Art is a reflection of life.
This one is a little close to the heart… or should I say brain.
When I created the painting “What is Wisdom?” I was personally going through something. My four-year-old daughter, Crimson, had recently been diagnosed with epilepsy. She was our first child and it through our world out of orbit, to say the least. There were tests, medicines full of unknown side-effects, emergency guidelines to explain to school, friends and family members… And the most terrifying thing I remember is hearing the neurologist say:
“This is all just a guessing game. There is so much we still don’t know about the brain.”
That isn’t exactly reassuring information for a scared, young mother to hear. There was so much fear. To start, I had done everything organic for this baby including making her cloth diapers and baby food and now she has to take unpredictable poisons to keep from having seizures.
Will the medications cause damage to other organs? Will she be able to do well in school? Do I even want to send her to school? What if she has a seizure when no one is looking? Or in her sleep? Will other kids make fun of her? Will she ever be able to drive? These were only a few of the concerns I had… but…
…instead of self-pity, I had to force myself to choose gratitude.
- We were fortunate to be born in a country with modern medicine (by no choice of our own).
- We live near one of the best children’s hospitals in the world, with a great neurology department and emergency care.
- We live in a time where she was fortunate to be diagnosed so young.
While this helped with accepting the diagnosis, it still did not prepare us for the struggles that followed. The medications were all a nightmare, usually forcing us to choose the lesser of the evils but knowing that they all have awful unknown side effects. It would take 6 weeks to wean her off one medicine that wasn’t working and onto a new one. If that new one didn’t work out, then we had to start the transition all over again. One of the medications kept her from sleeping, one allowed breakthrough seizures in the form of staring spells, one had her depressed and literally pulling her hair out in anger. Not to mention having to deal with insurance companies and the high cost of these daily meds. If we went on a trip, and the medicine was low, we weren’t allowed to refill it early so it meant transferring to a pharmacy in the destination we were in and hoping they could fill the prescription for us since many of the meds aren’t common enough to have on hand.
So when it came to creating a painting titled “What is Wisdom?” for my Parthenon exhibit, I knew I would base it off the brain… and how little we know about it.
I contacted a medical supply company in Canada and told them my story… and my vision. They sent me real EEG cables to incorporate into the painting. I sliced my finger working to connect the EEG wires to an iPhone charger cable and attached them both to the canvas. The inspiration comes from comparing something “smart” to “wisdom”. I thought, if you were to ask a smartphone “What is childhood epilepsy?” the answer would be a lot different than that of a parent who was caring for a child with epilepsy.
Wisdom is the intelligence, wrapped up in the experience, the emotion, the pain, connections to so many different parts of the brain… but a smartphone has only one port…
Experience leads to art. Art is a reflection of life.
I want to thank you for your interest in my art, and hearing the stories that I tell through my work and through the process. I also hope that you feel comfortable sharing your stories with me. Please comment below and tell me of a time when you felt that wisdom comes from living through the unknown.
*** Update!! On Crimson’s 11th birthday, she was hooked back up to the EEG cables. We sat in the room and waited to hear the results, anticipating another medicine change or form of alternative care. Instead, we were told that she was suddenly epilepsy free. She was one of the lucky ones that had outgrown the disease as a prepubescent. You could hear a pin drop when we heard the news. My first question was, what? My second was are you sure? And my third was tears of joy as I asked: “can this really be true?”
Thank you for sharing your story; I’m so happy for your family over the outgrown ailment!! My younger brother suffers from a handicap suffered during birth. His brain allows him to function as a child of four or five. Aside from many other developmental deficiencies, he lacks the proper communication skills allowing him to tell our mother he’s in pain or otherwise not feeling well. That’s all I have time for, as I need to go back to work! Have a sweet afternoon!$