Brush Strokes Ease The Pain

Bushnell resident Sherron Bowyer works on her painting while instructor Mary Sears, standing, helps Rainey Bourgoin of Zephyrhills. Sears teaches the class because art helped her through her own cancer treatment.

By FRED BELLET / Tribune

By NICOLA M. WHITE The Tampa Tribune

Published: Aug 6, 2007

A version of this story appeared in the Pasco Tribune.

ZEPHYRHILLS - Chemotherapy stinks.

It makes your brain fog, your stomach flip-flop and your hair fall out.

When Mary Sears went through chemotherapy for breast cancer five years ago, she wanted to sit in her husband's recliner, close her eyes and stay there.

The one thing that got her out of the chair, though, was knowing she had 45 art students waiting for her on Tuesday mornings.

On those mornings, painting helped her escape from the physical and mental exhaustion of chemo. The brush strokes and banter with students made her feel normal.

Sears, 65 and cancer-free for five years, never forgot that feeling. So, she shares it with others.

Every week, Sears wheels a rolling bag loaded with oil paints, pastels, sketch books and flats of canvas to the second floor of the Florida Medical Clinic education building in Zephyrhills' Market Square shopping center. She sets up a large, plastic-draped table in the hallway, props up a few easels and waits as her students roll in.

Most of the students come from Pasco County, though one drives from Bushnell.

These students are different from those Sears taught at Tropical Acres mobile home park five years ago. Here, all of them, about a dozen on most weeks, are being treated for cancer, are cancer survivors or have loved ones dealing with the disease. She teaches the two-hour class for free and has done so for three years.

"I knew what painting could do for me when I had chemo and the mastectomy," she said. "It made me forget. I'd get lost in it.

"I thought, if it helped me, I could help other people."

By all accounts, Sears does.

"Wednesday is the favorite day of the week for me because of painting," said Wanda Engel, 80, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2005.

Engel joined the class last year, two weeks after completing radiation. Back then, her hands shook, and she couldn't paint a straight line. She'd have to hold up her wrist with her left hand, so her arm wouldn't get tired. She'd never painted before. Now, she mixes mauves and violets to depict a setting sun over high ocean waves.

Sears pads around the class in bright pink kitten-heel slides. She stops at each student's workstation, points out a nicely done shadow or a well-formed shape. Art isn't hard, she says. Just paint what you see.

"Everything, everything you see - a face, a landscape, a seascape - some very basic shapes are involved. Like the palm of your hand. See that square?" she said during a recent class, pointing at her own palm. "How simple is that? Your middle finger? A rectangle."

The beginners squint their eyes.

"I can't believe it," said student Fay McKeane, 71, of Dade City.

The beginners - three on a recent weekday - start off drawing basic shapes with pencil on sketch paper. They draw cubes, cones and light bulbs and then progress to more complex shapes. The first painting anyone creates is a row of mailboxes on a dusty highway.

That's the scene Frances Schneider, 79, was perfecting at the recent class, dabbing ochre and reds onto the canvas. Like Sears and many of the other women, Schneider is a breast cancer survivor. She found out about the class through her oncologist, Ron Kawauchi. She called Sears and came to class that same day.

"I came up here, and she greeted me like I was a long-lost friend," Schneider said. "You form friendships. Everybody's been in the same boat, more or less."

Last year, two students died. Another student, who was being treated for prostate cancer, has been too sick to make it to class. The classmates don't need explanations about what that means. They've been there, too.

The camaraderie is part support group, part relief. Mostly, it's fun. The fact that it's free - sponsored by the Florida Medical Clinic's Foundation of Caring - is a huge plus. Art materials, especially oil paints, aren't cheap.

Kawauchi, who also was Sears' oncologist, said the clinic is lucky to have her.

"Chemo and stuff really strips people of who they are. You lose your hair, people feel tired. They don't feel like they're in control of their lives. This is a way of giving them back a sense of self."

Sears likes when patients discover unknown talents and feel proud of their work. This year, for the first time, she extended the classes through the summer months, when Zephyrhills typically slows down. Cancer doesn't take vacation, she reasoned.

As the class wraps up for the afternoon, after the students have sipped coffee and munched on macaroons, Sears says goodbye.

"Do I need to bring anything next week?" a new student, Linda Herman, 65, asked.

"Yes," Sears said.

She paused and winked.

"A smile."

IF YOU GO

The Florida Medical Clinic Foundation of Caring provides free art supplies and teaching space for cancer patients, survivors and loved ones of cancer patients. The class meets every Wednesday from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on the second floor of the Florida Medical Clinic's Building B at 38135 Market Square. Call (813) 782-6483 to register.

Reporter Nicola M. White can be reached at (813) 779-4613 or nwhite1@tampatrib.com.