ART AND CANCER
I can’t honestly say how fighting for my life against cancer changed my art. I almost always had to recover for 3 weeks to a few months and that always took time away from going into my studio. I remember after an early surgery in LA I woke up and asked Bruce "Will I still have my upcoming solo show?" We laughed about that later. And yes, I did have the show a few months later. Three, maybe four times, over the thirty years since I was first diagnosed with oral cancer, I knew ahead of time I was going to have surgery within days or weeks of my opening.
Now after my last and life changing surgery, my priorities have changed. Just living my life seems more important than the art world, which is different than actually making art. My priorities would always change after surgeries, but nothing compared to the big one in 2018. That surgery made me wonder “what am I if I can’t work on my art?” Something I always took for granted. My grandfather was a gold miner and my grandmother a witch so when she told me I was an artist in a prior life I believed her
This time the recovery took years. Before this surgery I couldn't wait until I could at least go sit in my studio even if I couldn't work yet. Almost dying. Enduring radiation. Being on a feeding tube for over three years. Learning to swallow and talk again. All my energy went to getting better. My work is so physically intensive with spinning and tilting my table, I knew I didn't have the strength or energy. For a while, for the first time ever, inspirational ideas were coming to me every day. Usually, I have more ideas than I can use. It was the surgery and maybe even all the pain medications. When I finally began to be able to eat, even a little, I started to feel better. Feel the tinglings of new ideas. I tried some things that were easier and although I liked them. I didn't love them.
Slowly, I started to feel inspiration like I used to. I looked at lots of my old work. My doctors encouraged me to get into my studio. And then – I don't know – boom – I was back to working as often as I physically could. I can't do 12-hour days any more.
I began to think of different materials. Acrylic panels along with my clay board panels. I'd done sculptures 25 years ago and I decided to do them again. I found a terrific fabricator who understood exactly what I wanted. Twenty-five years ago he assisted in building my large table. Now, he took a model for a small one and redid that so I could do smaller pieces and work my way up to large ones. I got ideas to use different types of paint to enhance the colors and movement. I hadn't consciously concentrated on any of this. It just goes through my head and comes out and I try it. I paint with mindful meditation.
My current art looks like I took my old style and blew it up. Wild and strange. It's abstract art and is the abstract emotional result of my journey from near death to a kind of rebirth. I don’t know how it happens. I don’t always plan what I’m going to do. I know the colors I want to work with after that it just comes together. I am "in the moment' and I'm one with the painting. Sometimes I feel like it’s coming from outside of me. I’m just controlling it. Yes, I can control the flow of the paint. Most of the time. Once an image is made it cannot be reproduced.