1 00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:06,139 ♪ Opening theme music ♪ 2 00:00:13,246 --> 00:00:17,650 Hello, and welcome to this episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation. 3 00:00:17,650 --> 00:00:19,586 My name is Diane Kolin. 4 00:00:19,919 --> 00:00:25,558 This series presents artists, academics, and project leaders who dedicate their 5 00:00:25,592 --> 00:00:31,664 time and energy to a better accessibility for people with disabilities in the arts. 6 00:00:32,098 --> 00:00:37,737 You can find more of these conversations on our website, artsably.com, 7 00:00:37,737 --> 00:00:42,909 which is spelled A-R-T-S-A-B-L-Y dot com. 8 00:00:44,077 --> 00:00:49,215 ♪ Theme music ♪ 9 00:00:55,989 --> 00:01:01,394 Today, ArtsAbly is in conversation with Lia Pas, a Saskatoon-based Canadian 10 00:01:01,428 --> 00:01:08,168 multidisciplinary artist who works in the field of music, writing, and visual arts. 11 00:01:08,268 --> 00:01:12,138 You can find the resources mentioned by Lia Pas during this episode 12 00:01:12,138 --> 00:01:16,276 on ArtsAbly's website in the blog section. 13 00:01:17,310 --> 00:01:22,449 ♪ Piano music ♪ 14 00:02:53,373 --> 00:02:57,744 Welcome to this new episode of ArtsAbly in Conversation. 15 00:02:57,744 --> 00:03:02,415 Today, I am with Lia Pas, who is a Saskatoon-based 16 00:03:02,415 --> 00:03:09,923 Canadian multidisciplinary artist who works in the field of music, writing, and visual arts. 17 00:03:09,956 --> 00:03:11,591 Welcome, Lia. 18 00:03:12,392 --> 00:03:13,893 Hi, Diane. 19 00:03:13,927 --> 00:03:15,395 Thank you for inviting me. 20 00:03:15,428 --> 00:03:17,530 Thank you for being here. 21 00:03:17,564 --> 00:03:23,770 Okay, You have a very rich history of connection with the arts, 22 00:03:23,770 --> 00:03:27,640 whether it is by writing or through music. 23 00:03:27,674 --> 00:03:33,646 I wanted to start this interview by asking you to talk about your background. 24 00:03:33,646 --> 00:03:39,319 What did you do for studies and also what led you to your studies? 25 00:03:39,352 --> 00:03:47,260 I know it's in music, and we share that - we share a particular school. 26 00:03:47,460 --> 00:03:49,629 I'll let you present yourself. 27 00:03:50,897 --> 00:03:52,332 Okay. 28 00:03:52,332 --> 00:03:55,602 My background. 29 00:03:56,369 --> 00:03:58,237 It's a long story. 30 00:03:58,271 --> 00:04:02,075 I'll try to keep it succinct. 31 00:04:02,108 --> 00:04:03,943 I love long story, by the way. 32 00:04:03,977 --> 00:04:06,779 Okay. [Laughs.] 33 00:04:09,349 --> 00:04:12,785 I was a musician. Growing up 34 00:04:12,819 --> 00:04:16,189 I played oboe and piano, primarily, 35 00:04:16,189 --> 00:04:21,861 and went through all the Royal Conservatory Music levels 36 00:04:23,429 --> 00:04:25,298 and started playing 37 00:04:25,298 --> 00:04:28,101 oboe professionally in my teens. 38 00:04:28,134 --> 00:04:32,705 I was the alternate oboeist at the Saskatoon Symphony. 39 00:04:33,306 --> 00:04:39,212 I decided to study music at York University because they had a very 40 00:04:39,212 --> 00:04:43,249 different program than most programs. 41 00:04:43,616 --> 00:04:49,022 I wanted to study world music, improvisation, all those sorts of things, 42 00:04:49,055 --> 00:04:52,425 and York was the place for that. 43 00:04:52,458 --> 00:04:55,895 So I went to York University. 44 00:04:56,429 --> 00:05:02,568 And then I ended up moving back to Saskatoon because my husband 45 00:05:02,568 --> 00:05:04,871 got a great job here. 46 00:05:04,904 --> 00:05:08,808 So we moved back to Saskatoon and settled here. 47 00:05:09,475 --> 00:05:13,846 In Saskatoon, I played with the Symphony again on oboe. 48 00:05:13,846 --> 00:05:20,053 I did a lot of [gigs], and I had a small theater company. 49 00:05:20,053 --> 00:05:23,022 We did two productions 50 00:05:23,056 --> 00:05:27,193 based on myths, The Descent of Inanna, 51 00:05:27,193 --> 00:05:29,195 and one called Baba Yaga's Hat. 52 00:05:29,228 --> 00:05:36,135 I wrote the pieces, I wrote the music, I performed in them, 53 00:05:38,538 --> 00:05:41,874 And then we moved to Japan for a couple of years 54 00:05:41,874 --> 00:05:45,211 where we taught English, and I didn't really do anything artistic 55 00:05:45,211 --> 00:05:51,184 except for go see a bunch of cool Japanese theatre 56 00:05:51,184 --> 00:05:55,088 that was my artistic thing in Japan. 57 00:05:55,088 --> 00:05:58,758 And after a couple of years there, I really wanted to get back 58 00:05:58,791 --> 00:06:02,362 into my practice, my artistic practice. 59 00:06:02,395 --> 00:06:08,101 I applied for Master's in theatre programs 60 00:06:08,401 --> 00:06:12,038 because I hadn't had any formal education in theater. 61 00:06:13,005 --> 00:06:17,877 I was accepted to a couple of places, but I chose Dartington College 62 00:06:17,910 --> 00:06:25,451 in Devon, UK, partially because they had a very multidisciplinary program, 63 00:06:25,451 --> 00:06:27,353 and they no longer exist. 64 00:06:27,387 --> 00:06:32,091 They got melded into Plymouth University, I think, but it was 65 00:06:32,125 --> 00:06:34,660 a really tiny arts college. 66 00:06:34,694 --> 00:06:40,600 I think there were four Masters in theatre students, 67 00:06:41,100 --> 00:06:47,106 but we also had multidisciplinary classes with the writing students and the music students. 68 00:06:47,140 --> 00:06:51,377 I actually ended up doing a lot of music there as well. 69 00:06:53,279 --> 00:06:57,250 But near the end of my degree, 70 00:06:57,250 --> 00:07:00,153 I got very, very sick. 71 00:07:00,553 --> 00:07:05,491 And by the time we got back to Canada, 72 00:07:05,525 --> 00:07:08,728 I ended up in hospital a week later with 73 00:07:08,728 --> 00:07:13,466 ulcerative colitis, and I almost died. 74 00:07:13,499 --> 00:07:15,601 That's no exaggeration. 75 00:07:15,635 --> 00:07:19,372 So it took me a couple of years to recover. 76 00:07:19,372 --> 00:07:26,312 So that was my first experience with chronic illness and disability 77 00:07:26,312 --> 00:07:32,685 because I couldn't work for at least a year after that. 78 00:07:34,153 --> 00:07:40,393 Because of that experience, I actually did a video piece because I wanted to get 79 00:07:40,393 --> 00:07:43,196 back into a multidisciplinary practice. 