In 2022, roughly 1.9 million people will be diagnosed with cancer in the United States. All of us are touched by it in some form. Thanks to remarkable medical advances in treatment, many people live with cancer for a longer time than ever before, surrounded by people who love them, who help care for them and walk alongside them on their journey.
It can be a long, long path of empathy and loss – accommodating pain, hard decisions, disability, side effects and uncertainty. And we are all in it together.
When I google cancer rates in the US, the American Cancer Society provides new cases and deaths by year. But not the numbers about who is living with cancer every day, including those in respite or remission. I suspect if you included those cases, the total numbers are double or triple new diagnosis and death numbers. Then add to that the number of cancer patients’ loved ones who are there with them. Think about it, how many men do you know who are living with controlled prostate cancer? How many women have had early-stage breast cancer treated? How about those suspicious polyps from the requisite colonoscopy? And there are indolent lymphomas that are incurable but slow growing (unless they decide to speed up). It is remarkable how much cancer is part of our shared experience.
What has this to do with art? For me, everything. Personally, I have found art making to be a way through the living. My post, Views from the Cancer Hotel, shares the sketchbook art volume I created while spending time in Seattle during my husband’s radiation treatment for cutaneous tcell lymphoma. The work of journaling and painting gave me an avenue for expression, joy, and observation. It wasn’t a narrative about Joe’s cancer specifically, it was simply my life at that moment.
Since then, back here at home, I have completed a second sketchbook volume. I call it “Everyday Ordinary”. One purpose of my sketchbook practice is to make art every day. Kind of like one of those social media challenges such as Inktober or Yoga with Adriene 30-day challenge. As a working artist heading down to the studio every day or night, the daily sketchbook practice warms me up for bigger painting and studio work.
But also, in vital sense, the daily practice illuminates and shares our cancer journey. That is my deep intention for this work. In the “Everyday Ordinary” volume, I painted and drew objects and moments of each day. I worked with the premise of “What is in front of me right now?” (thanks to Natalie Goldberg for the prompt language) Like a gratitude practice, I was looking with loving awareness at what was really happening, at the simple, universally ordinary things around me. It is a wonderful way to stop and really see.
I believe there is something in the non-verbal-ness of making or viewing art that helps most everyone on a profound level. The silence provides passage, especially through emotions that are difficult to articulate. I think that’s why too, nature and music give us solace – all bring the grace of wordless beauty.
Follow me on Instagram or Facebook where I am posting daily images from my new in-progress sketchbook, “Messy”. The title comes from an excellent NPR interview with author Jas Hammond, talking about “We Deserve Monuments”, their young adult novel. They say, “…grief is just messy. It’s not a perfect circle.”
Coming Up
In my studio, I am making bigger paintings in oils and mixed media from Views from the Cancer Hotel sketchbook. I am excited to bring those sketchbook seeds to realization. In March, small new paintings are showing at the Grover Gallery, and you can also see the latest work on my gallery page.
New class and workshops with me happening at Northwind Art School! Check out all my upcoming classes at Northwind Art School.
I have designed a new course based on my sketchbook approach. “Sketchbook Art”, is a four-class series guiding a personal sketchbook process that culminates in a handheld body of work. My hope is that artists of all levels can enjoy this way of working. This series will be happening in September into October but you can learn more and register today here.