The Imagery of Art Therapists Impacted by Cancer
The Revealing Images of the Self (Series 1 of 8), 2019
Leyla Salmassian
12" x 9"
micron ink pen, gold ink pen, oil pastel
This series explores my experience and feelings of my beloved's devastating diagnosis of cancer and all its demands. In this journey of meaning making, recovery and healing, the language of creativity, the images formed and un-formed, continue to shape my voice, to serve as vehicles and alchemical containers of meaning making. When the verbal language bounds, constricts, and limits, imagery and symbol can serve as significant and pivotal mediums in accessing the inner landscape, to sit with, relate to and make meaning of feelings and experiences. In this sense, Image becomes the cauldron, or the body, holding it all; it can serve as an ally in the journey.
The Revealing Images of the Self (Series 2 of 8), 2019
Leyla Salmassian
12" x 9"
micron ink pen, gold ink pen, oil pastel
This series explores my experience and feelings of my beloved's devastating diagnosis of cancer and all its demands. In this journey of meaning making, recovery and healing, the language of creativity, the images formed and un-formed, continue to shape my voice, to serve as vehicles and alchemical containers of meaning making. When the verbal language bounds, constricts, and limits, imagery and symbol can serve as significant and pivotal mediums in accessing the inner landscape, to sit with, relate to and make meaning of feelings and experiences. In this sense, Image becomes the cauldron, or the body, holding it all; it can serve as an ally in the journey.
The Revealing Images of the Self (Series 3 of 8), 2019
Leyla Salmassian
12" x 9"
micron ink pen, gold ink pen, oil pastel
This series explores my experience and feelings of my beloved's devastating diagnosis of cancer and all its demands. In this journey of meaning making, recovery and healing, the language of creativity, the images formed and un-formed, continue to shape my voice, to serve as vehicles and alchemical containers of meaning making. When the verbal language bounds, constricts, and limits, imagery and symbol can serve as significant and pivotal mediums in accessing the inner landscape, to sit with, relate to and make meaning of feelings and experiences. In this sense, Image becomes the cauldron, or the body, holding it all; it can serve as an ally in the journey.
The Revealing Images of the Self (Series 4 of 8), 2019
Leyla Salmassian
12" x 9"
micron ink pen, gold ink pen, oil pastel
This series explores my experience and feelings of my beloved's devastating diagnosis of cancer and all its demands. In this journey of meaning making, recovery and healing, the language of creativity, the images formed and un-formed, continue to shape my voice, to serve as vehicles and alchemical containers of meaning making. When the verbal language bounds, constricts, and limits, imagery and symbol can serve as significant and pivotal mediums in accessing the inner landscape, to sit with, relate to and make meaning of feelings and experiences. In this sense, Image becomes the cauldron, or the body, holding it all; it can serve as an ally in the journey.
The Revealing Images of the Self (Series 5 of 8), 2019
Leyla Salmassian
12" x 9"
micron ink pen, gold ink pen, oil pastel
This series explores my experience and feelings of my beloved's devastating diagnosis of cancer and all its demands. In this journey of meaning making, recovery and healing, the language of creativity, the images formed and un-formed, continue to shape my voice, to serve as vehicles and alchemical containers of meaning making. When the verbal language bounds, constricts, and limits, imagery and symbol can serve as significant and pivotal mediums in accessing the inner landscape, to sit with, relate to and make meaning of feelings and experiences. In this sense, Image becomes the cauldron, or the body, holding it all; it can serve as an ally in the journey.
The Revealing Images of the Self (Series 6 of 8), 2019
Leyla Salmassian
12" x 9"
micron ink pen, gold ink pen, oil pastel
This series explores my experience and feelings of my beloved's devastating diagnosis of cancer and all its demands. In this journey of meaning making, recovery and healing, the language of creativity, the images formed and un-formed, continue to shape my voice, to serve as vehicles and alchemical containers of meaning making. When the verbal language bounds, constricts, and limits, imagery and symbol can serve as significant and pivotal mediums in accessing the inner landscape, to sit with, relate to and make meaning of feelings and experiences. In this sense, Image becomes the cauldron, or the body, holding it all; it can serve as an ally in the journey.