80 00:07:43,229 --> 00:07:49,569 I did a video poem called Susurration about the heart 81 00:07:49,569 --> 00:07:54,941 and my experience of having to be really, really careful about my heart 82 00:07:54,974 --> 00:07:58,678 because I was so anemic, I was at risk for a heart attack, 83 00:07:58,711 --> 00:08:04,016 so I couldn't get my heart rate up, and that took a lot of attention. 84 00:08:05,785 --> 00:08:10,590 And once I was recovered, I started teaching yoga. 85 00:08:10,623 --> 00:08:16,195 I taught yoga before we went to Japan a little bit, but I started teaching yoga 86 00:08:16,229 --> 00:08:23,369 again and started teaching voice as well. 87 00:08:23,903 --> 00:08:29,742 I forgot to say, I kind of switched from oboe to voice at some point. 88 00:08:30,843 --> 00:08:35,281 I had studied a lot with the Roy Hart 89 00:08:35,314 --> 00:08:38,417 School of voice, which is actually 90 00:08:38,451 --> 00:08:44,056 very physical and very psychological and a lot of movement and a lot of 91 00:08:44,056 --> 00:08:49,528 what is your voice and what does your voice mean? 92 00:08:50,196 --> 00:08:56,569 I taught voice and yoga for a while, and I ended up writing a lot of music 93 00:08:56,569 --> 00:09:00,172 for dancers, which was great. 94 00:09:00,172 --> 00:09:04,777 It was great to work with the body. 95 00:09:04,810 --> 00:09:09,348 A lot of the music I wrote for dancers, the dancers would make sounds as well 96 00:09:09,348 --> 00:09:11,551 as they're be hearing recordings. 97 00:09:11,584 --> 00:09:14,854 That was awesome. 98 00:09:15,788 --> 00:09:22,562 And in 2015, I was working with a dance theatre company in Calgary 99 00:09:22,595 --> 00:09:26,666 called La Caravan Dance Theatre. 100 00:09:26,699 --> 00:09:31,470 Maya Lewandowsky was the artistic director 101 00:09:31,470 --> 00:09:36,409 and choreographer and everything. 102 00:09:37,510 --> 00:09:43,449 She's now in Paris, actually, doing a lot of Roy Hart work. 103 00:09:43,449 --> 00:09:45,851 That's how we met. 104 00:09:45,851 --> 00:09:52,191 While we were devising that dance opera, 105 00:09:53,859 --> 00:09:57,563 she got a flu of some sort, and I was 106 00:09:57,596 --> 00:10:03,102 staying with her, and I also got the flu, and I was like, It's the flu. 107 00:10:03,135 --> 00:10:08,474 Went back to Saskatoon, and I never recovered. 108 00:10:08,507 --> 00:10:13,045 I was so sick. 109 00:10:14,814 --> 00:10:17,984 I couldn't do anything. I couldn't sing. 110 00:10:18,017 --> 00:10:20,853 For a while, I couldn't read or write. 111 00:10:20,853 --> 00:10:23,656 I was really, really sensitive to sounds. 112 00:10:23,689 --> 00:10:29,729 Even listening to recordings was too much for me. 113 00:10:29,729 --> 00:10:32,932 I could only do a few minutes at a time. 114 00:10:32,932 --> 00:10:39,205 Maya, actually, she finished producing the dance opera without me. 115 00:10:39,238 --> 00:10:42,642 She did use my music, and I had written the libretto as well. 116 00:10:42,675 --> 00:10:45,745 But there was another musician involved, 117 00:10:45,778 --> 00:10:51,317 Eric Mith, I think his last name is. 118 00:10:51,350 --> 00:10:53,119 Blanking on that. 119 00:10:53,152 --> 00:10:56,322 And he had written some other music. 120 00:10:56,822 --> 00:11:00,159 That's called Fihi ma Fihi. It is what it is. 121 00:11:00,192 --> 00:11:03,562 We're working with the poetry of Rumi. 122 00:11:03,596 --> 00:11:05,364 So that's online. 123 00:11:05,398 --> 00:11:06,732 That dance opera. 124 00:11:06,732 --> 00:11:12,004 But I wasn't able to perform, obviously, because I was stuck at home. 125 00:11:12,204 --> 00:11:15,741 So again, that drive to create 126 00:11:15,775 --> 00:11:20,613 got me, but I couldn't do much. 127 00:11:20,613 --> 00:11:26,719 Like I said, even writing was an issue because of brain fog. 128 00:11:27,053 --> 00:11:33,392 I was watching a lot of period dramas because they're relaxing. 129 00:11:33,426 --> 00:11:40,099 In this one period drama, this doctor told this woman to take to her bed 130 00:11:40,132 --> 00:11:44,203 and work on her embroidery, which I know is supposed to be insulting, 131 00:11:44,236 --> 00:11:47,606 but I was like, I'm in bed. 132 00:11:47,673 --> 00:11:50,843 I know some basic embroidery 133 00:11:50,843 --> 00:11:56,348 from doing some Ukrainian cross-stitch in high school. 134 00:11:56,348 --> 00:12:05,391 And so I called my mom because I knew she still had the materials. 135 00:12:05,725 --> 00:12:08,627 She brought me over a hoop and 136 00:12:08,627 --> 00:12:13,399 some thread, and I started embordering, 137 00:12:13,432 --> 00:12:18,471 and I fell in love with it. 138 00:12:18,504 --> 00:12:22,741 Absolutely fell in love with it because it was something I could do, 139 00:12:22,775 --> 00:12:26,212 and it was restful, and it was slow. 140 00:12:26,212 --> 00:12:29,415 And aside from setting up the pieces, 141 00:12:29,448 --> 00:12:34,353 it doesn't take much energy, and I would 142 00:12:34,353 --> 00:12:38,424 say it's actually restorative to me. 143 00:12:39,658 --> 00:12:43,763 But unlike most people, I did not start with a pattern. 144 00:12:43,796 --> 00:12:50,469 Most embroidery patterns, people think of flowers and words and things like that. 145 00:12:50,503 --> 00:12:54,273 I started with scientific diagrams. 146 00:12:54,273 --> 00:12:56,275 [Laughs.] 147 00:12:58,644 --> 00:13:02,848 So, a big thing that I forgot to mention 148 00:13:02,848 --> 00:13:08,120 throughout all this is I'm also a poet. 149 00:13:08,154 --> 00:13:12,291 I have a couple of books out. 150 00:13:13,225 --> 00:13:18,430 I had been writing about science and anatomy. 151 00:13:18,464 --> 00:13:24,069 My mom's a physiologist, so I grew up around anatomy and physiology. 152 00:13:24,103 --> 00:13:26,438 I started embroidery these 153 00:13:26,438 --> 00:13:29,375 text-image pieces I had made where 154 00:13:29,375 --> 00:13:34,747 I was relabeling scientific diagrams with poetry. 155 00:13:36,882 --> 00:13:39,785 That's where I started with the embroidery. 156 00:13:39,818 --> 00:13:46,692 Then at some point, I was meditating. 157 00:13:46,692 --> 00:13:52,498 I'm a long-time meditator, and I was very symptomatic that day. 158 00:13:52,531 --> 00:13:57,469 Meditation helped me because I would dissect the symptoms 159 00:13:57,469 --> 00:14:01,941 so they would be less overwhelming. 