This morning I received an award for something that I did last year. In September 2021 the Canadian Pain Society (CPS) launched a new art competition, with plans to make it an annual event. Why would a scientific society, made up of mostly healthcare professionals and pain researchers, launch an art contest? Well, the contest’s aim was to “share images that can help us better understand pain”. (1) Like that old adage says: “A picture is worth a thousand words”!
There were two different categories for this art contest; one for healthcare professionals, researchers, and students/trainees, and another for (pain) patients like me. Each entry – for either category – had to include not only an artwork, but also an essay of up to two hundred words explaining how the art reflected the theme of the contest… with the idea that the specific theme would change each year.
Other requirements were to write a “catchy title” of up to fifteen words, also reflecting that year’s contest theme, and a short explanation of the techniques used to create the artwork. The theme for the 2021 art contest was “Imagining Pain”, so each essay was meant to answer the question: “How do you define pain?” (1)
I’d only been learning to paint for nine months by the end of October, the contest submission deadline, but decided to enter one of my watercolours anyhow. Even if my painting didn’t win the contest – and I really didn’t expect it to! – I wanted to support the purpose of this new art contest and to add to a set of Canadian artworks relating to pain. I fully supported the goals of this new art contest, to (1):
- Engage with a broad audience, to learn more about pain and how it affects people’s lives
- Showcase the variety of images presented by members of the Canadian Pain Society, including healthcare professionals, researchers, trainers and professors, and patients
- Promote scientific curiosity in general for all audiences, including the public
- Create a library of artistic images related to pain
- Share knowledge of pain and pain science, and develop new teaching and communication tools
I also thought that submitting a painting to the CPS art contest would be a great way to use art to raise awareness of chronic pain and of my own rare disease. After all, I’d been using my nature photos and creative arts to raise awareness of chronic pain and of Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) since almost the day I was diagnosed with it.
Then, when I started to paint, I quickly began using my watercolours as awareness-raising tools. You can read more about how I use my art to raise awareness of chronic pain and of CRPS in the posts Pain Awareness Month 01.09.2020, Awareness images 06.11.2020, and A realization 06.05.2022.
So I submitted one of my watercolour paintings to the 2021 Canadian Pain Society art contest last October, along with my essay, a longish title, and a description of the painting techniques that I’d used to create… a nasty-looking mosquito!
My contest essay started off by explaining that my semi-abstract painting of a mosquito “represents the ever-present burden of chronic pain. If you’ve ever tried to fall asleep with a mosquito in your room, you know how distracting and even distressing it can seem! Chronic pain is much worse, buzzing its way into your mind and intruding in your thoughts. Pain makes it hard to concentrate at school, at work, or even on fun activities.” (2)
My art contest entry was really just for fun, and to use as an awareness-raising activity. Instead of the theme “Imagining Pain”, I later joked that it could have been “Imagining my surprise” … when my painting won in the Pain Patient category! I was completely stunned. Happy, but stunned.
There’s no big cash award for this contest, unlike the “Nomura Art Award, with a prize of US$1 million, to an artist who has achieved a body of work of major cultural significance” (3), but it’s still a fantastic feeling to win an award for one of your own artistic creations!
The 2021 CPS art contest winner in the category for healthcare professionals, researchers, and trainees was Lizbeth Ayoub, a PhD student at the University of Toronto whose research focus is on pain and brain imaging. Her winning painting, “Lady in Pain”, was created with acrylic paints on canvas. I can’t wait to meet her, later tomorrow or Friday, as she’s also at the conference this year!
With all the restrictions on in-person meetings and events last year, the awards for 2021 were delayed until the next in-person meeting of the CPS. In the meantime, the Canadian Pain Society Art Competition was renamed the CPS Art Awards.
Well, the 2022 annual scientific meeting (ASM) of the Canadian Pain Society started today – right here in Montréal. I attended the last time the CPS meeting was held here, back in 2018, and had already registered for this year’s conference when I got the news that the 2021 Art Awards were going to be handed out at this event.
I expected someone to hand me a certificate in the hallway between sessions, or maybe have a little presentation in one of the smallest meeting rooms during one of the breaks between presentation. Instead, the Art Awards were presented on the main stage of the conference, right after the Opening Remarks and the Keynote Lecture! It was printed right into the conference programme, the Award Recipient Announcement at 0940 on the morning of the first day of this three-day event.
It felt great to go up onstage for this award. Because I began learning to paint as a form of almost-DIY movement-therapy for my CRPS – and to hopefully prevent my CRPS-related mild cognitive impairment from getting any worse – I was absolutely thrilled to win this award from Canada’s only medical and scientific organization specialized in researching and treating pain. And because, before being struck with cognitive issues, my own field was healthcare… my career was in bioethics before I was ‘medically retired’ by these cognitive issues.
Stay tuned for more news about this pain science conference here on the blog, over the next few days and weeks. I’m part of the official “Twitter Team” for this annual scientific meeting, as I was back in 2018, so I’ll be too busy during the event to blog about it… but I promise to share highlights once my cognitive issues have ‘recovered’ a bit. If you’re on Twitter, feel free to follow the conference at #CanadianPain22.
As always, thanks so much for stopping by! Stay safe, keep well, and look after yourself. And feel free to reach out over on Instagram or Twitter; I’ve had to disable the Comments feature here on the blog as it just got to be too much for me to manage with my cognitive issues.
References
(1) Canadian Pain Society. CPS Art Competition 2021 – “Imagining pain”. Webpage. Undated. Online. Accessed 11 May 2022. (Access may be restricted to CPS members):
(2) Woods, Sandra. Art contest news 19.11.2021. Blog (webpage). 19 Nov 2021. Online. Accessed 11 May 2022:
(3) Nomura Holdings, Inc. Nomura Art Award. Webpage. Undated. Online. Accessed 11 May 2022: