Art
Experiences With Cancer, Captured in Works of Art – The New York Times
As Covid-19 heightens the anxieties of cancer patients, online support groups step up efforts to help by means of social networking. One such group, Twist Out Cancer, sponsors an innovative program called Brushes With Cancer that matches patients with artists who create a unique piece of artwork to capture the experience of their disease.
When I first heard about Brushes With Cancer, I was predisposed in its favor because I have witnessed firsthand the transformative capacity of the visual arts. Generally, I forewarn prospective patient-readers about the depressing account of ovarian cancer in my book “Memoir of a Debulked Woman”; however, one stranger’s response elated me. Juliet R. Harrison sent me an art object that made the darkness visible. She had gutted the book — cut into its cover, torn out most of its pages — and then sutured it back together with splints, paste, fragmented words and wire. Broken, hollowed and rebound, it concretized the evisceration I had tried to protest.
Brushes With Cancer promotes the exchange of this sort of uncanny gift. On the website of Twist Out Cancer, painters, designers, sculptors and photographers as well as survivors, patients and caregivers can sign up to engage — with the aid of a mentor — in a four-to-six-month partnership.
Jenna Benn Shersher, the chief executive of Twist Out Cancer, told me that when she founded it in 2012, an art history student named Anna Swarthout (now Moschner) posted a video saying that she felt robbed of her creativity while dealing with the same disease Ms. Shersher had overcome: gray-zone lymphoma. Could others provide her artwork — without using the color gray, she asked? The “huge response” convinced Ms. Shersher that many would profit from such interactions: “Not only do people get to tell their story; they then see it through someone else’s eyes, which can be therapeutic.”
Begun in Chicago, Brushes With Cancer has chapters in Philadelphia; Detroit; Austin, Texas; Toronto; Montreal; and Tel Aviv. Artworks are displayed at its galas and auctioned off, and the money raised is plowed back into the program. “What if the subjects who served as inspiration want to keep the work?” I asked Ms. Shersher. She explained that they have first right: “Relatives often chip in to contribute, although some people believe that the rendering of their cancer encounter should circulate more widely.”
Although the pairings were originally done in person, the program has pivoted in the pandemic, Ms. Shersher explained in an email. “We decided in late March to move all of our programming and large scale art exhibitions and celebratory events into the virtual space,” she wrote. “This means that all artist and inspiration interactions are done virtually for the safety of our participants.”
The works in Brushes With Cancer address and redress the fright and anguish of a disease that can be indiscernible in its progression and isolating as well as deadly.
Like the art made from my deconstructed and reconstructed book, one work titled “Walking In, Walking Out” reconfigures a cancer memoir, Bob Kaufman’s “Replenished.” Bryan and Liz Kuntz, with Ricky Kimball, created a surrogate of Mr. Kaufman, trudging across the pages of his account of surviving late-stage non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma and a bone-marrow transplant. The verso page with its gouges and gorges must have been difficult to slog through. It looks as if the solitary figure had to drag his feet across the treacherous terrain, ripping up his own language in an effort to reach the clear plain of the recto side.
Equipped with a hat and a backpack, Mr. Kaufman’s avatar straddles the adjacent but incongruent geographies of during and after treatment. The artists remind us how many patients set themselves simple goals: of walking out of the hospital on their own two feet and of disclosing their ordeal like an open book.
Focused also on gritty determination, Bowen Kline’s painting “Bombs Away” depicts Grace Fauls Lombardo holding a lit bomb inscribed with the message “To Cancer. TlcN1. Love, Grace.” In an accompanying legend, Mr. Kline states that doctors would look at Ms. Lombardo’s diagnosis — T1 is the breast tumor, c the size, N1 stands for one involved lymph node — before looking at her. After diagnosis, Ms. Lombardo began a blog that she called “grancer,” a neologism that rhymes with cancer but contains all the letters of her hopeful first name.
What makes Mr. Kline’s figure more than a poster girl for a “we-can-beat-cancer” cliché? Ms. Lombardo’s wary expression after she has lit the fuse to blow cancer to smithereens. “Here goes nothing,” she seems to be saying, “but what the hell?” Despite her bravado and the artist’s comic approach, the proximity of the bomb to her head feels ominous.
A number of the more poignant paintings sponsored by Brushes With Cancer confront loss more overtly. With a nod to Picasso, “Our Tangled Stories” depicts two closely aligned heads and torsos. To accompany it, Virginia Champoux-Sokoloff describes her mother’s 20-year-old struggle with breast cancer and then her different approach to the disease. Might the two figures represent the daughter, wide-eyed, and her dead mother, shut-eyed? Or they could be Ms. Champoux-Sokoloff before and after her mother’s death.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Updated August 24, 2020
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What are the symptoms of coronavirus?