160 00:14:02,041 --> 00:14:06,178 I was tingling all over my body and 161 00:14:06,178 --> 00:14:10,749 rapid heartbeat and all these things happening. 162 00:14:10,783 --> 00:14:17,022 I started to see my sensations as embroidery stitches. 163 00:14:17,590 --> 00:14:25,064 That led me to my symptomatology series where I embroider all my symptoms. 164 00:14:27,833 --> 00:14:29,401 They're invisible. 165 00:14:29,435 --> 00:14:30,736 I look fine. 166 00:14:30,769 --> 00:14:33,539 I have an invisible disability. 167 00:14:34,106 --> 00:14:37,710 But the symptoms of ME/CFS, 168 00:14:37,743 --> 00:14:41,313 which is a post-viral ME/CFS, 169 00:14:41,347 --> 00:14:47,953 that's myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. 170 00:14:49,121 --> 00:14:51,657 They're quite overwhelming. 171 00:14:52,892 --> 00:14:55,961 I have improved a lot. 172 00:14:55,995 --> 00:14:57,830 ME/CFS is on a spectrum. 173 00:14:57,830 --> 00:15:03,836 There's extremely severe where people need feeding tubes and they can't 174 00:15:03,869 --> 00:15:09,008 handle light or sound or anything, and they can't move because 175 00:15:09,008 --> 00:15:14,146 it takes too much energy to do anything, 176 00:15:14,546 --> 00:15:17,016 all the way up to mild, 177 00:15:17,049 --> 00:15:19,385 where people can work part-time and 178 00:15:19,385 --> 00:15:22,388 leave their houses. 179 00:15:22,388 --> 00:15:25,224 I'm more moderate, 180 00:15:26,792 --> 00:15:32,865 so I would consider myself in the mild form as long as I don't leave my house. 181 00:15:32,898 --> 00:15:36,235 I can pace myself carefully. 182 00:15:36,735 --> 00:15:41,941 But if I leave the house, I'm definitely in the moderate 183 00:15:42,808 --> 00:15:45,611 area because then I can't do anything 184 00:15:45,611 --> 00:15:49,682 for the rest of the day and sometimes a couple of days after because 185 00:15:49,715 --> 00:15:53,986 I just exhausted exhausted myself from leaving the house, even being 186 00:15:53,986 --> 00:15:56,722 pushed around in a transport chair. 187 00:15:56,755 --> 00:15:58,090 I can't. 188 00:15:58,090 --> 00:15:59,892 It's too much. 189 00:16:02,161 --> 00:16:04,263 That's what I was going to say. I have improved. 190 00:16:04,296 --> 00:16:10,869 I was more on the severe spectrum, not extremely severe, but more severe. 191 00:16:10,903 --> 00:16:18,410 At one point, I shaved my head because washing was too exhausting. 192 00:16:19,011 --> 00:16:24,483 But now I can wash myself and make simple meals and things like that. 193 00:16:24,516 --> 00:16:30,022 I've added music back into it, but slightly differently. 194 00:16:30,456 --> 00:16:32,658 I can't sing. 195 00:16:32,691 --> 00:16:36,362 It's too exhausting to sing, though I started doing 196 00:16:36,395 --> 00:16:42,768 some really simple vocal warmups for five minutes every couple of weeks, 197 00:16:42,768 --> 00:16:46,338 but I'm able to play the piano again. 198 00:16:46,372 --> 00:16:53,212 Most days, 10 to 15 minutes at a time, and that's about it. 199 00:16:53,212 --> 00:16:55,547 I've been improvising. 200 00:16:55,581 --> 00:16:59,651 I'm finding writing music is too much 201 00:16:59,685 --> 00:17:06,258 of a cognitive issue, like translating 202 00:17:06,291 --> 00:17:11,997 the music into a score takes too... 203 00:17:12,030 --> 00:17:18,270 There's some disconnect there now where it used to be very, very easy for me. 204 00:17:18,303 --> 00:17:22,741 But I can improvise. I can make up music on the fly and record it. 205 00:17:22,775 --> 00:17:28,580 So that's been my focus with my music. 206 00:17:28,614 --> 00:17:32,818 And broidery and music, and I am writing 207 00:17:32,851 --> 00:17:37,523 some poetry and some essays. 208 00:17:40,325 --> 00:17:45,964 That's my very long and complicated background. 209 00:17:46,265 --> 00:17:49,334 I want to ask about the poetry. 210 00:17:49,368 --> 00:17:53,639 Did you start working on poetry before you got sick, 211 00:17:53,672 --> 00:17:58,977 or did it come with this 212 00:17:58,977 --> 00:18:02,681 moment where you wanted to go back to the arts? 213 00:18:03,082 --> 00:18:07,019 No, I've always written poetry 214 00:18:08,353 --> 00:18:13,959 My first book was published in 2003. 215 00:18:13,992 --> 00:18:16,562 Oh, no, there was one before that. 216 00:18:16,595 --> 00:18:21,333 Maybe in the 1990s, I had a chapbook published. 217 00:18:21,366 --> 00:18:24,303 Yeah, I've always written poetry. 218 00:18:24,336 --> 00:18:30,742 My uncle was a poet, and he was a sound poet. 219 00:18:30,776 --> 00:18:34,713 My uncle, through marriage, I shouldn't say that, my uncle, through marriage, 220 00:18:34,746 --> 00:18:37,082 he married my dad's sister, 221 00:18:37,082 --> 00:18:44,823 was bpNichol, who was a sound poet and another poet. 222 00:18:45,257 --> 00:18:47,793 He was very influential on me. 223 00:18:47,826 --> 00:18:52,831 In fact, he was the one who mentioned York University as a good place for me to go 224 00:18:52,865 --> 00:18:58,403 because we had collaborated with some of the music professors there at the time. 225 00:18:58,403 --> 00:19:03,242 He really mentored me with my poetry. 226 00:19:03,275 --> 00:19:06,245 He died while I was a teenager. 227 00:19:06,278 --> 00:19:08,580 But yeah, I've always written. 228 00:19:08,614 --> 00:19:16,288 I've always written poetry and libretto and scripts. 229 00:19:16,288 --> 00:19:21,193 At York University, you did some... 230 00:19:21,193 --> 00:19:25,097 At York, you studied some improvisation, right? 231 00:19:25,130 --> 00:19:26,365 Yes. 232 00:19:26,498 --> 00:19:29,201 So people like Casey Sokol, for example, right? 233 00:19:29,234 --> 00:19:30,602 Yes. 234 00:19:30,936 --> 00:19:32,838 He's amazing. 235 00:19:32,871 --> 00:19:34,573 Casey is great. 236 00:19:35,140 --> 00:19:37,342 Most people don't realize that 237 00:19:37,376 --> 00:19:42,181 there are improvisatory techniques. 238 00:19:42,214 --> 00:19:46,251 There's a different style, there's different ways to do it, 239 00:19:46,285 --> 00:19:49,321 there's different things to think about. 240 00:19:49,788 --> 00:19:55,160 I would say my improvisations now are more melodic and more like 241 00:19:55,160 --> 00:19:58,664 what I would call spontaneous composition. 