Winter of 2014-15 my immune system collapsed, after almost a decade of relative normalcy.  It led to an intense few months of fatigue and slow rebuilding… then came Winter of 2015-2016 and the same thing happened.

Spent both Winters alone in my 1 room apartment, sometimes managing to walk to the corner depanneur to buy food.
Anyone who has suffered with a chronic illness knows this kind of suspended animation and departure from reality.  There is nothing in every day life that prepares you, no way to explain to friends and family.  It’s also a waiting game and a battle against depression and guilt (if I was tougher this wouldn’t happen,) and an empty bank account.
The saving grace for me has always been that my sense of time is one of the first things to go, days can literally feel like five minutes.  Numb, sore, reduced mobility, but no acute pain. 

Usually, I can’t concentrate enough to read a book, or even watch TV. 

Somehow, my hands remember how to draw even as the part of my brain that processes language disappears.

These 89 drawings represent two sketchbooks, two winters, but also the end of a life… a hectic decade of work after my last “recovery”, getting back lost years so I could be an artist: getting healthy, holding a full-time job to save up money to go back to school, then working part-time contracts while getting shows. I have never been able to pull off 70-hour work weeks again…