These are a few of my favourite watercolours, from the painting-a-day challenge I set for myself in September. With the word “pain” built right into painting, I decided to create a month-long series of fairly quick lunch-, dinner-, or break-time watercolours to mark international Pain Awareness Month.
Each day in September I painted something new, highlighting a different aspect of chronic pain or of pain research. None of these 5 x 7″ pieces are meant to be exhibition-quality works, but rather to garner interest and trigger conversations about chronic pain. My #ArtDespitePain initiative, for chronic pain awareness, became organically intertwined with my art practice in part because they began at the same time.
In 2021 I transitioned from nature photography to watercolour painting, with three distinct but related goals. First, to use painting as a form of movement-therapy for my right hand and arm – both significantly affected by a rare pain condition with which I was struck in 2016. Second, this new art-learning would serve as brain-plasticity training for my CRPS-related mild cognitive impairment, which had developed at the close of 2018. Finally, I’d use the resulting paintings to raise awareness of chronic pain.
As an added twist I gave all thirty of these Pain Awareness Month paintings a Latin title, to reflect the archaic language still used in medicine and healthcare; language that helps perpetuate the power imbalance between patients and healthcare professionals.
As always, thanks so much for stopping by! If you have a favourite, among these quick paintings, please let me know – over on Instagram, LinkedIn or X (formerly Twitter). Or in the Guestbook/comments section of my art website, at SandraWoods.art. Because of my CRPS-related ‘mild cognitive impairment’, I’ve had to disable the Comments feature here on this blog as it became too much for my ‘new and not improved’ brain to deal with.
- Cephalgia; “Headache” in English
- Nervi ignei; “Fiery nerves” in English
- Nec quisquam melior medicus quam fidus amicus; “No doctor is better than a loyal friend” in English
- Effigies sui; “Self-portrait” in English (an imagined view of my own nerves, affected by Complex Regional Pain Syndrome [CRPS])
- Dolor draconis; “Pain dragon” in English