242 00:19:59,097 --> 00:20:02,367 I'll come up with a theme and return to it again and again 243 00:20:02,367 --> 00:20:05,871 throughout the improvisation, things like that. 244 00:20:05,904 --> 00:20:11,710 My improvisations are more chill than they used to be, mostly because 245 00:20:11,710 --> 00:20:18,584 I want to stay calm while I'm playing, so I don't overextend myself. 246 00:20:18,617 --> 00:20:24,222 But I used to be into really experimental wild stuff. 247 00:20:24,256 --> 00:20:27,125 The wilder, the better. 248 00:20:28,026 --> 00:20:33,632 There's a big range in what you can do through improvisation, 249 00:20:33,665 --> 00:20:37,469 but I love improvising. 250 00:20:37,736 --> 00:20:42,808 How did the evolution of your life 251 00:20:42,808 --> 00:20:48,847 with being sick and feeling the need to 252 00:20:49,181 --> 00:20:52,718 find other ways to create your art, 253 00:20:52,751 --> 00:20:59,091 how did it... I guess your style evolved with that. 254 00:20:59,091 --> 00:21:01,193 How did it impact it? 255 00:21:02,294 --> 00:21:07,165 Oh, that's an excellent question. 256 00:21:07,799 --> 00:21:11,703 I mean, the big... 257 00:21:11,703 --> 00:21:15,307 I think the big sort of 258 00:21:15,307 --> 00:21:17,175 shift 259 00:21:17,175 --> 00:21:20,612 was the susurrations videopoem that I mentioned 260 00:21:20,612 --> 00:21:25,150 about the heart where I... 261 00:21:25,183 --> 00:21:30,789 I mean, I had done a lot of yoga and meditation and stuff. 262 00:21:31,089 --> 00:21:37,663 Like I said, the Roy Hart work is very physical and psychological and full body. 263 00:21:39,431 --> 00:21:46,705 But it made me look at my body as 264 00:21:46,705 --> 00:21:51,977 both instrument and inspiration, I would say. 265 00:21:53,545 --> 00:21:59,818 So making art about my symptoms started with that. 266 00:22:03,388 --> 00:22:07,059 And if it's very... 267 00:22:07,059 --> 00:22:10,462 I remember once talking with 268 00:22:10,462 --> 00:22:12,531 a psychotherapist, and she's like, 269 00:22:12,564 --> 00:22:17,602 I don't know if this is healthy to use your symptoms to make art. 270 00:22:17,636 --> 00:22:25,444 I was like, No, it is probably the healthiest thing I could be doing 271 00:22:25,477 --> 00:22:31,883 because it allows me to both accept and deal with my symptoms. 272 00:22:32,050 --> 00:22:38,123 So a lot of my art involves understanding the physiology 273 00:22:38,156 --> 00:22:43,662 behind my symptoms, understanding my own anatomy and how it's working 274 00:22:43,695 --> 00:22:46,798 or not working, what's going on with it. 275 00:22:46,832 --> 00:22:51,636 And I do think a big part of being someone with a chronic illness is accepting 276 00:22:51,670 --> 00:22:54,005 your limitations, especially 277 00:22:54,039 --> 00:22:58,810 with ME/CFS, because you're so limited. 278 00:22:58,844 --> 00:23:02,147 If you overextend cognitively 279 00:23:02,180 --> 00:23:05,484 or physically or even emotionally, 280 00:23:05,484 --> 00:23:13,392 you get what's called post-exertional malaise or PEM, as we call it. 281 00:23:13,425 --> 00:23:14,893 You basically... 282 00:23:14,926 --> 00:23:19,431 I mean, you feel like you have the flu all the time, but 283 00:23:19,431 --> 00:23:25,070 you feel like you have a really bad flu if you get PEM, if you exert yourself. 284 00:23:25,103 --> 00:23:31,610 So accepting your limitations and 285 00:23:31,610 --> 00:23:36,581 living within those constraints 286 00:23:37,682 --> 00:23:42,721 can actually be very freeing in a way. 287 00:23:42,754 --> 00:23:47,325 I know a lot of artists and writers and musicians even talk about using 288 00:23:47,359 --> 00:23:53,665 constraint as an artistic guide, I guess. 289 00:23:53,698 --> 00:23:57,202 I've taken that to heart. 290 00:23:57,235 --> 00:24:02,808 Constraint equals freedom in some ways, both with chronic illness 291 00:24:02,841 --> 00:24:06,344 and with art, I would say. 292 00:24:07,179 --> 00:24:09,314 Did I answer your question? 293 00:24:09,347 --> 00:24:13,018 I wandered all over the place. 294 00:24:13,485 --> 00:24:14,386 No, it's great. 295 00:24:14,386 --> 00:24:20,792 I love the idea of, of course, it's important to recognize 296 00:24:20,826 --> 00:24:25,964 in what state of mind and of body you are when you create art. 297 00:24:25,997 --> 00:24:30,502 I don't think there is anything wrong in 298 00:24:31,069 --> 00:24:33,104 using the reality of whatever 299 00:24:33,138 --> 00:24:37,142 the situation is to be part of that. 300 00:24:38,310 --> 00:24:39,578 Yes. 301 00:24:39,778 --> 00:24:43,849 One thing that's happened with some of my symptomatology embroideries 302 00:24:43,849 --> 00:24:48,053 is people have taken screenshots of them to their doctors to help explain 303 00:24:48,053 --> 00:24:53,925 their symptoms, which I'm just like, wow, 304 00:24:53,992 --> 00:24:56,761 it's like, oh, my God, I'm tearing up. 305 00:24:56,795 --> 00:25:03,802 That is so amazing because it's easier 306 00:25:03,835 --> 00:25:06,505 for them to just say, Oh, here 307 00:25:06,538 --> 00:25:13,812 is where I'm tingling on my body, exactly like this woman who is tingling. 308 00:25:14,179 --> 00:25:18,717 It really surprised me when I started sharing my symptomatology embroideries online, 309 00:25:18,717 --> 00:25:24,189 how many people were Oh, my God, that's exactly how I feel. 310 00:25:24,256 --> 00:25:28,527 Because I thought I was doing self-portraits, but people 311 00:25:28,527 --> 00:25:33,265 with the same symptoms were like, This is how I feel, which is incredible. 312 00:25:33,298 --> 00:25:36,468 I mean, it blows my mind still. 313 00:25:37,135 --> 00:25:40,372 Can you tell me more about these embroideries that you're making? 314 00:25:40,372 --> 00:25:43,174 What is the process? 315 00:25:43,441 --> 00:25:47,012 You told me that it really came from the 316 00:25:47,045 --> 00:25:51,049 fact that your mom is also a scientist? 317 00:25:51,082 --> 00:25:53,318 Yeah, she's a physiologist. 318 00:25:53,351 --> 00:25:54,252 Oh, physiologist. 319 00:25:54,286 --> 00:26:00,091 You grew up with these imageries of bodies. 320 00:26:00,525 --> 00:26:03,461 Now you have your own body. 321 00:26:03,495 --> 00:26:11,069 How do you connect that, these two parts of your life in embroidering? 