The crossover edition of ArtBitch is available now in the Cancer Comics section of Levhardware.wordpress.com
http://levhardware.wordpress.com/cancer-comics/
This one is my personal fav so far, but I love them all!
20
Jan
12
Life Drawing….finally, again…..
Six to fifteen minute sketches from the live model at drawing group, Conte on green paper, 19″ x 25″, 18 Jan 2012.
6-15 minute sketches Conte on green paper, 18″ x 25″, 2012.
So good to be back at Wed night life drawing. When I don’t go every week, my artistic muscles get flabby.
Live Your Life, #1 and #2, both 16″ x 24″, oil on birchwood board, 2011.
Wanting to badly to feel like me again, wanting to paint, and still very sick constantly, very tired and weak, but finally Live Your LIfe #1 with the mixer came easy and I worked for a few days on it, then #2 was a struggle….and then as I got sicker I couldn’t paint again in oil–I just didn’t have the juice. I love the first of these two paintings as much as anything I’ve ever painted, and I think they both speak to the experience of trying to regain one’s normal life with metastatic cancer, especially with brain mets. I am reminded of the Sesame Street song, One of these things is not like the other, one of these things is kinda the same.
Viola Moriarty
Bennington, Vermont, United States
Poet’s statement: Originally part of a multi-media exhibit at the Bennington Cancer Center, this poem was a reflection upon the effects of steroids during chemotherapy, where “Dex” refers to dexamethasone.
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After chemo #2, 2007 |
Dancing with Dex
She takes the woman’s part, stepping back on her right
I try to lead, pushing her back into night
What color is cancer?
Asks this sexy salsa dancer,
Her long, lovely hands on my hefty hips
Suggestions and questions on her bright white lips,
Turquoise and teal, I think
And maybe periwinkle and pink
The dream was so real,
I can still feel
That I have the port, the sox, and the gowns
Tape over my eyes, doctors in multiple towns.
Who was there? she asked with a squeal,
Oh, yes, I repeated—it was so incredibly real—
You were there—and you were there—and you and you and you
Who, me? she demurred. Do you honestly believe that it could have been true?
She steps to the side, wanting to know
Sliding forward and backward ever so slow,
Am I a good witch or a bad witch
Or just a stubborn and silly, mucked up middle-aged bitch?
What happened in there, when the fog finally cleared?
Didn’t heaven want you? she persevered.
Are you kidding?
Cha cha cha ching.
I’m stuttering
And faltering
Without a sound mind and no sense of my body,
No, Heaven did not want me
Nor did hell
I wanted to yell
Not even that black hole filled with failure and fun,
Carousing and constantly, capriciously coming undone
Not even the fury and the flames would take
Such a distorted identity—half asleep/half awake
So, its back to black and white
Without too much fuss, certainly no fight
Thank G-d, Thank “I am that I am”
For all the drugs whose names end with “pam”
And for those that begin with an s and a z
I truly and humbly thank the Drug Company
The salsa surrenders to sappier rhythms
That belong to stupid labels that end in isms
Ba ba ba ba—expressionism, successionism—ba, ba ba ba
Bada bada bada bada—escapism, impressionism—zah zah zah zah,
Was that how cancer looked? she pointed and begged.
Like a saggy old breast that’s been recently egged?
I laughed loudly and pulled up my shirt
So she could see where it did and didn’t hurt
What’s the hole for? she wanted to know.
It’s my new hideout, where my feelings can go.
I thought it was a dream, she harshly restated
Something you imagined, subconscious, and hated.
It was—it was so many nights of turquoise and periwinkle, fuchsia and teal dreams
Where the fabric of uniforms regularly ripped out around the snaps and on seams
Where I got up at night, or so I thought
Turned on the light, never argued, never fought
Rocked in the rocker
Listened to Joe Cocker
He loves my new do, and so does my Jon
“Baby, oh, yes, you can leave your hat on, you can leave your hat on.”
I ripped up the colors on the couch and computer as prayers to dead saints
Glue sticked and cried, cutting linoleum and spilling watered down paints.
I won’t go back I scream, I won’t do it again—you can’t make me,
Now I’m numb and I’m dumb, I’m stress and panic free
There, there, my sweetness, she hums and she sways—Everything’s okay.
I’ll start another dance, and you start another day.
She twirls sultrily toward me, and whispers, shhhhhhhh, girlfriend,
we’re almost finished—finally,
Softly,
Quietly
Coming to the end.
VIOLA MORIARTY is a visual artist who resides and works in Bennington, Vermont, and is currently under treatment (including full brain radiation) for Stage IV metastatic breast cancer spread to the brain, central nervous system, and lymphatic systems. She was first diagnosed with the primary Stage II breast cancer in 2007. She spent many years in Colorado as an English as a Second Language and in North Adams, Massachusetts, after relocating from Denver to New England with her family. She left education for full-time painting, experimenting with all types of media, and has exhibited in Vermont, Massachusetts, Colorado, and New York. Visit her website at http://vimorpainter.wordpress.com/.
While I was throwing up multiple times daily after radiation, and mostly lying on the couch a lot, my friend Marilyn took this poem I had written after chemo and radiation treatment in 2007-8 (where I found the decadron or dexamethasone (steroid) to be very challenging), and she submitted it for me to the on line magazine Hektoen International and they printed it in their December issue.
Marilyn is an amazing , published author of fiction, non-fiction, poetry, …….You’ll be able to look for her blog soon….I’ll keep you posted. She’s also an amazing friend, and I’m grateful to have her support for me and for my work.