- In the beginning, the coronavirus seemed like it was primarily a respiratory illness — many patients had fever and chills, were weak and tired, and coughed a lot, though some people don’t show many symptoms at all. Those who seemed sickest had pneumonia or acute respiratory distress syndrome and received supplemental oxygen. By now, doctors have identified many more symptoms and syndromes. In April, the C.D.C. added to the list of early signs sore throat, fever, chills and muscle aches. Gastrointestinal upset, such as diarrhea and nausea, has also been observed. Another telltale sign of infection may be a sudden, profound diminution of one’s sense of smell and taste. Teenagers and young adults in some cases have developed painful red and purple lesions on their fingers and toes — nicknamed “Covid toe” — but few other serious symptoms.
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Why does standing six feet away from others help?
- The coronavirus spreads primarily through droplets from your mouth and nose, especially when you cough or sneeze. The C.D.C., one of the organizations using that measure, bases its recommendation of six feet on the idea that most large droplets that people expel when they cough or sneeze will fall to the ground within six feet. But six feet has never been a magic number that guarantees complete protection. Sneezes, for instance, can launch droplets a lot farther than six feet, according to a recent study. It’s a rule of thumb: You should be safest standing six feet apart outside, especially when it’s windy. But keep a mask on at all times, even when you think you’re far enough apart.
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I have antibodies. Am I now immune?
- As of right now, that seems likely, for at least several months. There have been frightening accounts of people suffering what seems to be a second bout of Covid-19. But experts say these patients may have a drawn-out course of infection, with the virus taking a slow toll weeks to months after initial exposure. People infected with the coronavirus typically produce immune molecules called antibodies, which are protective proteins made in response to an infection. These antibodies may last in the body only two to three months, which may seem worrisome, but that’s perfectly normal after an acute infection subsides, said Dr. Michael Mina, an immunologist at Harvard University. It may be possible to get the coronavirus again, but it’s highly unlikely that it would be possible in a short window of time from initial infection or make people sicker the second time.
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I’m a small-business owner. Can I get relief?
- The stimulus bills enacted in March offer help for the millions of American small businesses. Those eligible for aid are businesses and nonprofit organizations with fewer than 500 workers, including sole proprietorships, independent contractors and freelancers. Some larger companies in some industries are also eligible. The help being offered, which is being managed by the Small Business Administration, includes the Paycheck Protection Program and the Economic Injury Disaster Loan program. But lots of folks have not yet seen payouts. Even those who have received help are confused: The rules are draconian, and some are stuck sitting on money they don’t know how to use. Many small-business owners are getting less than they expected or not hearing anything at all.
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What are my rights if I am worried about going back to work?
- Employers have to provide a safe workplace with policies that protect everyone equally. And if one of your co-workers tests positive for the coronavirus, the C.D.C. has said that employers should tell their employees — without giving you the sick employee’s name — that they may have been exposed to the virus.
But the artist Ishita Banerjee states that in the aftermath of a double mastectomy Ms. Champoux-Sokoloff suffered the loss of her husband to lung failure. From this perspective, the two interfused figures signify the patient and her beloved spouse. Circling lines radiate out from the center of both chests — two breasts, two lungs, a breast and a lung — to portray the intimacy of the living and the dead. A doubled yet single being in mourning, one cannot move without the other.
Ofer Katz undertook not a Cubist but an impressionist approach to grieving in his otherworldly painting “Things I wanted to tell you — Mark and Aliza Ainis at The Dead Sea.” The artist explains that Aliza’s father passed away after a long struggle with cancer on the day of her high school graduation and that she missed being able to tell him about her ongoing life. Mr. Katz “wanted to create a scene that manifests the absence of conversation, but with a presence of deep paternal love.” His consolation for her regret over unspoken words takes the form of a primal scene of numinous beauty.
Awash in the blues that connect the sky with the landscape and the water, the father at the piano cradles his infant daughter in his lap while playing her a tune by the light of the silvery moon. Preserved on canvas, father and child reside together in what Freud called the oceanic: the sense of unbounded limitlessness, of being merged with each other and the external world. No one can drown in the Dead Sea, most people believe, because of its high salt content, though it is impossible not to anticipate the pianist and his swaddled baby sinking into the unfathomable depths of memory.
Like Frida Kahlo, who painted flowers so they would not die, the participants in Brushes With Cancer illuminate the meaning of Thomas Merton’s statement that “Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time.”
Susan Gubar, who has been dealing with ovarian cancer since 2008, is distinguished emerita professor of English at Indiana University. Her latest book is “Late-Life Love.”
Art
Calvin Lucyshyn: Vancouver Island Art Dealer Faces Fraud Charges After Police Seize Millions in Artwork
In a case that has sent shockwaves through the Vancouver Island art community, a local art dealer has been charged with one count of fraud over $5,000. Calvin Lucyshyn, the former operator of the now-closed Winchester Galleries in Oak Bay, faces the charge after police seized hundreds of artworks, valued in the tens of millions of dollars, from various storage sites in the Greater Victoria area.
Alleged Fraud Scheme
Police allege that Lucyshyn had been taking valuable art from members of the public under the guise of appraising or consigning the pieces for sale, only to cut off all communication with the owners. This investigation began in April 2022, when police received a complaint from an individual who had provided four paintings to Lucyshyn, including three works by renowned British Columbia artist Emily Carr, and had not received any updates on their sale.
