In April of 2022, I received an email that changed my life. I had been accepted into the Graduate School at the University of Wisconsin – Madison to pursue a Master of Fine Arts degree. A few hours later, the very same night, I received a very unexpected call. My childhood friend, a person I’ve known and have been close with for nearly all of my life, had a brain tumor. This call came as an absolute shock that turned a happy day into a chaotic one, not just for myself but for my friend, Brian, and his entire family. I got myself to the hospital the next day to see him before he went in for emergency surgery to have a grapefruit sized tumor removed from the back of his brain. For several hours that afternoon, Brian, his wife, Aimee, and I sat there discussing what to expect and what lead up to this discovery as the sun set outside his window. His surgery was a success, however the news was grim. This tumor in his brain was the first of several tumors discovered and a short time later he was diagnosed with stage 4 colon cancer. This set off a series of surgeries, months of chemo therapy and months of sleepless nights for both Brian and Aimee as they wrestled with his diagnosis, illness and his anxieties about death.
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At home, for nearly 2 years, my partner and I had also been managing along with a terminally ill cancer patient, our cat, Ansel. Each day was a process of administering chemo therapy and anti-inflammatory medications. Ansel was diagnosed with lymphoma in December of 2020, at the height of the pandemic. We had transplanted to Madison only a year earlier and had yet to find a new vet in the city. This severely complicated his treatments, as the uncertainties of the pandemic prompted local vets to stop accepting new patients. We had no choice but to drive 3 hours back to our previous home so he could visit the vet who knew him best. This process of driving to our distant vet began with his tumor removal surgery and continued for a year of bi-weekly checkups. Ansel was never comfortable traveling in a car, and every visit to the vet meant 5 to 6 long hours of howling from the backseat. Chemo therapy for cats is, thankfully, a bit easier to administer than it is for humans. However, the medication costs nearly $35/pill in the United States and Ansel needed a pill every other day for the remainder of his life. Bearing the costs for this level of treatment would have been impossible for my partner and me, however we were fortunate enough to be able to purchase his medications and have them shipped to us from Canada for only $2/pill. Treating cancer in animals is rarely intended to cure, instead the approach is to favor quality of life for however long that may be.
After nearly two years of constant at-home care, cancer metastasized in Ansel’s lungs and just two weeks after that diagnosis he was in crisis.
Ansel died of lethal injection at 8:15 p.m. at an unfamiliar vet’s office 31, October (Halloween night) 2022. He was 15.
After nearly two years of battling cancer with oncology professionals, chemo therapists and finally hospice care, Brian declined rapidly in the course of about a week.
Brian died at his home after a long week of around-the-clock care by friends and family at 9:21 p.m. 21, May 2024. He was 44.
If you have been reading this and have felt a thought cross your mind along the lines of – ‘the life of a cat is not the same as the life of a person’ – please read on.
Deep Blue
This exhibition seeks to ask the viewer where does the notion come from that one life has greater value than another? And to what end do we apply that notion? Historically, and still to this day, not all human life is revered as precious by all cultures. I want the viewer to consider what changed in many of our Western cultures that sparked the acceptance that all human life is precious and worth protection? And why do you feel people have only accepted this notion and applied it to human life alone?
The title of this exhibition is borrowed from George Harrison’s song by the same name. A song he wrote in 1970 about his feelings of helplessness during his mother’s battle with cancer, a disease he too would eventually succumb to. Hear it on Spotify or YouTube
Preparing The Exhibition
To display this work, I designed and created a set of laser cut wooden stands to rest hand-made single-sided books upon. They reference the concept of placing items of value and importance on pedestals: Jewelry, candles, a new watch within its plastic jewel box, an iPhone on display at a store, ceramic sculptures, icons. The stands are simple in design, produced of humble material and easily constructed. The books, just as simple as the stands, offer a single perspective into the world they present via a single photograph upon its inner surface.
The Exhibition
All assembled, the work is displayed in a cyclical manner – facing outward from the center forcing the viewer to walk around the work. With no obvious starting or end points the viewer decides where to enter the work. Walking left or right reveals the intertwined struggle faced by two individuals stricken with the same mortality and their closest loved ones who must walk the path with them. The small and intimate scale of the pictures keep the viewer near as they circle the exhibit. It’s up to the viewer to remember what images are on the other side of the cycle and to decide how they might relate to the work before them now. As they walk a path with the work, the viewer may also have to navigate other viewers to maintain a closeness with the work. These cyclical interactions intend to ask the viewer to consider their own current place within the circle of life, what is important to them and how that might change when faced with a similar scenario.
Installation Photos
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