Page 18 - DP1_Spring2019

FUNdamentals of decorative painting
KEEPIN’ CRAZY
by Nanette Hilton
In The Decorative Painter Spring 2018 issue I referenced iconic artists Dickinson and Van Gogh as examples of hope, individuality, and true grit. Now I’d like to focus on a Society member–an artist I’ve known for over 20 years–who similarly embodies these qualities and can offer us a model today: Sharon Donati.
She earned the title of Certified Decorative Artist (CDA) in 1999 with an expertly executed stroke board.
In 2000, she passed the stroke portion of the 3-part Master Decorative Artist (MDA) certification. Her story illustrates the fundamentals for successful painting and is instructive for those of us working to improve ourselves
as artists, especially as members of the Society of Decorative Painters.
For eight years Sharon has worked as an integral part of Desert Art Supplies in Henderson, Nevada. Sharon recalls that on a summer day in 2015, “I closed up the shop and went out to my car in the parking lot. I was trying to text my
son about dinner. Forty minutes later I woke up inside my hot car.” Later that year, while cleaning and stocking shelves she remembers thinking, “I better sit down or I’m going to fall down.” She relates that, “I started to fall out the door and my boss caught me in full seize. They called 9-1-1.
I woke up with an IV in my arm. The emergency doctor did an MRI which found a tumor on the top of my brain, inside my skull. According to the doctor, it was in a perfect area to be removed. They scheduled me for surgery, which didn’t go well and I went in for another surgery six weeks later–this time a successful craniotomy. The tumor was benign. Since then I’ve been on seizure medications and will have to be on them the rest of my life because my brain is still abnormal. Good thing for us artists that we have abnormal brains!” she quips with a smile.
“While I was in the hospital, my insurance company went bankrupt,”
Sharon reports.
The financial
ramifications
left Sharon in
limbo, waiting
for a healthcare
provider to take
responsibility
for her
rehabilitation
care. None
appeared,
which left her in
bed without therapy. “I ended up losing the ability to walk,” Sharon relates. “I stayed three months in regular rehab where caregivers just barely helped me relearn to walk. After that I was in a group home for 30 days.”
Sharon went home on April 15, 2016. Thankfully, she was blessed with a niece who came to stay for six weeks, then
a cousin for two, after which occasional family and friends stopped by to visit and assist her. At first Sharon was in a wheelchair, then she used a walker and finally a cane to get around. In May 2017 she told me, “I still walk with a cane when I get tired. Getting my life back. Getting to see my friends now.” So, when I saw her drive up to our painting chapter’s December Christmas party and walk to the door holding a gift without using a cane, I was ecstatic!
But two years prior, Christmas 2015, life was complicated for Sharon and the new year ahead was filled was uncertainty. After her December surgery, I visited her in the hospital and asked Sharon how her surgery went and how she felt. “They let me keep my crazy!” she replied. By this she meant her creativity–her ability to see color, contrast, texture, shape and beauty, and to render it through her unique lens.
When I visited I brought little things, hoping to nurture her “crazy.” I tore pages out of a decorative painting calendar and taped them around her hospital room to brighten it up. I brought her magazines, paper, watercolors and pens. She had her sketchbook and colored pencils. When I asked her what she’d like, she said, “fruit and Doritos.” I brought her some from the grocery store. At my next visit she showed me a beautifully painted pear–she opted to paint it instead of eat it.
16 TheDecorativePainter • SPRING 2019