Beauty of Fractals

Friday, March 12, 2010

Endometriosis Awareness Month - Part 3

Welcome to the third and final part of the Endometriosis Awareness Month series. If you have not read Part 1 and Part 2 of the series you might like to read these blog posts first.

For the final artwork in the "Through the Pain" series I wanted to create a piece based around the theme of 'hope for a cure'. The challenge for this artwork was to identify an appropriate colour to symbolise hope. So I decided to ask some women who suffered from endometriosis what colour they thought symbolised hope and they unanimously said, "rainbow colours". This was surprising as I was expecting that all sorts of colours would be proposed.

When I created, "Butterflies of Hope", in 2007, I wrote the following piece to go with this artwork, "Without hope we have nothing to hold onto. Like everyone else with this disease I too hope that one day I will manage to be completely pain free. I also hope that endometriosis researchers will in my lifetime unravel the mystery of what causes the disease so that a cure will be found. The rainbow coloured butterflies symbolise this hope and final freedom for all endometriosis sufferers from pain".

Today researchers are still no closer to unravelling the mystery of what causes endometriosis. Last year though a new research facility at MIT called the Center for Gynepathology opened and one of the goals of their research is to discover how endometriosis lesions form. This is perhaps one of the most exciting developments in endometriosis research and interestingly the research is being led by Professor Linda Griffith, who suffers from endometriosis herself.

I am hoping that this research will finally unravel the mystery of what causes endometriosis so that a cure may be found and women no longer have to go through what I and many other endometriosis sufferers have been through. No matter how strong or positive you are as a person, endometriosis is a disease that truly tests you to the core of who you are.

Thanks for joining me over the past three weeks. See you next week for something completely different.

I have created a fractal art tour to enable you to view all of my art. At the bottom of each blog post you will see, "Take the fractal art tour" and a link which you can click on to take you to the next art work. The tour is set up so that you travel through my blog and end up back on this page. Click on the link below, "What is fractal art?" to start the tour. Enjoy!

I would love to know what your favourite fractal is so do pop back and leave a comment.

Take the fractal art tour:

What is fractal art?

Next blog update: Friday, March 19th 2010

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Endometriosis Awareness Month - Part 2

Welcome to the second part of Endometriosis Awareness Month where today I am going to explain some of the challenges and difficulties of living with endometriosis. If you did not read last week's post you might like to read this first.

Society conditions us to equate ill health with physically looking unwell, incurable diseases with often fatal conditions and surgery as a long term solution to a medical problem. It is, therefore, very difficult for people to understand a disease like endometriosis which challenges all of these perceptions.

Endometriosis is often referred to as the 'silent disease' because all the problems it causes are located internally and out of sight. As a result women generally look physically well even though they may well be suffering quite significantly. There is certainly nothing worse when you are feeling plain lousy than being faced with a doubting Thomas who says, "Oh you don't look sick" or "You certainly hide it well".

Mention the words, 'incurable disease' or 'incurable chronic illness' and the first thought that probably pops into your mind is a condition like cancer. Endometriosis is not cancer and does not cause fatalities but it is an incurable disease. The underlying cause of endometriosis is currently unknown so this makes it a difficult condition to treat.

Currently doctors use a multidisciplinary approach to treat endometriosis which includes; pain relief medications, hormone treatments and surgery. If they embrace a holistic approach they may also recommend dietary changes, exercise programs and perhaps alternative therapies like hypnotherapy or acupuncture. In my case, I also tried a combination treatment of saline injections, sauna and brief spurts of exercise.

To be honest, there were very limited treatment options that could be tried for me as I was either allergic or highly intolerant to a number of pain relief drugs and hormone treatments. Of the treatments I tried one pain relief drug was ineffective and another caused an allergic reaction, the side effects of the hormone treatment were absolutely terrible and the saline injections into my nerves only temporarily stopped the spread of pain by confining it to one area in my pelvis.

Excisional surgery, where the disease is cut out completely is recognised presently as the gold standard in treating endometriosis as it decreases the chance of endometriosis recurring and, therefore, provides the best chance of longer term pain relief. It is, however, not infallible.

Unfortunately, like many endometriosis sufferers I have undergone numerous surgeries because previous surgery has not resolved chronic pain problems. There can be numerous reasons as to why those with endometriosis often require further surgery and some of these are; recurrence of endometriosis, adhesions, missed disease at a prior surgery, endometriosis in a difficult location which requires an additional specialist surgeon and complications from previous surgery, just to name a few.

