SERENITY: Art for Recovery

Amanda Flaim:

Amanda Flaim is a California based artist. Her creative practice ranges from photography and painting to fiber arts. Her education includes extensive training in Textile Arts in Spain, where she learned various techniques from local artisans in Madrid. Amanda is inspired by colors, textures, light and shadows. Her most recent work focuses on her cancer experience.

“I started making these little self-portraits out of paint chips my friend Katie sent me. She hired a colorist to help her figure out what color to paint the house and what colors to paint the mural on the shed in the backyard. So, basically, she provided me with a color palette and 6 months later I’ve finally dug into it and started cutting it up. What are these about? I think this speaks to my own current “disjointedness” as Danielle reflected the other day. Perhaps this is part of the process of integrating and accepting the current status of my body and state of being. I feel like cancer has cut me up into tiny pieces and only now am I beginning to search for ways to make myself feel whole again. I feel joy when playing with the colors and cutting and pasting. This is very process-oriented and I don’t spend too much time planning out the composition. I go with my intuition and generally whatever comes up first is what is glued down. Decision making is difficult for me these days and so I feel so much freedom in being able to just create without taking the time to design. It’s also a kind of color study.”

Barbara Carbone:

Barbara Carbone captures emotions in her work through line, color, and form. Her love of creativity began at an early age, and flourished through college. Attending Marlboro College, Vermont, she studied art, anthropology and sociology. After college, she traveled to Greece, immersed herself in western culture, and spent time gathering fruit for grazing animals and reflecting on life through drawing and writing. She returned home and earned a second degree at Antioch University, New Hampshire, followed by an extended period working at various museums and in school classrooms. In 2002, she relocated to San Francisco and started a family. “Loving and raising my four children is the greatest composition of my life," reflects Barbara. Currently, in her spare time, she draws, writes, manages an art studio for creative thinking, and teaches art at local schools. For her, creating is a way of making sense of life and the moments that connect us as human beings. When a drawing “goes into the world, it takes on a life of its own. It almost gets lifted from the paper like a poem that one can always remember no matter what age. If it becomes meaningful to someone for a moment, then that means “everything.”

Nanci Reese:

I have been making art since most of you reading this were born. I have a BFA from University of Georgia and an MFA from Indiana University. I took many art courses at SF City College. I actually learned more there than at university. I also taught briefly at City College in the metal arts department.

However, I have never taken a painting class. I am self-taught. If you had to label my art it would be called Naive or Outsider Art. I have had brain surgery for an AVM which was quite an adventure. Dealing with cancer and chemo and radiation a couple years later gave me a new lease on life. It made me very grateful for this precious commodity. It has also brought me many close friends. I started square dancing in 2015 and it is a lot of fun. It is good exercise for the body and brain. One cannot think about one’s problems while square dancing. Square dancing and the prospect of it was extremely helpful during my healing from two total knee replacements during Covid. All experiences come into me and somehow get translated into my art. In that respect, the art is a fictional journal. 

Marla Pedersen:  

Marla Pederen is a visual artist based in Petaluma, CA. She has been an artist and art teacher working in the Bay Area since 2004. Predominantly working with mixed media on canvas, Pedersen paints a layered story, revealing and hiding various elements to the viewer. Her work holds the duality of love and grief, hope and despair, and lightness and darkness of being. She often uses natural elements and botanicals paired with strong abstract brushstrokes or expressive linework to communicate her themes.

Diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer in 2021 at the age of 40, Pedersen uses her art as therapy, an essential tool to communicate and process living with an incurable disease. She has found its invaluable capacity to heal and transfigure the uncertainty and fear into acceptance, power, and beauty. Her art is her voice, her truth, and her way to translate her experience as a cancer patient using a visual language that words alone cannot express.

ripplestudio.net

Instagram: @marlapdrsn

Mary Casey:

“If you truly love nature, you will find beauty everywhere.” -Vincent Van Gogh

Hello! I am Mary Casey, a San Francisco based artist born and raised in this beautiful city. My current mediums of choice are watercolor and colored pencils, and my main source of inspiration is the beauty of flowers and nature.

