feature story

Two local artists give back to their community and its people by using art to fuel life.

Art is often a solitary existence, no matter the medium. There are times of people and interaction and collaboration, but most of the hard work is alone in a room, in front of a blank canvas or a shapeless lump of clay or a blank screen.

It's easy for the artist to envelop herself in her own world i her own perception of things through the internal creative process. The greatest artists often look outside themselves, using life to fuel art; but two local artists, Danita Cole and Marjory Wentworth use art to fuel life.

Danita Cole's story is the stuff of novels. Originally holed up in the tiny English village of North Crawley, Bedfordshire, 16 years ago she escaped an abusive relationship, and a neighbor introduced her to the art of encaustics (also known as hot wax painting). He brought over the irons and waxes and showed her how to paint with them. She was hooked.

Fast forward several years. Danita is sailing around the world, pregnant with her second child, when the mainsail rips while trying to leave Charleston Harbor. She decides to stay here for a while, but after a small accident on the boat she starts to feel "something not right. I went to the doctor and was put in the hospital for testing. They didn't find anything, and a week later while in Vero Beach, Fla., I had an emergency birth at 23 weeks. I actually had a perforated placenta."

Her infant son Dalton was fighting for his life, and they moved him to an Orlando hospital. It was there that Danita discovered the Ronald McDonald House, where she could stay close to the hospital and visit her son.

"For 157 days, my son fought for his life through many surgeries, infections and complications. He won his life. It cost him his eyesight, but he doesn't seem to know it. I honestly feel that he wouldn't have survived had he not had his family there with him every day. I could not have done that were it not for the Ronald McDonald House. I owe them my son's life," she explains.

Danita brought Dalton back to Charleston and started painting again the work she could do with Dalton by her side. Her stall at the Charleston Farmer's Market helped sustain them, and things seemed to stabilize.

"One day, Dani walked in the door and said, 'I'd like to do something to give back,'" says Barbara Bond, executive director of Charleston's Ronald McDonald House on Calhoun Street. "As she was talking, she told us she was an artist. We'd just completed a new addition and had no artwork on the walls."

And Danita responded, "That's something I can do."

Danita has committed to completing 25 paintings for the Ronald McDonald House, one for each room. Upon consulting with the staff, they decided on a long narrow horizontal.

"Her artwork is so peaceful and calming. When you look at it, you feel so relaxed," Barbara says.

Danita remembers how important the home-like setting was for her while Dalton, now 4, was in the hospital. At the Ronald McDonald House in Orlando, a business committed to decorating each room, and each room had a theme. This made her realize that someone cared about her situation.

"All of these paintings are views off shore, but close to safety and the island. People here are experiencing the most incredibly heavy burden to bear, and I want to lift people out of that for a moment. There is always a sense of hope for me in these paintings, too, symbolized by a lighthouse or a sailboat. I feel sad because I know what these people were going through. Even if it takes me a year, I reckon I can do 25 paintings."

Marjory Wentworth is well-known in Charleston. As the lifetime poet laureate of South Carolina and the owner of Wentworth PR, Marjory is no stranger to the rich literary scene here in the Lowcountry, but her notoriety extends nationally as one of the foremost poets of her generation.

Her poems have appeared in numerous books and magazines, and she has twice been nominated for The Pushcart Prize, honoring the best in small press publishing. Marjory's poems have been published with Mary Edna Fraser's art in a book of poetry and monotype prints called What the Water Gives Me. Another collection of Marjory's poems was published in 2003.

However, it is the quiet times in a room within Roper Hospital when the true nature of her talent shines brightest. Throughout the past 10 years, Marjory has touched the lives of more than 200 people through Roper's "Expressions of Healing" class, a program open to anyone whose life is profoundly impacted by cancer.

"Art therapist Nancy Hackard and I try to help people express their feelings," Marjory says. "Most of the participants have never written a poem or done a painting. Witnessing their creative process is quite extraordinary.

"People often assume that it is painful and difficult to teach people who are in such acute physical and emotional pain. It is quite the opposite. In fact, it is the most rewarding work I have ever done."

Years ago, Marjory was in a training session for Very Special Arts (now VSA arts), an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and she saw a presentation by Heidi Darr-Hope, a visual artist. Heidi had led a program with breast cancer patients where they created collages then wrote a poem about the experience.

"I thought this was a great program, so I went to the Roper Foundation and spoke to them, and they seemed interested," Marjory says. "They were building a new oncology floor and this idea fit into their way of approaching cancer."

And 10 years later, patients, families and caretakers are still signing up for the class that is much more about process than it is about product.

"Like any teaching, you should be learning as a teacher. It is such a privilege to be with these people who know so much," she says. "There is so much knowledge that comes from looking at your own mortality. And being with them in the class is quite the opposite of depressing. It is almost like a good sermon."

Marjory's father died of cancer when she was a child, and she used journals as an outlet to express her feelings.

"I have no background in psychology, but this was something that helped me at a time I needed it. And this [writing] is something I can give back. We are just there to give them the prompts, and then the creativity, the need to express, pours out of them.

"Emotionally, I felt like I really wanted to do this. This is something I can do."

Survivor

Little by little
my hair is growing back.
It feels different,
not soft and straight
as I had imagined,
but coarse, dark,
and a little wild
It reminds me
of the journey
I have taken.
It reminds me
I'm not the same.
I never will be.
It is Christmas.
The future is coming.
And I will write
all about it,
little by little.

"Survivor" written by Marjory Wentorth is an excerpt from Mystery and Radiance, a creative non-fiction memoir inspired by the participants of "Expressions of Healing."

Expressions of Healing has a spring and a fall session, meeting once a week for eight weeks. The program is free to attend. Call 402-CARE for more information.