A post on why I’ve been neglecting my blog.
My Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis (PSC) has progressed to the point where some of my flares require long hospitalizations, more IV antibiotics, and ERCPs. I’ve been much sicker for much longer, and sometimes I don’t even have the focus to do much embroidery.
Late in 2024, Kathryn Vercillo of Threadstack and Create Me Free sent me some intriguing interview questions which I used as journaling prompts between liver infections. The interview is now online for all to read. In it I share the experience of changing mediums due to health, beginning to identify as having a disability, reading The Van Gogh Blues, and so much more.
I’ve been dealing with some recurrent liver issues the past few months so haven’t been able to write and post as much as I like, but ME Awareness Month is almost over so here is information for this year’s benefit!
I’m excited to announce that I’m once again a featured artist in Opera Mariposa’s 2024 Benefit + Awareness Month! 🦋 I’m honoured to share both art and music to support the ME | FM Society of BC and raise awareness for those affected by ME/CFS, Long Covid, and Fibromyalgia. Join me for this all-online charity extravaganza at Benefit.OperaMariposa.com from May 1 – June 1, 2025. There’s music, art, over $3,000 in prizes and more – and it’s all for a great cause!
This essay was originally published by Classical Wisdom after winning their Stoic Essay Writing Contest in 2022. You can read the original post here.
What happens to each of us is ordered. It furthers our destiny.
Marcus Aurelius[1]
We never know when our lives might be changed suddenly and irrevocably. 2015 was one of the most successful years of my career as a multidisciplinary artist and vocal coach. I was teaching privately and at our local university and collaborating with several other performing artists. My largest project was writing and performing libretto and music for an upcoming dance opera. After a three week intensive with the dance opera company, my collaborator came down with a virus. I gently hugged her aching body and said goodbye. The next day I was sick. I still haven’t recovered.
Stoicism has been of great help in managing my mental and physical health while living with chronic illness. I also believe Stoicism has the potential to shift how society views those disabled by chronic illness—from burdens to human beings capable of flourishing—and to offer the support necessary to make that happen.
Continue readingI’m very honoured to have two pieces included in this year’s Opulent Mobility show! Opulent Mobility is an international annual exhibit that asks artists to re-imagine disability as opulent and powerful. It imagines a world where disability is celebrated instead of denied, ignored, and feared. These exhibits are curated by founder A. Laura Brody and disability arts activist and photographer Anthony Tusler and include art and artworks from across the country and around the globe.
I’ve been participating in SciArt September for a few years now. Glendon Mellow and Liz Butler came up with some excellent prompts yet again this year, each week on a different theme: horror, sci-fi, fantasy, folklore, and the end. I shared older work based on all the daily prompts.
My interview on the Arts Ably podcast is up! Diane and I talked about how my artistic practices in music, writing, and embroidery shift with my ME/CFS and disability.
A couple months ago I had the honour of being interviewed by Daniel Moore for the podcast Post-Exertional Mayonnaise. The name of the podcast is a play on Post-Exertional Malaise (PEM), the hallmark symptom of ME/CFS.
Daniel and I had a wide-ranging discussion and talked about whether its possible to flourish whilst living with ME, making art with a disability, flow states, symptomatology, meditation, and Stoicism.
You can also listen on your favourite podcast platform via the PEM Podcast webpage.
Note: This has been cross-posted on my ko-fi. There are a few other monthly updates there if you would like to read back a few months.
Webinar Report
Another monthly-ish update and another very full month. The main creative work on my plate was teaching a webinar for CHASE Medical Humanities about the visualization process I use to create my symptomatology pieces as well as how to use the poetic technique of homophonic translation to re-vision and re-own dense scientific texts.
It felt good to stretch my teaching muscles again. I’ve been teaching in some capacity since my late teens—music, yoga, and meditation—but had to stop when I got sick in 2015. Despite an ME/CFS crash the day before, I was well enough to present my webinar and the participants seemed to enjoy and get a lot out of the work. A few people even shared their symptomatology image/test pieces on social media. Here are a few:
Gillian Blekkenhorst started with a trachea and expanded their piece from there.
website: https://blekkenhorst.ca/
Twitter: @gblekkenhorst
I’m teaching a free webinar with CHASE Medical Humanities in the UK on Thursday, 26 October 2023, 5:30pm UK time, 10:30 am SK time. I’ll be leading participants through my process for creating both the visual and textual aspects of my symptomatology pieces. I’m very excited about it!
You can register here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-invisible-made-visible-a-visualization-writing-workshop-with-lia-pas-tickets-726765173197
This webinar is open to all, not just people in CHASE institutions. For the institution question in the registration I usually put n/a, and my position as independent artist.
Continue reading