Discovery

I love spending time browsing my fav blogs and looking at all the wonderful whimsical, beautiful and imaginative art by these artists. Sometimes I learn a thing or 2 or 3 art-wise and every now and then I discover something that just blows me over.
Such was the case today when I was visiting and ogling the art here:
mariapacewynters.wordpress.com . Maria paints with such admirable whimsy and wonder! On one of her posts she was talking about her LATEX allergy and how it changes your life to a degree and how as with other things, people just don't understand it. Maria mentioned a few items containing latex that perked my ears up! Last year I discovered quite by accident that among a list of other things I had a allergy to latex. I never really gave it much more thought; just stayed away from regular band-aids and I know not to be around rubber gloves. But, not even giving it a thought I bought 2 different kinds of masking to use in water colours and for altered books/found words. I found out real quick that I can't even hold the bottle of masking without having a major attack....never mind that the label clearly states it may cause a reaction if allergic to latex. I put those bottles to the side and there they sit until I find someone who wants them. They are evil to me! But since then I've been having regular reactions almost daily, some bad and some just minor. I figured it was Winter, the house is closed up and the allergies to dust, mold, scents etc. are just acting up and no, I'm not going to spend every day dusting! I'll just suffer. Now,  after signing up for several on-line art classes I needed to buy some of the right  needful supplies. Some of the items were simply some different erasers! It was time to learn what eraser to use for the right types of  pencil or charcoal etc. And I've enjoyed using those little rascals and seeing how they work and don't tear my papers or leave smears! What I learned today after being with Maria is that they are making me sick! After reading her mention of erasers, I went and finally did some research and then decided to test myself. I know, dumb thing to do but I needed to know. So I got ahold of that neat little kneaded eraser and molded it a bit and then made pencil lines and erased with it. Before I even got to the erasing part, my lips and mouth were tingling, then around my teeth and I took a massive headache. That pretty much ended my day but told me what I needed to know. Tonight I went around gathering erasers and in just picking them up and placing them in a bag, I was back to tingling and the headache came back. GEEZ!
 Now here's another problem and I can see this one is going to cost some $$. I've  been having a 'underwear' problem with rashes and itching. Turns out that 'undies' and bras also have that nasty latex in the elastic and even cloth covered, it gets you! So that explains the rashes and the itching, making me long to just rip the under garments off! I did some research tonight and you can get latex free undies and bras at a nice price. You can also get latex free erasers!! We won't even mention shoes and a whole list of other items! So, I love Maria's art and I owe her a huge thank you for opening my eyes and causing me to discover why I've had these attacks nearly every day.
I've had allergies for a long time but just in the last year or so, new ones, such as the latex and sulfa, are starting up. It's just weird and rather irritating!

So tomorrow is another day and I'll be wiser. I definitely won't be erasing anything and doubt I'll run any tests on myself either. Didn't accomplish any meaningful art over the week end; I just played and fooled around. I do have a project that I had put to the side and tomorrow I hope to find the right size board and get it started!