322 00:26:11,970 --> 00:26:19,044 Well, I have a whole shelf of anatomy books. 323 00:26:19,077 --> 00:26:22,681 Actually, It's funny. 324 00:26:22,681 --> 00:26:26,351 My mom loves my embroidery. 325 00:26:26,384 --> 00:26:27,786 She's retired now. 326 00:26:27,786 --> 00:26:31,289 But for my birthday every year, 327 00:26:31,289 --> 00:26:35,493 I give her a list of anatomy art books, 328 00:26:35,493 --> 00:26:40,231 and she'll buy me one for my birthday every year. 329 00:26:40,265 --> 00:26:43,902 I have this great collection of anatomy books. 330 00:26:43,935 --> 00:26:50,642 Some of them are medical textbooks, but some of them are historical anatomy art. 331 00:26:51,710 --> 00:26:57,349 When I'm about to make a piece, I'll usually focus on 332 00:26:57,382 --> 00:26:59,918 wherever I am symptomatic. 333 00:26:59,951 --> 00:27:05,290 If I'm thinking about my tingling, I'll work on a piece about tingling. 334 00:27:05,323 --> 00:27:08,393 If I'm thinking about my liver, I have some liver issues, 335 00:27:08,426 --> 00:27:10,695 I'll investigate the liver. 336 00:27:10,729 --> 00:27:17,068 I'll look through my anatomy books and find, usually, a historical engraving 337 00:27:17,102 --> 00:27:20,605 to base the piece around. 338 00:27:20,605 --> 00:27:24,075 So I've also traced my body parts. 339 00:27:24,109 --> 00:27:28,013 I have a series of hands where I've traced my hand. 340 00:27:29,781 --> 00:27:36,588 And then I'll do a bit of research so I understand how everything works together. 341 00:27:36,621 --> 00:27:43,395 And I'll stitch the base image, 342 00:27:43,428 --> 00:27:46,598 so based on the historical engraving. 343 00:27:46,631 --> 00:27:49,901 And then I'll do the symptomatology stuff on top. 344 00:27:49,934 --> 00:27:52,837 And that's I've usually done freehand. 345 00:27:52,871 --> 00:27:56,141 I don't plan much of it out. 346 00:27:56,174 --> 00:28:00,812 I really go inside my body and it's like, What am I feeling? 347 00:28:00,812 --> 00:28:04,549 And stitch those sensations. 348 00:28:05,483 --> 00:28:10,088 Sometimes I'll work off my medical imaging. 349 00:28:10,088 --> 00:28:15,026 Unfortunately, in Saskatchewan, it's very hard to get the actual images of 350 00:28:15,026 --> 00:28:20,932 your medical imaging, but I will always ask, 351 00:28:20,932 --> 00:28:25,670 and often the radiologist or whoever 352 00:28:25,670 --> 00:28:28,606 will show me the images on the screen. 353 00:28:28,606 --> 00:28:32,977 And then when I get home, I sketch it out really fast. 354 00:28:34,446 --> 00:28:38,049 So, yeah, there's different stages. 355 00:28:38,083 --> 00:28:42,754 Some of the symptomatology stories are more abstract. 356 00:28:42,787 --> 00:28:46,491 There's one about fatigue called neurasthenia. 357 00:28:46,491 --> 00:28:47,892 That's more abstract. 358 00:28:47,926 --> 00:28:51,830 Some of them are very, very visceral and very medical-looking. 359 00:28:51,830 --> 00:28:56,968 I have one called Bleeding Vessel, which is of my uterus. 360 00:28:56,968 --> 00:29:03,007 I took the measurements of my fibroids, beated that on. 361 00:29:03,007 --> 00:29:06,711 I was diagnosed with very, very early stage endometrial cancer 362 00:29:06,711 --> 00:29:10,348 and beated that on. 363 00:29:10,582 --> 00:29:14,519 I actually finished that piece while I was recovering from my hysterectomy. 364 00:29:14,552 --> 00:29:24,129 I show my pieces to my doctors as well. 365 00:29:24,262 --> 00:29:28,333 Sometimes, I know when I was dealing with some liver stuff, 366 00:29:28,333 --> 00:29:34,072 I was working on my liver piece, and I met with this surgeon, and I said, 367 00:29:34,105 --> 00:29:39,878 I haven't seen my imaging, but you have, where are the structures in my biodex? 368 00:29:39,911 --> 00:29:42,046 Can you point them out on this embroidery? 369 00:29:42,080 --> 00:29:44,382 And he was like, It's amazing. 370 00:29:44,415 --> 00:29:46,184 This is great. 371 00:29:47,552 --> 00:29:53,424 So I often start a deeper conversation 372 00:29:53,458 --> 00:29:56,628 with my doctors because they understand that 373 00:29:56,661 --> 00:30:01,799 I understand enough of the physiology and enough of the medical terminology 374 00:30:01,833 --> 00:30:09,607 that there's more communication between me and my doctors. 375 00:30:11,543 --> 00:30:18,183 It's a whole process, and a lot - my pieces keep getting bigger and bigger. 376 00:30:18,216 --> 00:30:23,221 Actually, this one I just recently finished, but it still needs to be 377 00:30:23,221 --> 00:30:25,023 washed some more and ironed. 378 00:30:25,056 --> 00:30:28,193 This is probably my biggest piece to date. 379 00:30:28,393 --> 00:30:31,362 This is a vagus nerve. 380 00:30:31,396 --> 00:30:36,301 I'm just going to scroll it up because it's so big. 381 00:30:38,403 --> 00:30:42,073 The blue is from an engraving, 382 00:30:42,106 --> 00:30:48,012 and all the colors are symptomatology. 383 00:30:48,713 --> 00:30:51,316 Wow, it took about one year? 384 00:30:51,349 --> 00:30:56,588 About a year. Because embroidery is slow. 385 00:30:56,621 --> 00:30:57,522 Yes. 386 00:30:57,555 --> 00:31:01,226 Which is part of also your process of creating, right? 387 00:31:01,226 --> 00:31:05,063 It's something that you can do in your rhythm. 388 00:31:05,730 --> 00:31:06,764 Yeah. 389 00:31:06,798 --> 00:31:08,933 It's something I can do reclining. 390 00:31:08,967 --> 00:31:13,304 I mean, right now I'm reclining back in my studio. 391 00:31:13,338 --> 00:31:15,907 I have a chaise longue. 392 00:31:15,940 --> 00:31:18,076 So my legs are stretched out. 393 00:31:18,109 --> 00:31:25,350 I can lean back and I'll I just hold my embroidery hoop and sit here and stitch. 394 00:31:25,383 --> 00:31:26,985 It's like I'm sitting up in bed. 395 00:31:27,018 --> 00:31:30,421 It's very relaxing. 396 00:31:30,455 --> 00:31:33,524 For those in the podcast, we just saw - 397 00:31:33,524 --> 00:31:37,562 it's a long piece of embroidery, right? 398 00:31:37,595 --> 00:31:39,430 It's a long piece of fabric. 399 00:31:39,464 --> 00:31:45,270 It's green, and the embroidery is blue and yellow, right? 400 00:31:45,370 --> 00:31:49,340 Yeah, there's mostly blue and yellow embroidery. There's some red. 401 00:31:49,340 --> 00:31:56,347 There's a red heart, and in the abdomen area, there's a bunch of burgundy stitching. 