I grew up with a strong interest in Art and completed a B.S. in Design at UC Davis in 1987. I never worked in the Design industry and instead pursued a career in Nursing. I found my home and passion for 34 years in the Pediatric Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant unit here at UCSF Benioff. Nursing allowed me to raise 4 children with my husband here in SF. I absolutely loved my job, co-workers and patients and in retirement, I now focus on volunteering for groups that support this patient population. As a nurse, I have always appreciated the healing powers of nature and its ability to bring comfort to those in need. This passion for the natural world grew even stronger when I became a cancer patient myself. My diagnosis led me to join the Art For Recovery Group at UCSF with whom I have painted weekly for the past 6 years. This group is the most beautiful group of people and we are all connected by cancer and appreciation of art, providing essential support, fellowship and healing to each other. My hobbies of running and hiking also play a significant role in my work, as they provide me with an abundance of inspiration for my paintings. Through my art, I hope to share the peaceful and healing energy of nature with others.

“Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us” – Mary Oliver

Jenni Mork:

Jenni Mork has been a part of the San Francisco community for many years, bringing her love for visual arts into every aspect of her life. She started her artistic journey at San Francisco State University, where she majored in Ceramics, and has since used her art as a medium of solace and light through personaland health challenges. Jenni believes in the power of art to bring comfort, focus, and happiness, a belief rooted in her childhood. She has fond memories of the freedom of art exploration as her mother Pam was an art teacher who created a home with endless supplies and encouragement. Jenni's art serves as an emotional compass, guiding her through life's trials with creative expression and offering a way to navigate feelings and experiences. In addition to her work as a visual artist, Jenni has shared her stories and experiences through participation in inclusive community groups such as Art to Recovery to the SF Queer Chorus. This involvement has allowed her to connect with others over shared experiences and the love of art. Her story and art are testaments to the power of creativity in navigating life's toughest moments, offering hope and inspiration to those around her.

Karen Koltonow:

In November of 2003 I was diagnosed with leukemia and a couple other unusual blood diseases. I was an anomaly and unusual. This all eventually put me on my road to a bone marrow transplant in 2005. I had a matched unrelated donor Transplant tdna. Since then, I have been dealing with the side effects of graft versus host disorders. I have been on various medications to suppress my immune system.

I have had a number of bone cancer fractures which required various treatments and medications. Bone fractures and secondary cancers, skin cancer being one. Which required radiation treatments, the proliferation of the skin cancer cells turned to skin cancer of my right mandible which had to be removed and repaired with my fibula from my right leg. I lost the teeth on my lower right jaw. I can walk and I can talk and I continue to make pots using a kick potter’s wheel. Which I prefer over an electric potter’s wheel. My ability to chew is somewhat compromised. Other than that, I am doing well. My eyes have been affected and I am unable to produce tears. I cannot cry. I really miss that! I wear special lenses to help that issue. Life is good! I am surprised at how resilient I am. I am always being challenged. I am a fighter. The ‘intrepid warrior’ has been in me for a long time. Who knew? I truly have defied the odds. Now for 18 years. I am ornery when it comes to my fight for my life and my innate ability to persevere. I have no idea what’s next. I remain curious and hopeful.

Semper Avanti.

Charlotte Marie Vick:

I attended the San Francisco Art Institute part time for a few years in the 1980's primarily studying painting. It was an incredible time, but I stopped making art a few years after art school. Around 2007, I developed Stage 4 Breast Cancer. I fought very hard to live. My prognosis was a maximum of 10 years, but I am still alive 17 years later thanks to the doctors, radiation, chemotherapy and mastectomy. I am still getting Herceptin through my port every three weeks - I am very lucky to have minimal side effects.

I discovered Art for Recovery in 2008. Cindy, who founded and led AFR at that time, said I would come to the group very down and quiet and leave radiant with life. It helped to give me a reason to be more than simply alive. The support of Cindy, Sherri, a volunteer at the time, and Amy, the current leader, and the group members was transformative. My spirituality doesn't rest in any religion. Someone in the group once asked me why I drew so many birds and I answered they were messengers from the spirit world. Their songs, which I hear so infrequently, lift me up. I always stop to listen. The Castro neighborhood where I live has been taken over by noisy, gregarious, brilliant crows. They fascinate me, but they don't lift up my heart. I long for the lake I lived on in Virginia dense with green woods, singing birds, frogs, insects and fecundity. Every year there are less. Trees have been my refuge since the age of three. I was completely absorbed with the first, horrible fires in California. I did many drawings in charcoal and pastels of the burned and burning trees praying with all my might to keep them alive and protected. Praying to I don't know who or what. The forests, the mountains, the oceans, nourish me deeply. Without a car I don't make it to the wilderness often. The Arboretum is my favorite refuge in the city. Thank you for reading this and looking at my drawings.