In the news

Last month I’d mentioned that several of my watercolour paintings would appear in upcoming issues of two different magazines, within two different pieces on how my art practice is intertwined with my chronic pain advocacy. This is a real honour for me, not only as a Patient Partner and Patient Advocate for chronic pain research and care, but also as an emerging artist.

I’m absolutely thrilled to be able to tell you that the first of these two pieces has now been published! It’s included in the annual ‘open access’ issue of OT Now magazine, published by the Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists (CAOT). ‘Open access’ means that this issue of the magazine is open to all readers, anywhere in the world: “These annual issues/articles are open-access and free to the public, showcasing the Canadian occupational therapy practice to a wide variety of readers”.

To read the piece, touching on how I use my artwork to raise awareness of chronic pain and to share the benefits of creative activities as pain management tools, click on this link to the CAOT website or cut and paste this this link into your browser: https://caot.ca/document/8027/OT%20Now%20July%202023.pdf.
Then select the July 2023 issue entitled “Valuing lived experiences”, and simply scroll down to page 8 or look for the yellow flower with the headline “#ArtDespitePain”.

The Managing Editor of OT Now and her team did a fantastic job for this one, and came up with an unusual and artistic layout for this feature; the image below is only a partial view of the entire piece, the full spread is even better.

After you take a look at the “#ArtDespitePain” piece, showing several of my paintings, be sure to read the next article: “The Two-way Street of Collaboration: An Interview with Annette McKinnon”. Annette is a knowledgeable and passionate Patient Advocate for Canadians living with arthritis, and someone with whom I’ve connected through many virtual healthcare events.

When I first decided to try to learn to paint and sketch at the start of 2021, I had three goals – all of which were intertwined with my patient advocacy for chronic pain and for my own rare disease; Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS). The first of these goals was to use painting and sketching as movement therapy for my right hand and arm, which are significantly affected by numerous symptoms of CRPS. The second goal was to treat skills-learning for art as a type of brain-plasticity training for my ‘mild cognitive impairment’ – also caused by CRPS; I was hoping to prevent any further decline in my cognitive function over time. The last goal was to use my artwork as part of my chronic pain awareness and advocacy activities.

The reaction has been so much more positive than I could ever have imagined, from art contests and exhibitions to a feature in a local (Montréal) newspaper, a feature on the website of a non-profit organization, and now in a national magazine. Thanks so much to everyone who has commented or joined the chronic pain conversations across social media on #ArtDespitePain, and to all those who have helped me along the way!