402 00:31:57,382 --> 00:31:58,816 Very nice. 403 00:31:59,183 --> 00:32:02,153 Okay, thank you for that part. 404 00:32:02,153 --> 00:32:05,790 I want to switch to the other part now, which is the music, 405 00:32:05,823 --> 00:32:08,293 which is coming back to the piano. 406 00:32:08,293 --> 00:32:14,065 When did you come back and what happened exactly to give you the energy and 407 00:32:14,065 --> 00:32:16,934 the confidence to go back to your piano? 408 00:32:17,902 --> 00:32:25,610 One of the symptoms that is really common in ME/CFS is hyperacusis. 409 00:32:25,610 --> 00:32:30,315 That means you hear too much, which is 410 00:32:30,315 --> 00:32:34,552 probably the worst symptom for a musician. 411 00:32:35,420 --> 00:32:39,190 But it's not just that sounds are too loud. 412 00:32:39,223 --> 00:32:42,527 It's like you can't differentiate between sounds. 413 00:32:42,560 --> 00:32:46,397 They become all muddied together. 414 00:32:46,964 --> 00:32:49,467 And there's also a pain component to it, 415 00:32:49,467 --> 00:32:52,837 but not necessarily pain in your ears. 416 00:32:52,870 --> 00:32:56,040 It can be pain throughout your entire body. 417 00:32:56,607 --> 00:33:00,378 So I'm especially sensitive to low-pitched 418 00:33:00,411 --> 00:33:04,649 rumbling sounds like construction or lawn mowers, 419 00:33:04,649 --> 00:33:06,851 those sorts of sounds. 420 00:33:06,884 --> 00:33:12,657 So if there's roadwork nearby, 421 00:33:12,690 --> 00:33:15,193 which has been happening lately, 422 00:33:15,226 --> 00:33:19,197 I'll use noise-canceling headphones. 423 00:33:19,230 --> 00:33:20,898 But sometimes that isn't enough. 424 00:33:20,932 --> 00:33:25,703 And the next day, my entire body 425 00:33:25,737 --> 00:33:29,107 will ache, and brain fog, can't think, 426 00:33:29,107 --> 00:33:32,110 that sort of thing. 427 00:33:32,143 --> 00:33:35,947 So this was a very disturbing symptom to me. 428 00:33:35,980 --> 00:33:38,449 So I did a bunch of research 429 00:33:38,449 --> 00:33:43,354 and went through this very long, 430 00:33:43,388 --> 00:33:47,992 month-long desensitization process. 431 00:33:48,026 --> 00:33:55,266 So that involved using pink and brown noise, which are... 432 00:33:55,299 --> 00:33:56,601 Brown noise is like... 433 00:33:56,634 --> 00:34:01,672 It sounds like the rush of a waterfall or ocean waves. 434 00:34:02,473 --> 00:34:06,811 It's fairly low-pitched, but complex, 435 00:34:06,811 --> 00:34:10,515 but it's also very relaxing to the nervous system. 436 00:34:12,050 --> 00:34:18,990 I usually listen to nature sounds in my studio, which is a hyperacusis trick 437 00:34:19,023 --> 00:34:24,896 because it masks sounds that I'm sensitive to, 438 00:34:24,896 --> 00:34:28,433 but it also relaxes the nervous system. 439 00:34:29,600 --> 00:34:34,372 I very, very, very slowly listened to 440 00:34:34,372 --> 00:34:38,342 one minute of music on a speaker 441 00:34:38,376 --> 00:34:45,583 for weeks until that felt okay, and then added a minute, and then added a minute. 442 00:34:45,616 --> 00:34:50,121 So very, very slowly got my body used to 443 00:34:50,154 --> 00:34:53,024 not not only hearing music in headphones 444 00:34:53,057 --> 00:34:58,229 or earbud, but in the air around me. 445 00:34:59,864 --> 00:35:04,869 I was also working with a doctor 446 00:35:04,869 --> 00:35:07,071 who knew about ME/CFS. 447 00:35:07,071 --> 00:35:11,742 It took about a year to get in to see him, and he had supplements and 448 00:35:11,776 --> 00:35:16,581 dietary changes and other ideas to help 449 00:35:16,614 --> 00:35:20,485 improve my energy, and he really helped. 450 00:35:20,785 --> 00:35:26,624 And I'm on a medication that's usually 451 00:35:26,657 --> 00:35:30,628 used for alcohol addiction, 452 00:35:30,661 --> 00:35:36,400 but in a very low dose, it helps heal the nervous system called Naltrexone. 453 00:35:36,434 --> 00:35:40,838 So I'm on low dose of Naltrexone, and that was huge for me. 454 00:35:40,872 --> 00:35:44,375 That changed so much for me. 455 00:35:44,609 --> 00:35:50,114 And then I felt like I could sit up at the piano for, again, 456 00:35:50,148 --> 00:35:52,950 one minute minute until that felt okay. 457 00:35:52,984 --> 00:35:55,253 Add a minute, add a minute, add a minute. 458 00:35:55,286 --> 00:35:59,891 So these are months long each stage. 459 00:36:00,992 --> 00:36:06,464 And now I can do 10 or 15 minutes at the piano. 460 00:36:06,497 --> 00:36:11,369 Though sometimes things happen and I crash. 461 00:36:11,369 --> 00:36:15,506 I have a bad physical crash. 462 00:36:15,540 --> 00:36:19,744 So after my hysterectomy or if I'm hospitalized 463 00:36:19,777 --> 00:36:26,184 because my liver has acted up, I'll sometimes have to build myself up again, 464 00:36:26,217 --> 00:36:28,619 not necessarily from nothing anymore. 465 00:36:28,653 --> 00:36:33,291 I can start with five minutes instead of one minute. 466 00:36:34,792 --> 00:36:37,762 But I've had to do that repeatedly, 467 00:36:37,762 --> 00:36:41,866 build myself up until I get to something that - 468 00:36:43,167 --> 00:36:46,771 I've realized that even one minute is useful. 469 00:36:46,804 --> 00:36:53,544 When you miss something that much, even one minute is like, Oh, 470 00:36:53,578 --> 00:36:55,213 I did it for one minute. 471 00:36:55,213 --> 00:36:56,714 It's amazing. 472 00:36:56,747 --> 00:36:59,784 How do you improvise for one minute? 473 00:36:59,817 --> 00:37:02,086 That's a very small constraint. 474 00:37:02,086 --> 00:37:05,623 Then you can come up with some interesting things. 475 00:37:07,191 --> 00:37:11,162 It was a very, very slow process. 476 00:37:11,729 --> 00:37:15,233 But right now, it's good. 477 00:37:15,266 --> 00:37:21,372 Right now, I'm back for 15 minutes or so. Yeah. 478 00:37:22,306 --> 00:37:26,544 And I think you also have a release that is coming up, right? 479 00:37:26,577 --> 00:37:28,312 Oh, that's right. 480 00:37:28,312 --> 00:37:30,314 [Laughs.] 481 00:37:32,049 --> 00:37:32,917 Yes. 482 00:37:32,950 --> 00:37:38,255 I released my first recording since getting sick. 483 00:37:38,289 --> 00:37:40,925 It's called The Hum. 484 00:37:40,992 --> 00:37:47,932 It's actually based on the hyperacusus symptoms I was talking about before. 