This was my cancer year. Though you wouldn’t necessarily guess it from these drawings. I drew the tree on the tiny island at the Breakheart Reservation on they day I was diagnosed, running to the little oasis to find solace after receiving the dreadful news. I drew the Ipswich River at Thunder Bridge between phone calls with an oncologist who tried to include me in a medication study–then called me back half an hour later to say it was already full. This isn’t all the year’s drawings. But most of them. The (mostly) outdoors ones. In chronological order. Most drawn in pen, with no preparatory sketch, no turning back. There are big gaps when I didn’t draw, when I was too sick from radiation or chemotherapy or surgery, or when (hopefully temporary) nerve damage from chemo left me unable to use my hands. Then flurries of sketches. When I could get my decrepit self out and about. Like the evening I drew the skatepark a couple weeks after the surgery that successfully removed the cancer, and I climbed down into the bowl to photograph my son skating, and couldn’t climb back out. Ha! Thanks again to everyone for your support in helping me get through these terrible times. <3
