Portraits In Emotion Interview.  

Posted by kw in , , ,

The show that I'm in includes interviews of all the artists.  Below is the portion of mine that will be presented with my work.  I'm printing it for those of you who live too far away to attend.  If I can figure out how, in the future I will offer the entire recording of it.

I suppose overall I had a contented childhood. I remember going to places outside of where I lived and thinking, this is where I could be happy. I remember distinctly thinking if my name weren’t "Dano", then I wouldn’t be in trouble.

[When I am painting] I need a catalyst of some sort to get me to the actual painting. So something as silly as a Swedish fish candy could be the starting point. After a while, I begin to lose myself in the process. I cease to think, and I get into perhaps a state of mind where one doesn’t exist. That is when I know that a panting is going well. It is the loss of self. That is when I produce the best work.


The title “artist” is a heavy label. A lot of times I tell people I am a painter. The term “artist” gets bandied around and cheapened. That is the great thing about Oasis.  There is none of this ridiculous laden down stuff [at Oasis] that exists in art schools. It has to be about you showing your own truths from within.

When I have been institutionalized, I bring with me a sketchpad and whatever materials are allowed in that particular institution. It’s a great way of recording how I am thinking and what I a dreaming, and through the drawings you can see how I progress mentally.  When I am producing in the studio I feel better about myself mentally. I feel more validated. Producing art is not really related to identity. It just has to be done. It’s more like breathing.

Last year I came out of the hospital and for three months they’d had me on 600mg of Thorazine, amongst other medications. It’s considered a medicinal straight jacket.  That greatly diminished my ability to work visually. In 2000 or 2001, I went through twenty one bouts of electroshock therapy.   A lot of doctors will tell you that it doesn’t affect your memory unless administered too close together. I’ve lost two or three years worth of memories from around that time. I don’t remember 9/11, for example.

I did a lot of work to rebuild my memory. I have a saintly good friend, Cricket, my best friend. Apparently, we watched the same movies again and again and again until finally I turned to her and said, “Haven’t we seen this before”? I actually would never have signed up for ETC, but for the fact that the doctors were telling me this would be the cure to my crashing and awful suicidal depressions. Pat Lyons, Cricket, and my boyfriend begged me not to go for it, but I was interested in my survival, so I signed up for something that I believe was one of the most self-destructed acts of my life.

I would like to meet the Mother of [the painter] Utrillo. She was a model for many people and a self-taught artist. Her son was much better known than she. She struggled. She worked in various capacities to put together a pittance of money during a time of great upheaval in France. I admire a woman who fights to do what she feels driven towards.


Because I am bipolar, when things are going well, I have some intense abilities. Visually, I can see things that other people can’t, like I can see rainbows in the hairs of my cats. I also have a great sense of smell and taste. I can comprehend and process large amount of information. When I am feeling well, I can be witty and charming and bright and appeal to people. I think it has also given me a certain sensitivity and understanding to other peoples’ plight, which I think is important. It’s hard for me to know whether or not my heightened senses inform my work, because I haven’t seen life through another person’s brain.


We [people with mental challenges] are super-human people. We do things that would waylay the average person. William Styron wrote a short book called Darkness Visible. He points out that people who are depressed are in incredible pain, and they are required to go around like normal people. They go through their daily routine while suffering gut-wrenching, mind-numbing suicidal thoughts sometimes, and they are supposed to talk to people and even smile. 

The average person who was in that kind of pain would be bedridden, hooked up to IV’s with pain relief being pumped into them and people visiting them with cards and flowers. And this is not true of people who are depressed. They are looked at as incompetent or lazy and shiftless and bizarre.  In 2002 the World Health Organization stated that we have a pandemic on our hands, that one out of five people globally are clinically depressed.


Mental illness is separate from physical illness in the way that the medical establishment views it. I have a medical power of attorney that my best friend holds for me, but that apparently does not include my mental health. So I have to get a separate page added to include my mental health. I don’t see why mental health is not naturally included with your physical health. Your mental health affects your whole health.


My mental health has affected my immediate family. My sister has elected to no longer include me in her life. When I started going in and out of hospitals and it became clear that there was irreparable damage, she didn’t see fit to come visit me.  My father and my mother were in New York recently and elected not to see me, even though I haven’t seen them in six years. He wrote and said it was his choice, not my mother’s, and that ever since I was a small child, I have done my best to be provocative, irritating, and enraging. I found that ironic, because all my life I’ve tried my level best to make him proud. I wrote him back and said, “As a child who was sexually molested and with mental health issues, one tends to act out. It’s a fact. I won’t bother you anymore”.

I don’t like the label “mental health consumer”. I didn’t shop for this. It has cost me so much over the years in terms of family, time in hospitals, brain cells from ETC, in terms of loss of self-esteem, and all those sort for things.


If I could change one thing about myself, I’d change the depression because it is so awful and it eats up a lot of my time. However, I would keep the depression if it would help others become more aware and understanding.

My face shows everything and nothing.

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