485 00:37:48,532 --> 00:37:51,535 Not only am I sensitive to low pitch sounds, 486 00:37:51,535 --> 00:37:56,540 I hear this constant low pitched hum all the time. 487 00:37:56,540 --> 00:38:01,012 It's very quiet, but it's there constantly. 488 00:38:02,146 --> 00:38:04,548 It's a D. 489 00:38:04,548 --> 00:38:08,085 It's a low D. 490 00:38:08,352 --> 00:38:12,023 I also have tinnitus, and that's an A. 491 00:38:12,056 --> 00:38:16,093 Thankfully, they work well together. 492 00:38:16,093 --> 00:38:21,365 The Hum, the piece The Hum. 493 00:38:21,365 --> 00:38:28,039 I have these low-pitched layer drones on a D, and I have a piano line 494 00:38:28,072 --> 00:38:31,909 that's around an A that's quite high. 495 00:38:31,942 --> 00:38:35,313 So the hum masks 496 00:38:35,346 --> 00:38:40,751 my hyperacusus hum and my tinnitus. 497 00:38:41,986 --> 00:38:44,755 It's very relaxing. 498 00:38:44,789 --> 00:38:46,957 I've gotten some messages from people saying, 499 00:38:46,957 --> 00:38:49,593 I've added this to my meditation mix. 500 00:38:49,627 --> 00:38:53,464 I play this before before I go to sleep at night. 501 00:38:54,031 --> 00:38:59,036 I composed it as therapeutic music, 502 00:38:59,036 --> 00:39:02,006 I guess you could say, for myself, but 503 00:39:02,039 --> 00:39:05,376 other people are feeling that as well. 504 00:39:05,843 --> 00:39:13,317 The editing took forever because for some reason, music editing 505 00:39:13,351 --> 00:39:18,189 is very cognitively taxing 506 00:39:18,222 --> 00:39:21,092 for me, even though I like doing it. 507 00:39:21,092 --> 00:39:25,896 I can do 20 minutes and then I'm done. 508 00:39:26,063 --> 00:39:32,703 Getting a really organic drone underneath the piano part. 509 00:39:32,737 --> 00:39:37,708 I think I've got four or five different sounds, and I wanted them 510 00:39:37,708 --> 00:39:40,010 to cycle through each other. 511 00:39:40,010 --> 00:39:42,246 Getting that going took a fair bit 512 00:39:42,279 --> 00:39:47,618 of editing, but apparently, I got there, 513 00:39:47,651 --> 00:39:50,888 according to what the people were saying. 514 00:39:50,921 --> 00:39:56,694 I was very happy to be like, Oh, I finished something. 515 00:39:56,727 --> 00:40:01,265 Wow. It's about 10 minutes long. 516 00:40:01,365 --> 00:40:03,701 Yeah, The Hum. 517 00:40:04,068 --> 00:40:06,403 How long did it take to record it? 518 00:40:06,437 --> 00:40:08,405 Oh, months. 519 00:40:08,539 --> 00:40:10,674 I don't remember. 520 00:40:10,708 --> 00:40:14,445 Maybe, it's probably more than a year. 521 00:40:15,212 --> 00:40:18,349 Yeah, including the editing. 522 00:40:18,349 --> 00:40:24,722 The recording, I think I did the piano because I wanted to be fairly specific 523 00:40:24,755 --> 00:40:28,092 about it, I did it in a few different sessions. 524 00:40:28,092 --> 00:40:32,696 But that probably took about a month. 525 00:40:32,730 --> 00:40:36,767 Then, like I said, the editing of the drone 526 00:40:36,767 --> 00:40:40,137 took a very long time, months and months. 527 00:40:40,704 --> 00:40:42,706 Well, congratulations. 528 00:40:42,873 --> 00:40:44,675 Thank you. 529 00:40:44,675 --> 00:40:49,480 I was very happy to finish it and put it out into the world. 530 00:40:49,513 --> 00:40:53,517 Well, I will put all the links to listen to it and to purchase it 531 00:40:53,551 --> 00:40:56,086 on ArtsAbly's website. 532 00:40:56,086 --> 00:40:57,621 Thank you. 533 00:40:57,888 --> 00:41:03,928 Okay, I have a last question for you before we end our conversation, 534 00:41:03,928 --> 00:41:09,900 which is about collaborations or interesting people in your life 535 00:41:09,900 --> 00:41:13,537 who might have inspired you 536 00:41:13,537 --> 00:41:18,876 to do whatever you were doing today or how things turned in your life. 537 00:41:18,909 --> 00:41:22,213 If you had one or two people to think of and to name, 538 00:41:22,213 --> 00:41:24,882 who would it be and why? 539 00:41:24,982 --> 00:41:29,487 Well, I'm going to mention my husband 540 00:41:29,487 --> 00:41:34,225 because he is so supportive 541 00:41:34,325 --> 00:41:36,460 and so helpful. 542 00:41:36,494 --> 00:41:42,566 He makes my life easy enough 543 00:41:42,566 --> 00:41:45,436 that I can do my creative work. 544 00:41:45,469 --> 00:41:49,240 He's very 545 00:41:49,240 --> 00:41:54,545 physically supportive in terms of that. 546 00:41:55,246 --> 00:42:02,453 I mean, marriages often fall apart when one partner gets ME/CFS because 547 00:42:02,453 --> 00:42:06,690 you're not the person you were before. 548 00:42:06,690 --> 00:42:10,227 But he's stuck by me. 549 00:42:10,261 --> 00:42:13,264 He's the cook in the family, so I just have to assemble meals. 550 00:42:13,297 --> 00:42:16,700 I don't have to cook things from scratch. 551 00:42:16,734 --> 00:42:21,005 If I need embroidery threads, he'll either take me to shop 552 00:42:21,038 --> 00:42:26,510 or I'll tell him which colors I need and he'll pick them up for me. 553 00:42:26,543 --> 00:42:30,247 He's just really, really, really helpful. 554 00:42:30,281 --> 00:42:34,752 And he understands how important it is for me to be creative, 555 00:42:34,785 --> 00:42:36,186 because when I'm not creative. 556 00:42:36,186 --> 00:42:39,890 I am a mess, psychologically. 557 00:42:39,890 --> 00:42:44,628 I get very depressed and it's just very bad. 558 00:42:44,662 --> 00:42:47,598 And he knows this about me. 559 00:42:47,631 --> 00:42:53,570 We got married in our early 20s, so we've been married for 560 00:42:53,604 --> 00:42:57,608 over 30 years now, so he gets me. 561 00:42:59,176 --> 00:43:05,182 Other creative people I've worked with, I'm going to mention Opera Mariposa, 562 00:43:05,215 --> 00:43:08,352 which other people may have mentioned on the podcast, 563 00:43:08,385 --> 00:43:13,490 but what they're doing in terms of 564 00:43:15,059 --> 00:43:16,727 awareness campaigns, 565 00:43:16,760 --> 00:43:23,100 their May awareness campaign for ME/CFS and fibromyalgia is incredible. 566 00:43:23,734 --> 00:43:27,304 It's like this little community forms for a month, 567 00:43:27,304 --> 00:43:30,240 and we share each other's work, and it's wonderful. 