This past year, I participated as an artist volunteer in “the Art of Recovery,” a collaboration between the NH Art Association and the Seacoast Mental Health Center (Portsmouth, NH.) Over several months, I met with “K” and shared our love for photography… and life.
Check out my blog archives (see right) for other entries about the project.What I didn’t tell anyone at the time was that only a few weeks after I agreed to participate in the program, I had just been diagnosed with DCIS, an early form of breast cancer. So while it may have looked on the outside as if I was somehow “helping” K heal and providing her hope for persevering over her medical condition, she was unknowingly doing the same for me.
Few of us take the time to appreciate fully the synergy between art, healing, and hope. Doctors generally understand the connection: that’s why they practice “Medical Arts.” Others of us feel that some magical potion is simmering below the surface, although we may not how to put into words. For example, we often make ourselves feel better by immersing ourselves in the arts. We enjoy works of art that others have made: we watch a movie, read poetry, listen to music, or visit a museum. Or we do something creative ourselves: whether it’s planting a tree, cooking, or woodworking. We may not always be in awe of the communicative and healing powers of artistic expression, but we sense that it somehow “makes us feel better” and helps us put one foot in front of another for even just one more day. Oftentimes, that is enough.
A month or so, I attended a fundraising event for the Art of Recovery, where the patient participants auctioned off some of the masterpieces they created during their collaborations with Art Association members. K, accompanied by her mother and sister, beamed with pride as attendees complimented her on her work. She deserved it: she's a natural talent. She may not have fully conquered her condition yet. But that night, I had the honor of watching her spirit soar to the evening sky and waltz with the stars. Moreover, the voodoo spell that DCIS cast on my own life was temporarily broken, too.
The following is a collage I made last weekend at a retreat for cancer survivors (both patients and their loved ones/caregivers):
Each time I look at it, I'm hypnotized by its ugliness: it makes me feel like I'm staring down "the C beast" and refusing to give in to fear. Physician, heal thyself.....
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