Further investigation by the Saanich Police Department revealed that this was not an isolated incident. Detectives found other alleged victims who had similar experiences with Winchester Galleries, leading police to execute search warrants at three separate storage locations across Greater Victoria.
Massive Seizure of Artworks
In what has become one of the largest art fraud investigations in recent Canadian history, authorities seized approximately 1,100 pieces of art, including more than 600 pieces from a storage site in Saanich, over 300 in Langford, and more than 100 in Oak Bay. Some of the more valuable pieces, according to police, were estimated to be worth $85,000 each.
Lucyshyn was arrested on April 21, 2022, but was later released from custody. In May 2024, a fraud charge was formally laid against him.
Artwork Returned, but Some Remain Unclaimed
In a statement released on Monday, the Saanich Police Department confirmed that 1,050 of the seized artworks have been returned to their rightful owners. However, several pieces remain unclaimed, and police continue their efforts to track down the owners of these works.
Court Proceedings Ongoing
The criminal charge against Lucyshyn has not yet been tested in court, and he has publicly stated his intention to defend himself against any pending allegations. His next court appearance is scheduled for September 10, 2024.
Impact on the Local Art Community
The news of Lucyshyn’s alleged fraud has deeply affected Vancouver Island’s art community, particularly collectors, galleries, and artists who may have been impacted by the gallery’s operations. With high-value pieces from artists like Emily Carr involved, the case underscores the vulnerabilities that can exist in art transactions.
For many art collectors, the investigation has raised concerns about the potential for fraud in the art world, particularly when it comes to dealing with private galleries and dealers. The seizure of such a vast collection of artworks has also led to questions about the management and oversight of valuable art pieces, as well as the importance of transparency and trust in the industry.
As the case continues to unfold in court, it will likely serve as a cautionary tale for collectors and galleries alike, highlighting the need for due diligence in the sale and appraisal of high-value artworks.
While much of the seized artwork has been returned, the full scale of the alleged fraud is still being unraveled. Lucyshyn’s upcoming court appearances will be closely watched, not only by the legal community but also by the wider art world, as it navigates the fallout from one of Canada’s most significant art fraud cases in recent memory.
Art collectors and individuals who believe they may have been affected by this case are encouraged to contact the Saanich Police Department to inquire about any unclaimed pieces. Additionally, the case serves as a reminder for anyone involved in high-value art transactions to work with reputable dealers and to keep thorough documentation of all transactions.
As with any investment, whether in art or other ventures, it is crucial to be cautious and informed. Art fraud can devastate personal collections and finances, but by taking steps to verify authenticity, provenance, and the reputation of dealers, collectors can help safeguard their valuable pieces.
Art
Ukrainian sells art in Essex while stuck in a warzone – BBC.com
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Ukrainian sells art in Essex while stuck in a warzone BBC.com
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Art
Somerset House Fire: Courtauld Gallery Reopens, Rest of Landmark Closed
The Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House has reopened its doors to the public after a fire swept through the historic building in central London. While the gallery has resumed operations, the rest of the iconic site remains closed “until further notice.”
On Saturday, approximately 125 firefighters were called to the scene to battle the blaze, which sent smoke billowing across the city. Fortunately, the fire occurred in a part of the building not housing valuable artworks, and no injuries were reported. Authorities are still investigating the cause of the fire.
Despite the disruption, art lovers queued outside the gallery before it reopened at 10:00 BST on Sunday. One visitor expressed his relief, saying, “I was sad to see the fire, but I’m relieved the art is safe.”
The Clark family, visiting London from Washington state, USA, had a unique perspective on the incident. While sightseeing on the London Eye, they watched as firefighters tackled the flames. Paul Clark, accompanied by his wife Jiorgia and their four children, shared their concern for the safety of the artwork inside Somerset House. “It was sad to see,” Mr. Clark told the BBC. As a fan of Vincent Van Gogh, he was particularly relieved to learn that the painter’s famous Self-Portrait with Bandaged Ear had not been affected by the fire.
Blaze in the West Wing
The fire broke out around midday on Saturday in the west wing of Somerset House, a section of the building primarily used for offices and storage. Jonathan Reekie, director of Somerset House Trust, assured the public that “no valuable artefacts or artworks” were located in that part of the building. By Sunday, fire engines were still stationed outside as investigations into the fire’s origin continued.
About Somerset House
Located on the Strand in central London, Somerset House is a prominent arts venue with a rich history dating back to the Georgian era. Built on the site of a former Tudor palace, the complex is known for its iconic courtyard and is home to the Courtauld Gallery. The gallery houses a prestigious collection from the Samuel Courtauld Trust, showcasing masterpieces from the Middle Ages to the 20th century. Among the notable works are pieces by impressionist legends such as Edouard Manet, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, and Vincent Van Gogh.
Somerset House regularly hosts cultural exhibitions and public events, including its popular winter ice skating sessions in the courtyard. However, for now, the venue remains partially closed as authorities ensure the safety of the site following the fire.
Art lovers and the Somerset House community can take solace in knowing that the invaluable collection remains unharmed, and the Courtauld Gallery continues to welcome visitors, offering a reprieve amid the disruption.
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