CANCER AS A TURNING POINT "Spirit Keepers My Journey"

 Spirit Keepers My Journey

The bodies of work I have prepared for this exhibit are from my “SPIRIT KEEPERS” series. “Adore Your Self” was done during a period of time when my friend Diane, my cousin Ruby, her best friend Bridget, my aunt Helen, my mother Lois all were faced with the difficulty of having some form of cancer. Be it breast cancer, cancer of the lungs attaching itself to the heart, cancer connecting itself as a tumor in the womb, affecting the kidneys, it attacks the spirit.

At these times, I was able to reflect on how important our temple is. I thought of how alluring the female body is and how that temple has been so misused, torn, and even threaded. 

In the painting “Adore Your Self,” I wanted the image to be so alluring that the viewer stops in front of her to inhale the model's mood and feel the inner spirit of loving oneself.

“WIND CHANGES”

It seems that so often unexpected changes happen in our lives, like out of nowhere a gust of wind may appear, without warning, turning in an unexpected path, leaving you where? We do not know. Sometimes we can pick up the pieces, and sometimes not. Akili, my scribe, my poet friend, gave me the words for “WIND CHANGES.” Unfortunately, she is no longer among us, but she will be in spirit as one of my spirit keepers. Through her poetry and spoken words, I dedicate this chat book.



TO HOPE

I have had so many people in my family not survive through cancer, one form or another. When I was fourteen, my father, Thomas, died of cancer of the liver. My uncle Alpha died of lung cancer when I was twenty. Then my mother’s sister Aunt Helen came to Fresno for the funeral of my 1^st cousin Willard. I wondered why one of her arms was so small; they told me she had had breast cancer and was a survivor when I was 32.

Aunt Helen Burks

Then I watched my 1^st cousin Ruby’s best friend Bridget lose all her long beautiful hair from chemotherapy. In her humor, she’d snatch off her wig while driving home from work, or any other time it got uncomfortable, the wig would get too hot she’d throw it to the wind. Not long after that, she passed. 

Sherry, well, she didn’t make it through the wind changes; she had a brain tumor that took her mind from her. I spoke with her a day or so before the tumor killed her. She gave me a teaching artist position at the Firehouse Gallery in Oak Park, California, when she knew I really needed a job.

Then, Merle, I watched him being so strong, even though he was sick and weak from just coming from his chemotherapy. To teach his workshop at the Sacramento Urban League, I went by his home to sit with him, to talk with him about his last days. He was so weak but wanted to leave something of himself. Although he was thriving from treatment to treatment, he continued giving the kids at the Urban League “Hip Hop” to “Acid Jazz” workshop to give him a hard time. Then one day, I was there. I had to tell them about this wonderful sacrifice he was making. Then they got it. When he passed, the community gave a heartfelt send-off. I couldn’t bring myself to talk, even though his wife wanted me to. Too sad.

I remember the feeling when coming from the lab when I had gotten my first mammogram.  We were living on Atherton in the Freeport Manner Neighborhood of South Sacramento.  The doctor’s office called me back because they saw a mass that they could not identify. I was so afraid that night I was having nightmares, what would happen to my kids, who would take care of them, how I would make it through this.

The next day everything was fine, I will never forget the fright, the horrible feeling of ………….What if?

I was there when my cousin Ruby heard the news she had lung cancer. That was in November, she went to the hospital to have surgery. They stitched her back up and told her there was nothing that they could do. Cancer had already taken a fourth of her lung. She found out only because she was throwing up blood. Then came the months of chemotherapy. When I saw her again that summer, she was so gone. She was frail, holding on; she did not make it a year. She was the most beautiful cousin in the family, and then she was gone that September of 2005.

My sister-in-inlaw Althea is a survivor of cancer. She is in remission these days. I remember when she was so sick, and the strength of her kids, being there for her, no matter what brought her back to life, she has had countless times of being in and out of the hospital. When I saw her last 2009, she looked aged but a survivor.

FRAGMENTED:

Then again, sometimes we just can’t make it back. Love ones flee, don’t understand, won’t understand, or can’t understand what it is that cancer does to the whole self.

“CANCER AS A TURNING POINT”   © 2010 Alpha Bruton