568 00:43:30,274 --> 00:43:35,279 It's not just opera artist, it's visual artists 569 00:43:35,279 --> 00:43:39,717 and writers and art activists. 570 00:43:39,750 --> 00:43:46,623 They've really created a beautiful thing with their May Awareness campaign. 571 00:43:46,657 --> 00:43:50,527 Yeah, and they're great to work with. 572 00:43:50,527 --> 00:43:55,032 Stephanie and Jacqueline Ko, the sisters who run Opera Mariposa, 573 00:43:55,032 --> 00:43:59,470 they both have ME/CFS, so they get it. 574 00:43:59,503 --> 00:44:05,075 They give us lots of time to get our work to them, and 575 00:44:05,075 --> 00:44:09,146 they're just really wonderful to work with. 576 00:44:09,179 --> 00:44:15,486 I'm always in awe of Jacqueline's singing because I can't sing, but I used to sing, 577 00:44:15,486 --> 00:44:22,059 but she's got this incredibly powerful voice, and she must have 578 00:44:22,092 --> 00:44:26,063 an incredible pacing technique because... 579 00:44:26,096 --> 00:44:27,731 Wow. 580 00:44:29,233 --> 00:44:32,536 I've also met through them, Christina Baltais, 581 00:44:32,536 --> 00:44:37,508 who's a Toronto artist, visual artist. She does collage work. 582 00:44:37,541 --> 00:44:43,313 She has ME/CFS, and she does gorgeous collages. 583 00:44:43,347 --> 00:44:48,052 A lot of it about her symptoms, not all of it, but a lot of it about her symptoms. 584 00:44:48,085 --> 00:44:52,122 Really powerful, beautiful work. 585 00:44:54,291 --> 00:44:58,862 And I think if there is anyone else. 586 00:45:00,297 --> 00:45:06,737 I mean, there's so many fiber artists online 587 00:45:07,071 --> 00:45:11,208 that I love and have connected with. 588 00:45:11,575 --> 00:45:16,280 Laura Bundesen also does scientific 589 00:45:16,313 --> 00:45:20,717 emboideries, mostly about the brain. 590 00:45:20,751 --> 00:45:22,686 Just beautiful. 591 00:45:22,686 --> 00:45:28,025 Very different from my work, but gorgeous. 592 00:45:28,058 --> 00:45:34,264 She's been great helping me figure out the nuts and bolts of things like, 593 00:45:34,264 --> 00:45:38,102 How much do you sell a piece of embroidery for? 594 00:45:38,135 --> 00:45:41,672 Because it takes you hours to do. 595 00:45:43,340 --> 00:45:46,376 She's been really helpful. 596 00:45:46,410 --> 00:45:52,049 There's a really great sci-art community on social media 597 00:45:52,049 --> 00:45:55,252 who has been really supportive of my work. 598 00:45:55,252 --> 00:45:58,388 Glendon Mellow is the guy who started all that. 599 00:45:58,422 --> 00:46:00,290 He's in Toronto. 600 00:46:02,326 --> 00:46:08,432 Yeah, so lots of people, not all disability-related. 601 00:46:08,766 --> 00:46:14,104 But yeah, any art gets done in a community. 602 00:46:14,138 --> 00:46:15,906 Yeah. Thank you so much. 603 00:46:15,939 --> 00:46:21,345 I was wondering, are you exhibiting your embroideries? 604 00:46:22,813 --> 00:46:27,651 Mostly online, to tell the truth. 605 00:46:27,651 --> 00:46:32,789 I am trying to figure out if I have the energy to frame them myself 606 00:46:32,856 --> 00:46:36,426 or if I need to shop that out. 607 00:46:36,460 --> 00:46:39,596 So I've gotten the basic materials 608 00:46:39,630 --> 00:46:44,568 to stretch my embroideries on map board, 609 00:46:44,568 --> 00:46:50,607 but I haven't gotten to the point of actually trying that out yet. 610 00:46:50,607 --> 00:46:55,112 So I do have one piece in the Saskatchewan Arts Board Permanent Collection 611 00:46:55,145 --> 00:46:56,880 but they took care of the framing. 612 00:46:56,914 --> 00:47:00,150 So that was awesome. 613 00:47:00,184 --> 00:47:04,288 So that piece gets rented out as part of their art bank. 614 00:47:04,288 --> 00:47:08,158 So it might be up somewhere right now. 615 00:47:09,726 --> 00:47:14,498 But mostly online, just because of the framing thing, 616 00:47:14,498 --> 00:47:20,204 this is still a hump I need to get over. 617 00:47:21,538 --> 00:47:24,208 My husband was a visual artist. 618 00:47:24,208 --> 00:47:28,545 He's taken a break from that, so he knows what's involved. 619 00:47:28,579 --> 00:47:30,514 So he is going to help me, 620 00:47:30,547 --> 00:47:37,221 but I need to just get over that hump. 621 00:47:37,321 --> 00:47:42,025 So I do share my work online a lot, 622 00:47:42,059 --> 00:47:45,195 and there's some online galleries 623 00:47:45,229 --> 00:47:48,031 of my work in various places. 624 00:47:48,065 --> 00:47:52,236 I did have a bunch of pieces published in a recent anthology 625 00:47:52,269 --> 00:47:54,004 called Sharp Notions. 626 00:47:54,037 --> 00:47:58,742 Actually, one of my embroideries is on the cover, a lung embroidery. 627 00:47:58,775 --> 00:48:03,413 It's an anthology about stitching, 628 00:48:03,413 --> 00:48:06,884 about fiber arts, knitting, all that stuff. 629 00:48:06,917 --> 00:48:12,589 Great essays, really beautiful essays, published by Arsenal Pulp Press 630 00:48:12,623 --> 00:48:14,324 in Vancouver. 631 00:48:14,591 --> 00:48:19,997 There's a bunch of embroideries and an essay about my embroidery 632 00:48:20,030 --> 00:48:22,499 written by me in there. 633 00:48:23,133 --> 00:48:26,103 I would like to show and sell 634 00:48:26,136 --> 00:48:32,242 my work, but it's hard to... 635 00:48:33,510 --> 00:48:39,149 Knowing what's involved in sending work out into the world, 636 00:48:39,182 --> 00:48:43,553 like physically, it's a lot. 637 00:48:43,587 --> 00:48:48,892 It's a lot of physical labor, 638 00:48:48,892 --> 00:48:52,529 let alone cognitive labor. 639 00:48:52,529 --> 00:48:56,233 It seems like a lot. 640 00:48:56,266 --> 00:48:57,968 I haven't quite got there yet. 641 00:48:57,968 --> 00:49:01,338 Digital world, awesome. 642 00:49:02,039 --> 00:49:03,640 Thank you. 643 00:49:03,674 --> 00:49:07,811 Okay, thank you so much for this conversation. It was really interesting. 644 00:49:08,378 --> 00:49:09,413 Thank you. 645 00:49:09,613 --> 00:49:13,450 All the best for all your projects and everything. 646 00:49:13,450 --> 00:49:14,484 Thank you. 647 00:49:14,518 --> 00:49:18,021 Thank you for asking me to participate here. 648 00:49:18,055 --> 00:49:23,727 Have a great day and talk to you soon about future projects. 649 00:49:23,827 --> 00:49:25,062 Yes. 650 00:49:25,462 --> 00:49:27,931 Okay. Bye. Take care. 651 00:49:27,931 --> 00:49:29,466 Bye. 652 00:49:30,434 --> 00:49:35,572 ♪ Closing theme music ♪