About

How This All Came About

When I was diagnosed with breast cancer two years ago, I went through a lot of the same confusion everyone does. I felt shock, I got scared, I got sad. I had to figure out how to tell my mom. And my three older brothers. And my kids (11 and 3 at the time). And the love of my life.

Pretty early on in my meanderings on the web, I came across some microscopic images of breast cancer. Given my complete lack of medical training, I couldn't tell the disease part from the healthy parts of these images. They just looked like really interesting groups of cells. Weird organizations of organic structures. Networks of matter. To me, they were strangely beautiful.

        

I realized that all problems or obstacles are merely an issue of perspective — something I knew already, but forget from time to time. And that by zooming in (as into the cells) or zooming out (like, into space) we can always find a way to see things from a vantage point that provides us with wisdom and peace. Also beauty.

Cancer, after all, is just doing its thing. It's not personal. It's also not the only thing going on — it just feels that way sometimes when it's happening to you, specifically.

Sometime in around the middle of my numerous surgeries and treatments, I started painting. It kind of happened by accident, but the paintings started to look a lot like those cells. And slides. And random body parts. Some people see them as galaxies.

The Process

With a family and a full time job, and fighting cancer, I knew that if I wanted to do anything creative I had to do it in a way that would be easy, stress-free, and intuitive. I got some materials, and when I had a few minutes I would pick it up; when there was dinner to cook or kids to tuck in or a meeting to get to, I'd put it down. Worked fast. Didn't think about it. The paintings poured out of me and painted themselves.

Usually I would lay down a decently thick layer of inks, then transfer the original "cell" painting to a number of other substrates; pressing them in different ways to create replicant cells and slides. In this way, the paintings multiplied. (It's also why you'll see groups of paintings that seem very similar in composition or colour way — they're related to each other.)

I'd run out of materials, we'd pick up some on the way home. More paintings emerged of their own accord.

The Book

Since I was first diagnosed, I've been writing about my experience of breast cancer and the ways I approached it that I believe will be helpful to other people. This has become a kind of companion or guidebook of mental training tools for cancer patients and caregivers, to reduce suffering, make use of the normally stressful times "in between" (in between appointments, tests, treatments etc) and use the experience of cancer as a portal to self mastery and awakening. Hence, The Waking Room.

The book is planned for completion in 2021, after which we'll get it printed and sent out and have some events around it. The paintings figure into the book too; it's to be a book someone can pick up in the waiting room, enjoy simply holding and looking at, even if they don't feel like reading much or doing the exercises. Because sometimes you just feel like holding a nice book and not thinking too much about it, and that's OK too.

Your purchase of the prints directly supports work on the book and future Waking Room projects. And, you hopefully get to have a piece that is interesting to look at, but also reminds you, as they remind me, that life is very precious, very short, very magical and that every breath is a chance to wake up. 

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT!