Thomas Arthur Schaefer
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008

A Gamblers Way Playing Hands Of Great Feet




Had a root canal performed on me earlier this morning... my 5th. Most people hate any kind of dental work... especially root canals, however I find all these dental procedures absolutely fascinating. I'm always asking for a mirror to see what is going on in there. The only thing that really was creeping me out the entire 4 hours I was sitting in the chair was the motorized numbs that were working my back. You see, my dentist has massage chairs. While most people would consider this a godsend when you have to sit in the same place for hours at a time, I find it highly unnerveing to have something working up and down my back for hours on end and it not be an attractive woman. I've never liked those chairs. Makes me think of erie David Cronenberg film moments. That something mechanical goes haywire, bursts out of the chair, into my back and out my chest. It's odd I find this more unpleasant then the smell of burning flesh, tooth and bone emanating from my mouth, but I do.

I took a number of different photographs throughout the procedure and will probably begin to incorporate them into a new set of oil paintings for the 'Fluoride' show. We'll see... I have a number of different pieces in the works for that show right now, but they are all on hold while I finish up stuff for the upcoming show. But for the Fluoride show I have some really interesting ideas that I've just recently concepted out for some very disturbing large scale paintings. They are basically large pieces of stretched blue dental dam rubber with a tooth and several instruments making up the center of the piece. Some real world looking documentation of actual dental procedures. Should be really fun... lots of blood and drilling.