PERSPECTIVE IS EVERYTHING -- HOW AN ARTIST'S EYE SEES CANCER

As an artist, I value perspective. As a caregiver, I've found it can make all the difference in how a cancer patient looks at life.

Some artists like to work outside, capturing the feel of the scene they are painting.  They spend the hours immersed in the fluidity of the scene, as the light changes and the breeze blows. Me? I'm more interested in capturing a moment in time, and I like to take my time in examining it in all its intricacies. I take digital photographs and study them. I learned long ago that my mind, if allowed to wander, will imagine what is there if it doesn't have enough information on what I am looking at, and as a result, my paintings aren't accurate. To me, there is great beauty in reality, but only when you look for it, and only if you have the capacity to appreciate it.

When I start to paint a canvas, I block out the shapes. As I move forward, I begin to fill them in, stroke by stroke. At first, my mind only takes in the big picture.

Unfinished Canvas of Parker Memorial Park, Branford, CT

In the case of this painting, still a work in progress, I see the shapes of the stone wall, the rocks, and the treeline. Once those are in place, I start to focus on the details. There are changes in color in the trees, the water, and the rocks. Once I get those done, I notice there are people in the park, and picnic tables, benches, even a car. As I keep working, I start to see that the shadows come into focus, and there is a hidden roof there and a couple of boulders I missed earlier, when I was too busy trying to fit everything in. I even discover that there is a heart shape in one of the rock formations in the foreground. It's little things like that which I so enjoy discovering as I paint. In every painted scene, there are secrets that only reveal themselves to me when I have enough understanding of the scene I am painting to recognize them.

How does all this fit in with cancer? When you are first diagnosed with it, you're faced with the task of blocking it all out, just like I block out each of my paintings. You have to fill in the sections and put things in their proper place, before you can see the details. But as you go along, you will find that there are subtle differences that can be good or bad.

The first thing you see in the big picture for cancer is that it can be overwhelming in its power. But after the big picture, you start to look at the big blocks of information -- not all cancers are the same. There are different kinds and they don't all have the same results. Some people live with cancer for decades. Some people don't. Once you understand that, you start to focus on the details. Survival rates are up for certain kinds of cancers. New treatments are discovered constantly, improving life sometimes for weeks, months, or even years. Why does it matter if you can live another few weeks, months, or years? Because things can happen in that time that can change your life. By the time you get down to the little details, you begin to see that time is your friend. It gives you options for treatment, for quality of life, for making choices. You start to understand that, as a cancer patient, you may not have the choice to have cancer, but you can start to make decisions about how you will live with cancer. And you also start to understand that while your life may be limited in some ways by your disease, you often have a greater understanding and appreciation of what really matters in life than a lot of people who are never forced to really examine their lives. Life matters to you because it's under attack by cancer, and you have to navigate your way through the maze of treatment options and choices. Some people never discover just how precious life is, or why we should celebrate the good moments we have, because in the end, life is always too short. Live every day like it matters, and it will.