 |
|
|
|
Photograph by Skye Dunlap
Staff of Life: Artist Nina Koepcke lovingly looks over a series of staffs created by Lifelines participants.
Lifelines from the heart
Video on collaboration between artists and cancer patients makes its debut
By Michael Vaughn
A lot of what goes on in I Want to Say, the video documenting the Lifelines community arts program, brings to mind an adult playroom.
Throughout the 24-minute video, viewers see artists and long-term cancer patients playing mirror-games with each other, or gathered in a circle chanting with decorated rattles, or acting out silent skits.
Fun, says Lifelines co-founder Lois Stuart, is precisely the point. "Walking in [our] door was like walking into a world where they didn't have to deal with cancer," she says. "They could be like children and play; we were a respite for them."
Stuart, a visual artist living in Los Gatos, and Nina Koepcke, a visual artist from Willow Glen, were kicking around ideas for a grant application one day three years ago when they came up with the concept for Lifelines. The two longtime friends had shared an unfortunate common experience--dealing with children afflicted with life-threatening illnesses--and they found that the way they coped with their fears and frustrations in those stressful times was to go into the studio and create art.
"We felt that if it worked for us," Stuart says, "why wouldn't it work for other people? So we wrote the grant--and we didn't get it."
Undaunted, the two obtained a grant from Saratoga's Montalvo Center for the Arts, and were soon on their way. In 1997, they hooked up with the Cancer Support and Education Center in Menlo Park, lined up a crew of artist facilitators in several disciplines--including music, literature and movement--and began their first workshop. The program offers one workshop a year, serving 30 participants ranging in age from 13 to 70.
Stuart says the workshops do not follow the principles of classic art therapy--in which art is used primarily as a tool for working out patients' problems--and in fact is geared toward as little organized instruction as possible.
"It's as far away from formal art classes as you can get," says Stuart. "We don't want anyone to feel that they don't know what they're doing artistically. We just let them come up with whatever comes up and we help them express it."
In some cases, in fact, the artists learned more than they taught. This was certainly the case when they met Sarah, a Redwood City woman who was undergoing radical chemotherapy for esophageal cancer.
"She called on the day of the session and said, 'I'm going to be there.'"
Stuart says. "That night, this wonderful bald-headed Chinese woman came bursting into the room. She took over the place; from that moment on, she became the focal point.
"She's incredible. She had never done any art, but the art she did demonstrated such an intuitive understanding of metaphors and symbols."
When Willow Glen performance artist Gabriella Guetzkow heard about the Lifelines program, she knew it would be "right up my alley, as far as combining performance art and healing."
Guetzkow, who had a year earlier received her theater degree from New York University, prepared for the program by researching therapies used by others in reconnecting patients to their bodies.
"Most people are intimidated by the idea of using themselves, and their bodies and voices, as the instrument of expressing their art form," says Guetzkow, "especially people who are feeling betrayed by their bodies. Also, they tend to be silenced by the illness--people don't want to talk about it. It was completely inspiring to me to see them overcome those obstacles."
One of the most inspiring scenes in the Lifelines video is Sarah's performance of a somber, graceful tai-chi dance, using a large "smile mask" to lend extra flavor and symbolism. What makes the scene even more moving is the knowledge of the obstacles she overcame to give that performance.
"She was very ill," says Stuart. "The night of the performance, she was in tremendous pain, but she decided to come. That was the most profound experience I've ever had in the group."
Sarah also overcame great difficulty in giving the interview excerpted in the video; her esophageal cancer makes talking very painful. But she wanted to do it, says Stuart, because she wanted people to know about Lifelines.
"Every day when you wake up," says Sarah in the video, "there is hope. Because there is no guarantee that [waking up] is going to happen."
'I Want to Say,' directed by Siggy Matthieson, premieres on Oct. 17 at 3 p.m. at Willow Glen Roasting Company, 1383 Lincoln Ave. The event includes an audience discussion forum, readings and viewing of images from Lifelines workshops. Admission is free. For information call 408.395.1098.
|
|
|
|
Willow Glen, California Since 1992
