“She Blooms in Gold”
Alison Satran
Montclair, NJ
Social Media: @becomingcrisp (Instagram)
Survivor
Twist on cancer: I thought cancer happened to other people. That’s until a blood or “liquid” cancer presented as a solid tumor in my upper arm. It took time for the hematology-oncology team at Weill Cornell Medicine to diagnose me. After biopsies and DNA sequencing, they determined I had myeloid sarcoma, an ultra-rare form of acute myeloid leukemia that grows outside the bone marrow. I spent months in the hospital for rounds of chemotherapy, radiation to my arm, and a stem cell transplant using umbilical cord blood. The hardest part was the mental aspect, or knowing that I had cancer. To cope with the uncertainty, I developed a meditation and kundalini yoga practice. I became an avid reader of books about the mind-body connection, and I feel that having a positive attitude can have real effects on health outcomes. The biggest lesson I learned from cancer was to love and accept myself fully. I set out to heal on a physical, emotional, and energetic level. When I met Violet, my Twist Out Cancer partner, she awakened the artist within me. She was so open and willing to listen to my story and to see it visualized; I felt a release. I rediscovered my passion for writing, singing, and acting. My mission now is to bring the arts into healthcare as a healing modality. Since my recovery, I joined a community theater as a company member. Playback improv combines storytelling and improvisational theater, where workshop participants learn to “play back,” or enact, stories shared in a group. No prior experience is necessary. To learn more, please visit cultureconnectiontheater.org.
Violet Alexandre
Philadelphia, PA
https://www.experienceempathy.org
Social Media: @LVdreamer
“She Blooms in Gold”
Acrylic on canvas
24” x 24” x 1.5”
$1,000
Artist Statement: When Alison told me her story, what stayed with me wasn’t the diagnosis. It was everything underneath. I take people in by feeling them, and I felt a woman who spent nearly two decades covering up who she was, then used the hardest chapter of her life to strip it all away. I started where she did, in the background. The blues went down in layers, worked over and scraped back, and for a long time that was the painting: covering, uncovering, covering again. It happens slowly, and it leaves marks. Then it came all at once. The branches arrived gold, because her transplant gave her new blood and gold was the only honest color for it. The blossoms opened as fast as I could paint. Alison is not emerging quietly, and neither was my hand. She glimmers and glows. The blossoms are her learning to love herself. Not the good and the bad, but all of her, at once. Once she did, that love spread outward into every relationship, and the blooms grew from the branches the way her love grew, starting with herself. At the center, I let the branches become wings. Alison’s story is full of angels. Ordinary people, extraordinary kindness, exactly when it mattered. The wings hold the largest bloom because those angels held her. She told me she no longer fears death. What she fears is not living the life she was meant to live. She is remembering her mission. She blooms in gold.