In August I met an gifted artist and teacher – Jo Myers-Walker. We met while I was doing an article about Ames area artists. During our meeting, she described how she was using art to help her mother, who was in hospice, face imminent death. Several weeks later, I emailed Jo to see if she would share her mother’s story with a larger audience. She said yes, even though the memory of her mother’s death on September 13 was fresh and raw.
In the last few months I’ve met with Jo several times, usually at her studio. Once we met at Mary Greeley Hospital where she taught a watercolor class for breast cancer survivors. Though I haven’t had breast cancer, I participated in the activities which included table painting and learning to paint people.
Today my daughter and I visited her studio again. I photographed some paintings that will accompany an article, slated for a summer or fall issue of Focus on the Family magazine, about her mother’s last weeks of life. While we were there, Jo pulled out the paintings completed at the breast cancer class and suggested I photograph them. The paintings were vibrant, full of life. I turned mine over and read the title I’d assigned it – Exploring.
The title describes the painting and Jo perfectly. In her presence, people explore life through art: the joys of the present moment, the struggles of breast cancer, the walk toward death, the hidden places of the heart. And they come away knowing things about themselves they didn’t know before. All because she’s not afraid to embrace life and go exploring. What a gift!
