SAXTONS RIVER — Artist JoAnne Russo used her love of nature and artistic talent to put a face on her cancer, using drawing as an outlet for the anger the illness caused her.
Some of those drawings are on display at Main Street Arts until Friday, Oct. 13, in a show she has titled “Win, Lose or Draw: My Journey through Cancer.”
An opening reception for the show will be held Tuesday, Aug. 22, from 5:30 to 7 p.m., in the Windham Foundation gallery at MSA, according to a news release.
Because she leads an active life and eats a healthy diet, Russo was taken aback by her cancer diagnosis.
“I was very angry that cancer had invaded, but it had, and now it was part of me, something sinister inside, spreading like wildfire,” she said in the release. “It's a strange feeling, knowing that you have cancer, but not being able to see any visible signs.”
To deal with her cancer, she took to drawing as a release.
“I looked at each drawing as a self-portrait,” she said. “I had an idea of what I wanted to draw and I would start by making small sketches of the elements. These were quickly drawn, keeping it spontaneous.”
Her drawings feature bugs, plants and birds - things that she loves, incorporating creepy insects flying around or even hiding in plain sight.
“I didn't want to think about drawing the perfect dragonfly,” she said. “Instead, I wanted to invent my own world of creatures and let my subconscious take over, plucking out the images from inside my head.”
The early drawings have sinister and cadaverous overtones, but, as her treatment wound down, the flowers, trees, and insects took on healthier appearances to match her own more hopeful feelings.