I'm re-writing my homepage bio, and thought, "Hey! Why not archive the old one?" I often get questions about my vision issues, and believe me ... after more than 20 years, I'm well and truly tired of telling the story. Most of you have already seen this, and I certainly don't expect you to read it again! .......... For those of you who are interested in how I got here . . . My father was a musician and my mother was a seamstress, so I grew up thinking band instruments and fiber arts were ordinary. Nobody in my house drew or painted. When I was a teenager my father took up photography, but I had no interest in taking pictures. My participation was limited to sitting in the dark with a slide projector and a screen, helping to evaluate which images to keep, which to toss, and which to print. My early training was in band and home ec - I never took an art class until I was 30. In 1987 I met a painter who taught an "Intro to Art" class in his Pioneer Square studio. Under his tutelage I tried my hand at many things, but what really captured my imagination and got me involved in art was watercolors. For about a year, or a little more, I painted like one possessed, and enjoyed every minute of it. Painting fed my soul in a way nothing else had. One day I woke up and noticed my left eye seemed sort of blurry. I thought it was the normal "morning blur" thing, rubbed my eyes, and went on about my business. It didn't go away. As it turned out, I had scar tissue on the back of my eye that had opened and started to bleed. It was forming a bubble on the back of my eye. They rushed me into laser surgery to cauterize the spot and stop the bleeding - leaving it alone would have caused me to lose all vision in that eye. The surgery was a success, but as a result, I have a blind spot in the center of my left eye, and have no depth perception. I ruined many paintings after my surgery, jabbing the brush into the paper, not being able to tell when the brush would touch down. You can't "re-learn" depth perception - you either have it or you don't. I cried a lot, quit painting, and went back to fiber arts. I adjusted. That was in 1989. Fast forward seventeen years to July, 2006. My friend Erik (aka Einzie1 here on Renderosity) introduced me to digital art. We had been talking about my brief career as a painter, and he said he thought I could paint again if I did it on the computer. He came over and loaded my machine up with Blender and Dogwaffle. Having access to digital art changed my life. The first few weeks I had Dogwaffle, I painted one or two pictures every day. (Mostly flowers - I didn't have a personality transplant friends, I just learned a new skill!) Erik taught me how to use Blender, and I got hooked. Being able to make art again is such a gift . . . I feel like I've been given my life back! In March, 2007, I was taking some photos for use as textures in my 3-D work, and somehow the camera sort of got stuck to my hand. I'd never done any photography before, and couldn't figure out Photoshop to save my life, but once I started I couldn't stop! Erik helped me with photography too, and got me a copy of Photoshop for Dummies so I'd quit pestering him with questions. (Thanks for everything, E! Love ya, Babe!) You can judge the results of all of this yourself by checking out my gallery, if the spirit moves you. My Blender work and Dogwaffle paintings occupy the first few pages, from January to March, 2007. Everything after the middle of March is mostly photography. Of course there's writing scattered throughout my gallery. (Did I mention writing? Wow. Telling you that I write is like telling you that I live in a house. Writing is so core to who I am that it never crossed my mind to tell you I write! Well - I'm sure you all knew that, anyway.) Thanks for visiting! Tara An update on the situation with my eye, for those of you who are interested: February 9, 2009 As many of you know, I had a cataract removed from my left eye in October, 2008. I didn't get any improvement from that surgery ... the weird spot I had been seeing was still there, and my vision was still blurry. Even after getting my prescription updated, I still wasn't seeing as well as I had been before I'd developed the cataract. They said I had hazing on the back of my lens, which can develop anywhere between one and four years after cataract surgery (although I had it within four weeks) and I thought what I was seeing was reflections from the hazing. I went to my eye doctor on February 5th, and he took pictures. As it turns out, what I was seeing wasn't a reflection, hadn't been the cataract ... I'd had another spot open and bleed, and now I have no central vision at all. My peripheral vision is fine, but you don't have much focusing capability out there. It gives me fairly balanced distance vision, although without depth perception, but I'm used to that. The retinal specialist says there's nothing currently going on. Everything is done bleeding, appears to be dry, and isn't getting worse. So there's nothing we can do about the problem ... I'm just more blind than I used to be. The good news is I don't have to have another surgery. My right eye still looks great, although I have the original scars that could bleed at any time ... or never. They have better ways now to treat active bleeding than via cauterization, so if anything starts to happen with my right eye the retinal specialist will be able to help as long as I go in right away. (Believe me ... I'd be going in right away!!!) So. No surgery for now, and that's the best I could have hoped for at this point. Going blind sucks. Avoid it if you can!