The Revealing Images of the Self (Series 7 of 8), 2019
Leyla Salmassian
12" x 9"
micron ink pen, gold ink pen, oil pastel
This series explores my experience and feelings of my beloved's devastating diagnosis of cancer and all its demands. In this journey of meaning making, recovery and healing, the language of creativity, the images formed and un-formed, continue to shape my voice, to serve as vehicles and alchemical containers of meaning making. When the verbal language bounds, constricts, and limits, imagery and symbol can serve as significant and pivotal mediums in accessing the inner landscape, to sit with, relate to and make meaning of feelings and experiences. In this sense, Image becomes the cauldron, or the body, holding it all; it can serve as an ally in the journey.
The Revealing Images of the Self (Series 8 of 8), 2019
Leyla Salmassian
12" x 9"
micron ink pen, gold ink pen, oil pastel
This series explores my experience and feelings of my beloved's devastating diagnosis of cancer and all its demands. In this journey of meaning making, recovery and healing, the language of creativity, the images formed and un-formed, continue to shape my voice, to serve as vehicles and alchemical containers of meaning making. When the verbal language bounds, constricts, and limits, imagery and symbol can serve as significant and pivotal mediums in accessing the inner landscape, to sit with, relate to and make meaning of feelings and experiences. In this sense, Image becomes the cauldron, or the body, holding it all; it can serve as an ally in the journey.
Esophageal Cancer Caregiver Experience & Family Healing, 2020
Linda Paterson Okimoto
14" x 11" each
tissue paper, modge podge, sparkles on paper
The group art making experience came shortly after I learned of my father-in-law’s death from esophageal cancer. I wanted to tear paper for this art experience as I felt like at times I wanted to tear something, to scream, to shout, to make it not be true. The tissue paper was perfect because the colors integrated and dripped, just like the IV in the hospital.
Blue for tears, the color of the ocean, the breath, the cells, the hoping and wishing, the drips creating their own pattern reflecting the experience of having little control.
Red for blood, the radiation, the emotions of anger at not being able to stay ahead of this thing, the love I felt for him, and my own sense of fragility and age.
The mandala as an integration of the family, the tears, the joys, a circle of life reunited again.
Sharing with other women allowed emotions to come out from hiding and to be expressed.
Reweaving Life, 2020
Alexandria Loiseau
9" x 12" x 3.5"
paper and markers
There were many entities that my family had to weave into our lives after receiving my younger brother’s cancer diagnosis. Learning to weave chemotherapy, radiation, medications, hospital stays, work and school disruption, being more aware of others’ germs, and managing the physical, mental and emotional pain that came along with all of these entities was a stressful, exhausting and continual process. Even when a routine was created it was easily disrupted and more reweaving was needed multiple times to maintain some sort of equilibrium. This necessary reweaving changed our family and changes other families forever.
Mom Abstracted (Series 1 of 6), 2019/2020
Edith Matilda Moses
17" x 11"
graphite
During the last six months, my mother’s cancer and all the treatments she had undergone had taken a drastic toll on her. When it became apparent to me that her life was fading into an abstract version of what I knew to be my mother, I began to draw her. I drew her with the intention of finding and examining the light, how it caressed the lines on her face, which began to look like a map of her life’s journey. I drew her as a way to attune to her. I drew her as a way to soothe myself through the grief process. And as the disease became worse, my drawings became more abstract and harsh. And I found that thinking and seeing my mother in the abstract was a helpful way to come to terms with her plight, and my loss.
Mom Abstracted (Series 2 of 6), 2019/2020
Edith Matilda Moses
17" x 11"
graphite
During the last six months, my mother’s cancer and all the treatments she had undergone had taken a drastic toll on her. When it became apparent to me that her life was fading into an abstract version of what I knew to be my mother, I began to draw her. I drew her with the intention of finding and examining the light, how it caressed the lines on her face, which began to look like a map of her life’s journey. I drew her as a way to attune to her. I drew her as a way to soothe myself through the grief process. And as the disease became worse, my drawings became more abstract and harsh. And I found that thinking and seeing my mother in the abstract was a helpful way to come to terms with her plight, and my loss.