20
Jan
12
Chiles
Chiles, oil on birchwood board, 16″ x 24″, 2011.
Life goes on—which is the greatest thing: The chiles came in at True Love Farm (Steven and Karen grow a section just for me!). We picked each week for 3 weeks, and my mom and I roasted and dried 4+ bushels. Then when my sister , Theresa, and nephew , Carson, came next, she helped me (read: she did it ALL!) make the ristras this year. I still couldn’t paint during their visit, but soon after my friend Stella came over, and we set up this still life of the chiles and my molcahete in my dining room, and something began to enliven in me. For the first time since plein air and Emma, weeks later, I was beginning to paint in my beloved oils again.
Almost every day for the three weeks of full-brain radiation, afterward I would sketch in gouache and colored pencil on little boards of various sizes, I think one may have some acrylic as well. I gave some away before photographing them….where was my head?….but here are a few examples I still have. With each I would try to examine what my experience that day in the mask and machine had been, what the colors I saw (eyes closed) during those minutes.
I was honored in September to recieve the People’s Choice Award at the North Bennington Plein Air Competition for this oil painting of King’s Pines, done in my favorite place here in Benningtion– Hadwen Woods. I was additionally deeply touched that it sold to our dearest friend, who has always supported me and my work as an artist.
I’m also proud of the two other of the paintings in the final show: Hadwen Woods (I forgot to photo it and it’s on display right now), and the above Woman in Hadwen Woods, which is my mother sitting on a bench looking out into a play of light on the hillside above the river—She now has that painting on her wall. It’s one of my favorite pieces I’ve ever done, as is King’s Pines.
The fourth painting, which I didn’t end up showing, was of my daughter under the canopy at the entrance to the woods, during a drizzly gray day.
But the back story of the four paintings done that week round out what is really an award week of love and support to me, not only as artist but as daughter, mother and friend: In August I’d been diagnosed with Stage 4 Metastatic Breast Cancer with Metastises to the Brain (multiple lesions, larger and smaller), CNS, Lymphatic system, and around several organs. SUddenly we were back to scans and tests and biopsies and ooooh so many appointments and adjustments.
So just before, during and after the plein air competition, I was taking steroids, support drugs, and walking to a three week course of full-brain radiation every day. I did NOT want to give up doing the Plein Air Event. It makes me feel proud to have these accomplished and varied artists come here and paint our beautiful place. So my daughter Anna sat in the rain for me while I struggled with my brain and my “wobblieness”, and by the time Mom arrived to support me through the second half of both the radiation and the Plein Air Event, there was also fatigue, confusion, and I was blown-up from the steroids. This does not begin to take into account what the entire family was responding to emotionally.
So, the recognition of my painting by the people in my community, and the honorable mention of my quick draw painting by a local artist judge, were especially appreciated at such a crazy time. But it was my family and friends (especially mom and Anna and John H) that were responsible for my making it through the week–it was because of them I could participate. My bff and framer, Joyce Kennedy, picked up my pieces…I never had to leave the safety of my woods, which are just across from my house, while painting and I was able to make radiation every day. I will never forget all the kindnesses shown me during that time so that I could continue to paint, even though it felt like I couldn’t paint, like I wasn’t myself. People tell me I’m creative and talented. Sometimes they tell me I’m funny or fun. But what I am is this: I am rich in LOVE. That’s where everything comes from.
19
Jan
12
Emma Miller
It was an honor this September to unveil at a special dedication ceremony, the portrait I was asked to do by the School Committee of Savoy School District in Western Mass, a small, BEAUTIFUL school nestled in the Berkshires. The school was being re-named Emma Miller Memorial Elementary School. It was a challenge for me, as I do not usually work from photos, have not painted someone I did not know personally (with the single excpetion of the Spanish Civil War series), and as Emma is no longer living, I could not recitify either situation. But the school committee member, Chris Andersen, who gave me the information, and some very sweet, but artistically uninformative photos, was so deeply committed to this woman and her goodness. So I found myself getting to know Emma through the photos, through people who knew her, and finally I settled on pose and a commitment to capture Emma’s sense of wonder, which seeed increasingly to be her hallmark. As I worked, I fell under Emma’s spell of wonder at all of life’s goodness, and I fell in love with Emma.
Later the wonderful art teacher, Jane O’Rearson, at the school sent me photocopies of portraits her students did of Emma, inspired by the portrait I had done, now hanging in the school. I was blown away at how beautiful they all are.
18
Jan
12
RGH
All my posts are behind right now—-but give me some time and I’ll catch up. This one should have been put out there late in the summer.
I’ve been purchasing paint from RGH paints in Albany, independent owned, makes his own paint….and the reds are out of this world. The only additive is the stuff that keeps it from being too “ropey”.
The folks there are soooooooo incredibly patient and helpful—-you can take a canvas and test out colors (I did –comparing to swatches of other paints I use). They encourage people to come and learn about the paint-making process and want us to be satisfied with their product. The prices are great if you tube the paint yourself (I love doing it—very satisfying and there are tons of videos on Youtube to show you how. You can look at them online, bu† if you’re in this area, I recommend you get directions to the place online (or the phone number), it’s hard to find/see from outside. Tell him I sent you!
The only two colors I’ll caution are naples yellow (get the lemon ochre instead) and cerulean blue (a little dull).
09
Jan
12
phoebesmundo
coming sooooooon………..
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