Statement:

While working a full-time job in 2002, I began to paint for four to five hours every evening. I did this for many months before having to slow down due to increasing pain in my right shoulder. In 2003 I received a diagnosis of rotator cuff tear and Ehlers Danlos Syndrome, a connective tissue disorder. My doctors placed me on permanent disability. I continued to paint as I could, incorporating photography and other mixed media in my work.

Having always known I wanted to take a different approach to making self-portraits, I was quite unexpectedly given the opportunity to do so. In 2006 I received a diagnosis of Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. In an effort to make ‘lemonade out of lemons,’ I approached St. Joseph’s hospital in Burbank to request copies of my PET, MUGA, and CAT scans.

My background as a Software Engineer would not only prove helpful in discovering how to convert these files from the proprietary hospital software, it also gave me the technical know-how to ‘res-up’ the low-resolution files. I then integrated them with photography and scanned hand-drawn images to produce the four images in this show.