Mom Abstracted (Series 3 of 6), 2019/2020
Edith Matilda Moses
17" x 11"
graphite
During the last six months, my mother’s cancer and all the treatments she had undergone had taken a drastic toll on her. When it became apparent to me that her life was fading into an abstract version of what I knew to be my mother, I began to draw her. I drew her with the intention of finding and examining the light, how it caressed the lines on her face, which began to look like a map of her life’s journey. I drew her as a way to attune to her. I drew her as a way to soothe myself through the grief process. And as the disease became worse, my drawings became more abstract and harsh. And I found that thinking and seeing my mother in the abstract was a helpful way to come to terms with her plight, and my loss.
Mom Abstracted (Series 4 of 6), 2019/2020
Edith Matilda Moses
17" x 11"
graphite
During the last six months, my mother’s cancer and all the treatments she had undergone had taken a drastic toll on her. When it became apparent to me that her life was fading into an abstract version of what I knew to be my mother, I began to draw her. I drew her with the intention of finding and examining the light, how it caressed the lines on her face, which began to look like a map of her life’s journey. I drew her as a way to attune to her. I drew her as a way to soothe myself through the grief process. And as the disease became worse, my drawings became more abstract and harsh. And I found that thinking and seeing my mother in the abstract was a helpful way to come to terms with her plight, and my loss.
Mom Abstracted (Series 5 of 6), 2019/2020
Edith Matilda Moses
17" x 11"
graphite
During the last six months, my mother’s cancer and all the treatments she had undergone had taken a drastic toll on her. When it became apparent to me that her life was fading into an abstract version of what I knew to be my mother, I began to draw her. I drew her with the intention of finding and examining the light, how it caressed the lines on her face, which began to look like a map of her life’s journey. I drew her as a way to attune to her. I drew her as a way to soothe myself through the grief process. And as the disease became worse, my drawings became more abstract and harsh. And I found that thinking and seeing my mother in the abstract was a helpful way to come to terms with her plight, and my loss.
Mom Abstracted (Series 6 of 6), 2019/2020
Edith Matilda Moses
17" x 11"
graphite
During the last six months, my mother’s cancer and all the treatments she had undergone had taken a drastic toll on her. When it became apparent to me that her life was fading into an abstract version of what I knew to be my mother, I began to draw her. I drew her with the intention of finding and examining the light, how it caressed the lines on her face, which began to look like a map of her life’s journey. I drew her as a way to attune to her. I drew her as a way to soothe myself through the grief process. And as the disease became worse, my drawings became more abstract and harsh. And I found that thinking and seeing my mother in the abstract was a helpful way to come to terms with her plight, and my loss.
i carry your heart (I carry it in my heart), 2020
Einat
11" x 18"
collage, painting, mixed-media on wood
This piece, which took form in the fall 2013, marks my first re-engagement with painting two years after my husband had passed away from cancer and our girls were born. Intuitively, the art directed me to where I left it: re-telling the moments of scattering his ashes at sea, sitting with what was now gone and what I could still possibly carry from the love we had shared. The title of this piece, taken from an E. E. Cummings’ poem, settled somewhere between my ribs as a possibility.
Transitions and Transformations, 2020
Cecilia Sachez
11" x 14"
multimedia
Originally intended to be a piece that paid homage to those I love and have lost, it evolved into a piece that speaks to their continued presence and humbly embraces their energy and spirit. My best friend Ana transitioned into a new form of being when we were 15-years old due to Leukemia. My little brother Sam joined her a few years ago due to testicular cancer. The doe and the butterfly symbolize the ways in which I have found life manifests itself. Creative expression became a way for me to explore my feelings of loss and find that “there may be something more…"
Three Generations, 2016
Sarah Heller
23" x 24"
multimedia
This piece was inspired by an old photograph of my grandma posing with an umbrella. The three embroidered points represent my grandma, my mom, and myself always intertwined with one another in life and death. My grandma is captured in charcoal and chalk pastel. My Grandma Phyllis was like a second mother to me. She was a source of love, light, and comfort. When she died of metastasized colon cancer, when I was 17, it brought about thoughts of meaninglessness and emptiness. I decided to combine my grief and search for meaning into art. The whole image is on top of a piece of my mom’s fabric from her textile collection. The woman that is perhaps both myself and my grandma is looking towards the creeping, embroidered botanicals, beckoning the figure toward their growth and warmth, and held together by the comforting fabric.
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The Imagery of Art Therapists Impacted by Cancer