An artist's eyes require special care

As an artist, my eyes are very important to me. They are somewhat green, the color of the television screen when it's turned off and supposedly the rarest eye color.

My eyesight, from my teenage years and up to the present, has always required glasses. Contact lenses never worked for me; I was a klutz at inserting them into my eyes. Sometimes it would take forever, trial and error, on my knees in front of my bed trying to put them in.

My first pair was acquired while I was in college in New Mexico. The eye doctor was named Vermeer, like the famous 17th century Dutch artist, and the contacts were Vermeer blue. They were hard and really hurt my eyes, which would flood with tears from the pain. Vanity gave way to comfort, and so I ended up with glasses again.

In every photo taken of me in those years, I whipped my glasses off, from the granny glasses of the 1960s to the tortoiseshell frames of the 1970s. I even had a huge pair of Elton John-like cat's-eye glitter specs, and a green-glitter pair of frames with pink lenses in the 1980s.

My mother had always said you can't be a famous singer and wear glasses. Aside from Elton John, I can't think of any famous bespectacled singers either, to be sure. I never really wanted to be a singer anyway. My guideline was, choose a talent you possess and concentrate on that.

Even though I was always somewhat greedy and wanting anything that came down the pike, I had no interest in my parents purchasing a musical instrument when a salesman came to my junior high school many moons ago – and forget the band uniform with the stripe down the leg. Marching in unison was not for me, either.

I tried soft contacts later in the 1980s. You had to steam them every night back then, and I still had difficulties. A couple of my children wear contacts now with no trouble, and they pop them in and out with ease. Now I put my glasses on first thing in the morning and take them off the last thing before I go to sleep at night. Lasik surgery was my final attempt to rid myself of eyeglasses, but the procedure did not last, and the improved vision began to fade in a few years.

I've had a pair of apple-green cat's-eye glasses for a few years now and am in love with them! I scratched one of the lenses soon after I first got them and went crazy with fear of ruining them. The optometrist had a hard time replacing the lens because the frames were brittle plastic, and they broke when she dipped them in the special hot sand. She had to order a whole new pair from France.

Finally the new pair arrived, and I was ecstatic. Oddly enough, when I wore them on the way home from the store, I was driving behind a truck that sported an advertisement on the back with a huge green apple. It was karma! I purchased fluorescent apple-green outfits and shoes and nail polish. I received many compliments on these kinds of crazy alien-green spectacles.

Alas, now the time has come for my aging eyes to have cataract surgery, which has been scheduled. It hasn't really seemed to affect my painting, although I have had particular trouble with purple because it tends to look brown to me. I have two purple watches I really want to see in technicolor. So in a week, I'm going to undergo cataract surgery after putting it off forever.

I know it's silly, but I don't want to risk my green glasses with the touchy lens. I've settled for the option where I will still have to wear glasses, but my vision will (hopefully) be much improved. No more halos when car lights approach at night. No more tiring my eyes out when trying to read a newspaper, not even my favorite Cape Gazette.

Purple will be featured more in my paintings. I don't write "purple prose" anyhow, so that doesn't matter, even if I was once called the "Purple Painter Lady." So wish me luck in this new adventure. Here's looking at you!