Liz studied the cerebral side of art in graduate school, but after her sister was diagnosed with terminal cancer, she didn't have time to dissect her work. She let go of finding answers for everything, and then they revealed themselves on her canvas.
Liz's Story
"My sister's cancer diagnosis instantly changed my values."
Before my sister was diagnosed with cancer, I had just finished graduate school and decided that I wanted to be a print maker and a teacher. I had just gotten my first teaching job when I found out she was sick and my values instantly changed. I was still making art because it's something I have to do, but all of the critique talk that went on in graduate school went out the window. I found myself making work and taking that time to reflect and quite myself down.
"My artwork revealed something huge."
I worked with several transparent layers of colors and textures. One day I was looking at a piece and I noticed this little arch in the corner, and I noticed that arch happened when she got sick. That arch represented something to me subconsciously, and when she passed away, it became huge on the page. Some people said it was a rainbow, some people said it was an arch, for me it was kind of a passageway, and I am on one side and she is on the other. I can't define it, but it is kind of like in that movie Close Encounters where he keeps making the mound of mashed potatoes. This shape I just had to make over and over again.
"My whole person has taken it in and it is starting to define it or deal with it."
It has been fascinating watching that shape change, and I am now at this point where I don't need that shape anymore. The shape I am seeing now is a circle or an oval, and I guess you could say it is completeness. I am not sure what is inside of it or outside of it, but it is there. Finding the arch was really key because I realized that my whole spirit has taken this experience of my sister's death in.
"It made the work mean so much more."
I just sold my first big piece, and it is of an arch. The woman I sold it to asked me to explain what it was, and I typically don't say what it is because I want people to get what they want from the work, but I explained that this arch happened when my sister got sick. It turns out that her husband had passed away from cancer several years ago. She was so glad to know the story because it made the work mean so much more to her. It was really intimate to share that experience with her.
I don't want to force feed anybody because you get what you want from art. Everyone can look at the same painting and get something different. There is this Mark Rothko painting in the St. Louis Art Museum, and when I lived there I would go on Free Tuesday Nights and go look at the painting. Every time I looked at it I got something different. One day I would say, "Wow that is a landscape," or the next week, "That is my job oppressing me." You can just let the art give you what you need it to, and that is okay.
"I saw my sister go after what she wanted, and now I try to have her same courage."
There were a lot of things that my sister wished so could do in the future, but with the 30 years that she had I really believe she had a full life. I check with myself every once in awhile and say, "Okay, I am not where I thought I would be and I haven't met this goal yet, but am I living a full life." It is not about being busy 24 hours a day -- that is a real challenge, especially for women where you think your list of things to do is who you are. For me, it is saying, "I have had a full day and this is good, and tomorrow is going to be different and the full for tomorrow is going to be different, too."
My sister decided what she wanted to do and she made it happen. Now with my own life, when I sit back at the end of the day and I say, "What have I done and where do I want to be," it comes down to I want to make art and I want to teach.
