Thoughts compiled from this year's work in University of Michigan hospital, working with patients and work in Michigan prison systems with the incarcerated.

In the context of a hospital, a person has suffered a physical impairment, causing a physical standstill. They must stay in a hospital because they are not well enough to be “in the world”. Some are actually immobile, paralyzed, broken bones, hooked to machines and IVs. Often, the incarcerated have suffered some type of emotional disparagement/polarization with their community. This emotional disparagement could be a mental disorder, the inability to cope with situations, the turn to vices-drugs or violence, the suffering of some type of abuse, or general anger or sadness caused by their lens view of themselves or their community. This has put them in a physical standstill, literally trapped behind bars in prison. And I think about people in halfway homes, and how they are literally at a halfway point, stuck between the standstill they complacently stood in and the greater rhythm of the world. Trying to find their way, or at least a way. Some questions I have recently been asking- how does a person live in a standstill, a place reeked with physical or emotional fractures. How do they continue to breath and sleep, to be aware of who they are, to have imagination, to find inspiration, to figure out how to leave this barren place? Did they reach this place because of a break down of themselves or is it a flaw of their community/society not adapting, not having a place for their physical and emotional strengths and weaknesses?

To advertise for TEDX UofM (encouraging crazy ideas!) we used red duck tape to create a huge X in angell hall on the posting wall. Courtney creating an X in some program, and we projected this onto the wall and filled it in with the red tape.

Back of print
Front of print. Gray handprinted, leaving the edges more gestural than finished looking, with sprawling lines. Black block printed on top


Back of a print. I am experimenting with how the ink bleeds through to the back of the paper when I handprint. Drawings done on top of print with charcoal pencil.
Front of the print. Hand printed fragments of two different blocks.



For this print, I handprinted the pinkish/reddish color and the gray color. I pressed in a swirl/circle motion to achieve this effect. I think printed my block in black on top.

woodblocks printed by press on canvas
red and black inked block printed on top of each other

yellow block printed twice with portions of maroon block printed twice on top

sections of a block printed on wood veneer
black block printed on slitted rives paper
kind of a reduction print of gestural figures
block printed on bamboo
Oil painted color splotches with black ink printed on top using block and press

As a bedside artist, I work mainly with cancer patients. They are often in the hospital for weeks at a time and need simple activities to stay busy. From my experience, they also are the patients who have the most to think about, they are slammed with effects from drawn out treatments that dehumanize them- leave them with no hair, frail bodies, shaking hands, and a 2 foot free distance from their IV pole. I think that hospitals in general are a dehumanizing institution. Huge sterile buildings with tiny square rooms stacked on top of each other. The sharp smell of antibacterial everything stings. This past week, I saw a patient walking up an down the hallway countless times, he told me he felt like "a caged animal".
I don't think that what I do changes any of this. But I think that patients like to see me because I don't come into their room with a needle, or the status quo on their health. And they like to make decisions. They are in control of so little, that choosing what color origami paper gives them power.
In my opinion, cancer is somewhat glorified in our media culture today. You hear heroic stories of survivors, you see commercials with women dressed in pink walking marathons, but no one talks about the people who become severely depressed, the people who can't see straight because of all the medication they are on, and the halt it puts on lives.
Some days I can't stand what I see. A man with his legs shackled together, and a police officer on either side of him walking the halls with his IV. Sometimes I see patients who are my age. And patients sit alone in their rooms without any family.
But this week, I talked with a woman I've visited a few times. She told me that her diagnosis has been one of the best things to happen to her and that she can see so many silver linings. She has been able to slow down and do all of the things- knitting, writing cards to her friends, that she never had time to do. Her family has become a lot closer. It was so good for me to talk to her because she talked about cancer in a positive light that I had never been able to see in my experiences at home with it. She is so calm about what has happened or what might happen.
It has been hard to do this job some days because I see in some people what I see in my dad. I see things that he may experience, and I see them going through things he went through. But I also meet people who love the what they have been thrown. And they teach me that things are so much bigger than what happens in my 21-year-old college life. I have learned that strength you have to face situations cannot be harvested from physical well-being.

Origami Land

I have been designing origami kits for patients (specifically teenagers and adults) at U of M Hospital. I have researched origami designs and tested them to see what folds are easiest, what would appeal to a more adult group, and what can be accomplished in a hospital bed.
Here are the drawings I did for the instruction portion of the kits.

A possum got stuck in our garage this weekend. It ate my birthday cake.
It snowed 4 more inches this weekend
Teshia and Andrew foreshortening themselves

In Process Photos

figure drawing

woodblocks

paintings from last semester