Left Hand

A few weeks ago, I was making myself a grilled cheese sandwich and thought to myself "I've never burned myself cooking, isn't that great?"

You can probably guess where this is going.

Fast forward to last Friday night, and I'm in the kitchen, pouring oil into a pan to make crab cakes for myself and Mike. I step away to get something from my bedroom and return to a sizzling pan. I turn down the burner, lift up the pan and then, as if in slow motion, all of the hot oil promptly sloshes out over my bare right hand. And then a lot of yelling, cursing and crying ensued. My hand literally felt like it was on fire, so we ended up making a trip to the emergency room that night. A trip to the West Hills burn clinic followed on Monday. Second degree burn blisters are pretty amazing, and the nurse at the clinic seemed surprised that I actually wanted to watch the whole de-roofing process. I guess I should have told her that I studied special effects in makeup school and have been known to take pictures of various injuries. I'll spare you the recent images and will just say that it was a really rough week. :-/

All of my current art projects were completely out of the question, so I decided to experiment in drawing with my left hand in my journal. It's oddly freeing to draw with your non-dominant hand, as the pen moves in unexpected directions.


The bandage came off after six days, and I'm happy to be on the mend! I do want to continue this study in left handed drawing. Starting in the new year, I'll be taking three online visual journaling workshops through Strathmore, so perhaps I will fill some pages using just my left hand. I can't imagine I'll ever become ambidextrous, but it'll be fun to experiment.