It is striking that accomplished authors often have hidden talents. It can be painting or musical talent, it could be anything to do with artistic endeavour. Some authors produce book covers professionally, and some authors knit or embroider. For my post this week, I’d love to introduce the author Anna Casamento Arrigo, who is a poet and a visual artist. I intend to feature her work in a miniseries, that will be the topic for this and the next two painting posts. Without further ado, I’ll leave her to tell about her art.
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Thank you, Hanne for this opportunity!
On July 20th, 2011, I suffered a frontal-parietal stroke. Prior to that, I had taught eighth grade Language Arts to AP classes in an inner-city school. Now, the last side of my body paralyzed and my vestibular system and speech affecting each aspect of my being, I felt lost. Three months after this life-altering event, and recuperating at the Kessler Institute for brain injuries, occupational thereby became part of my recuperative process. This included art. And my new path began. Ever so slowly, I forced my left cadaver hand to action. Additionally, painting became my go-to when my thoughts led me to bouts of rumination. I took the strategies I had learned from my occupational art sessions, invested in a multitude of art media, and set about the, often frustrating task of capturing my feelings, frustrations, and, most specifically, my road to refining myself. My first feeble attempts were just that-feeble but, albeit therapeutic. I found the drop method of painting the easiest for me to manage. I had rediscovered a new sense of self. This is one of the very first works, which I called, ‘Saturn’s Sunrise.’ (It, in an aberrant, and perhaps, way captured a journey of that place lying in full view but also, somehow, untrainable). #strokesurvivor
Regards! Anna
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Here is Anna’s painting Saturn’s Sunrise
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Here are Anna’s links:
https://www.annacasamentoarrigo.com/
https://amazon.com/author/annaarrigo
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© HMH, 2020