Living with chronic pain and other symptoms of endometriosis is certainly not easy. Add into the picture side effects of drugs and recovery from surgery and at times you simply just exist. This is certainly not a great quality of life and the impact of this can be that your social life becomes non-existent, friends disappear, everyday household chores become a mission and you may well not be able to work. When this happens you can start to feel lonely and isolated.

This brings me to introduce the second art work in the "Through the Pain" series called "Loneliness and Isolation" which I created in 2007. This very simple duck egg blue and white spiral shape with a stark black background depicts the idea of loneliness and isolation that happens when social contact and friendships are lost as a result of endometriosis. If you know someone with endometriosis then the best thing you can do is be a friend to that person.

I certainly don't want people to feel sorry for me. I accepted the hand of cards I was handed years ago and have made every effort to re-build my life in a positive manner around the challenges I have faced with this disease.

Thanks for taking the time to take a few steps in my shoes. I hope you have a better understanding of what it is like to live with endometriosis and will join me next week when I reveal the final art work in the series. In the meantime, you might like to check out the charity auctions being run on sella.co.nz for Endometriosis New Zealand. There are some great items up for auction such as a walk on role in the TV series Shortland Street and a singing lesson with Kirsten Morrell the former lead singer of Goldenhorse to name a couple.

Take the fractal art tour:

Butterflies of Hope

Next blog update: Friday, March 12th 2010

Friday, February 26, 2010

Endometriosis Awareness Month - Part 1

March is Endometriosis Awareness Month and so I have decided to be brave and share over the coming weeks a series of fractal art works that I created based on my own battle with this disease.

Created in 2007, this series is called, "Through the Pain" and the first art work is "Pain". It depicts chronic pain which is the worst and most debilitating symptom endometriosis sufferers have to contend with. The type of pain I am talking about here is severe, hard to control with pain relief medications and often prevents sufferers from undertaking normal activities.

For the art work "Pain", I specifically chose a beautiful curving structure and created soft undertones with harsh red points to depict something beautiful inflicted with pain.

When I shared this art work with my fractal art class one person said to me, " 'Pain' is a disturbingly evocative image. It feels as though the sharp points are about to rip through the delicate fabric of the spiral - made me wince". I found this interesting as to me this art work represented in a beautiful soft manner a way of life that I lived on a daily basis. I had never considered how someone without the disease would perceive it.

Please join me next week when I share the second art work in the series. In the meantime you might like to check out the $1 no reserve charity auctions for Endometriosis New Zealand on sella.co.nz as there are some wonderful items up for grabs including; a 2009 car, signed All Blacks jersey, dinner for two with Gary McCormick to name just a few.

Take the fractal art tour:

Loneliness and Isolation

Friday, February 19, 2010

Squares - Fractal Art by Sandra Reid

"We must say there are as many squares as there are numbers."

Galileo Galilei, 1564-1642

Philosopher, Astronomer and Mathematician

Take the fractal art tour:

Pain

Friday, February 12, 2010

Valentine's Day 2010

Love is...

Giving me a flower picked from the roadside
Drawing cartoons and leaving them on my keyboard
Phoning during the day just to say, "Hi, I miss you"
Seeing the humorous side of things

Walking hand in hand along the beach
Being there for me when I am unwell
Spontaneously buying me flowers and ice-cream
Putting up with my cat

Sharing your entrepreneurial ideas and mad inventions with me
Being a true soul mate
Sharing moments together
Making life better by just being around
and most of all...

Loving me just the way I am

Happy Valentine's Day

Take the fractal art tour:

Squares

Sunday, February 7, 2010

New Zealand Flag Design Ideas

Is it time to change our national flag?

My personal feeling is that with the highest unemployment in 17 years and a health system that is struggling to cope our nation should be focusing on these higher priorities and not be considering undertaking a highly expensive referendum to decide whether or not we should change our national flag.

Having said that though our New Zealand flag is very similar to the Australian flag and so perhaps it is time for us to consider a new design that represents New Zealand and its cultural heritage in 2010.

I have for a long time felt that the white fern on the black background you often see at various sporting events is very striking and would make a good national flag. This partially influenced the black and white design ideas I have come up with.

Fractal art is synonymous with spirals and so is a perfect medium to create koru inspired shapes. The koru shape in Maori culture depicts new beginnings, growth and harmony. I particularly like working with red, white and black colour combinations as they are very striking and in New Zealand this colour combination is synonymous with Maori art and culture, so highly appropriate for use in flag designs.

I had a lot of fun creating this series of contemporary flag design ideas and the one that I like the most is the first one I have presented.

Enjoy!