Here is a photo I took of myself in late August, 2021, and a drawing I sketched out, in about a minute, derived from it.
I had been keeping track of my left eye’s progress via selfies (I will spare you the ones in which I look like Ogre Woman). At this stage the infection in my eyelid was improved and swelling was down, though since the cyst was on the underside of the eyelid it’s not surprising that things don’t look too bad here. And of course photos can’t show the damage being done to the functioning of my eyelid and to my cornea, which are the things that translated into loss of sight..
Well, a fuller knowledge all of that is in the future in this photo. But I do think I look a bit worried here. My drawing shows it even more, I think. A view into the state of my mind.
Claudia McGill and Her Art World 
Your left eye does appear to droop more so than the right.
I am still living with the impaired vision though the eye looks better now. Swelling continues to go down very slowly. Why my cornea has not healed is not known or if it will heal at all or to what level. I’m beginning to understand I will need to be making adjustments.
Sorry to hear
Thank you.
You do look worried. But the other day you looked lovely and greatly improved!
Thank you. The eyelid is improving. The cornea, well, the jury is still out on what the end result there will be. I understand I will most likely be making adjustments. Grateful for medical care.
The squarish shape around your eyes in your drawing looks a bit like a feeling of claustrophobia or confinement, though maybe it’s there simply to represent shadows. In any case, of course you are worried at times, and I hope very, very much that 2022 brings you relief from vision worries and challenges!
Thank you. I do feel confined by the loss of vision, it has scared me, especially since it’s not known what caused the infections or the particular way my cornea has reacted. I am understanding that maybe things will be different with my eyesight. Time will tell.
I think you have hit on an interesting exercise of self-portraits focused just on certain portions of the face. It is interesting to see how much personality and emotion is captured in just the eyes and the surrounding area. I would say you look more pensive than worried, both emotions being completely understandable in the circumstances.
Thank you. Pensive is also a good description – what will the future hold? We all face this, don’t we?
Indeed we do.
How extremely worrying. For folk whose everyday includes visual creativity the lesser functioning of our eyesight is very concerning. It is a scary issue as we partially depend on our ability to express ourselves visually as part of who we are, don’t we? I hope the infection has gone and the cornea soon repairs itself. Wishing you a speedy recover.
Thank you. I am no stranger to eye issues as I have had retina surgeries and glaucoma, but you are right, protecting sight is important and when things go wrong naturally you worry about the loss of ability to do art, but…there is also ability to adapt which I know I can call on. Crossing fingers things will resolve well and if I need to adapt, well, who knows what will come of it?
Yes, you’re so right, adaptation is the key. We wouldn’t have those beautiful late Monet’s if he’d given up and not adapted.
You definitely captured worry in the drawing. Sorry you went through that with your eye.
Thank you. I am still caught in the process of dealing with my eye issues and not making a lot of progress. It may be that there is not much to be made. I am hoping to move on from this stage of uncertainty and figure out how to go from here, but first, I need some more answers (even if they are – we don’t know, kind of answers. Hoping for better things soon. Thank you.
Oh sorry, I thought it was resolved fully, darn.