A dozen new cards and three boxed sets are being slowly added to the shop this weekend… I’m enjoying seeing them come to life as cards, after I put so much of my soul into painting each one… it’s fun to think of them reincarnated as a greeting to some dear friend or love!
There is one card I want to showcase to you in particular. It is my favorite, but I think it is likely to get overlooked. It isn’t my best painting, or my splashiest colors, or even instantly understandable. But it is my favorite, none-the-less. Because it fills a huge gap in the greeting card world that is being ignored.
This is where my physician self and my artist self merge. There is a real need for cards that you can send to a loved one who has been recently diagnosed with cancer, or any other illness for that matter. There are so many traditional physicians out there that will launch head first into a very terrifying, overwhelming list of *statistics* and survival categories and such, all while a patient is still reeling from shock. I understand the well-meaning intentions behind providing a patient with survival statistics and categorizing stages of cancers… but at the heart of it all, there is a fear that is not being addressed, and emotional needs that are not being met, in deference to facts and statistics.
This painting came about because I fell in love with the quote:
“Give me a fruitful error any time, bursting with it’s own corrections. You can keep your sterile truth for yourself. – Vilfredo Pareto”
I just love that statement. It so perfectly captures what I feel about life in general. I’d rather live it, muck in it, get dirty with it, dance in it, roll around in all the sweetness and the errors and mistakes along the way… drink in all the honest raw goodness… I love when my kids and I “mess up” and love each other any way… there just isn’t a deeper trust or better feeling then knowing you are loved in an organic, real way, with no pressure for it to be perfect. That is how strive to appreciate my life… organic and raw, no need to be perfect. The rainy days and the awkward silences and the bruised egos… I’ll take it all, with gratitude.
So I think card would be SO PERFECT for someone who has been diagnosed with cancer and has heard some horrifying statistic… I kept the inside blank, but what I’d love it to really say is:
“F*&ck the statistics. The only statistic that is true for you is that you are 100% loved.”
Something like that. Because really folks, facts can only get you so far. Love will get you the rest of the way.