of seeing this new body of work, and how long it took for viewers to accept it. I never really did! But I can imagine him just being tired of making those beautiful patchwork, painterly paintings, and wanting to shake things up.

So maybe that is where I am heading once again, to change. I think the forsythias, being too realistic, are over for me. I have one started from months back that I will finish, but will start no more.  But the seascapes, ah, they can evolve, and I think I can go there. Only time will tell.
__________________________
After the show last year, in March almost a year ago, I wrote this. 

They have changed their protocol for openings at DHMC, wherein they only invite from their own very limited list, have a small reception, and then lead guests on tour of the work of four artists featured for the next few months. I was unaware of this and invited some friends, and am glad I did! I was also totally unaware that I was expected to talk about my art to the tours, but somehow I muddled through.

We ended the evening with dinner across the street at Jesse's, with Andrea and Ed Doughtie, Jim Wilson and Margaret Parsons, liz Clark and Mary Vic Giersch. 

The forsythia series were very well received, and these seascapes, I think, garnered the most interest.

California Coast 12 x 12 oil on canvas

Monotone of the Sea. 20 x 20 oil on canvas