Published to coincide with the posthumous exhibition Diagnosis in 2006.

April 2005

It is now approaching the first anniversary of when my voice suddenly disappeared, and then three months later the final diagnosis, since when my life has divided into BC (Before Cancer) and AD (After Diagnosis).

BC, fading eyesight, toothlessness, arthritis, even osteoporosis, were all accepted as the inevitable consequences of growing old. None were life threatening. Despite the awareness of mortality permeating not just the Dance of Death series, but all my work in all media these past ten years, continuing daily life was to a surprising degree still taken for granted. No death sentence had yet been pronounced: that came with the diagnosis.

AD, though prognosis is unpredictable, the time scale of the future is suddenly short term instead of long. Every minute of the day is lived in the knowledge that I am terminally ill. I close my eyes to sleep and the word CANCER is a flashing neon sign on the inside of the eyelids. And when I wake in the morning the first word in my mind is CANCER, and there it stays all day, in every breath, every mouthful of food and sip of drink, a subtext to every spoken word. Like Blake's invisible worm the word permeates the cells of the mind as rabidly as the tumour cells invade the body. There is no forgetfulness even for a moment. It is ever present, the touchstone of each waking minute. Forthcoming death is no longer a creative theme, a concept, but an imminent physical reality.

My stoical acceptance of this reality is considered by others to be unflinchingly brave, but I wonder if the most radical response to diagnosis would be irrational denial of it, a flat refusal to believe? "Cancer? Are you kidding? Forget it. I'm outta here." Perhaps there are people who can do this, but I can't.

I can however transcend the rational creatively. I made a series of thirteen drawings in late summer 2004, during the two weeks after my final diagnosis. Shock, and feverish consideration of the implications meant that I could not sleep, and I made a drawing each night, sometimes in the hours of darkness, sometimes at dawn, in a physical state of fatigued insomnia and slight hallucination. The flower-like drawings are images of organic growth and blooming. On the fourteenth night my normal sleep pattern returned and the series ended.

It seems that as the Grim Reaper taps on one shoulder, the Muse taps on the other, and initially there is a feverish burst of creative energy. The feeling is that every moment is precious and must be seized. Adrenalin courses through the veins. Paintings, drawings, collages and writings pour forth. But then the side effects of the chemotherapy begin to kick in and everything slows down. Lethargy creeps into the bones and I realise that I've been sitting in a chair for forty minutes staring at my shoe. At times the lethargy worsens into incapacitating fatigue...