Building forts and finding safe spaces

HEAL is an exhibition artist Vanessa Fay has created as she strives to make sense of her healing journey. That journey has been ongoing for approximately seven years to this point, and the Cavan mother of two has still further to go.

The title Heal is in the imperative. Vanessa is willing her body to heal – through every way she can - not just for herself but for her loved ones.

It’s a powerful theme, handled with subtlety by Vanessa, through abstract paintings, her sensitive sculptural works and her digitally rendered prints which exhibit her professional background in graphic design.

To discuss her exhibition, she welcomes the Celt to her parents’ home overlooking Lough Inchin, just west of Cavan Town. Illness has impacted Vanessa significantly, limiting her mobility and left her with blind spots in both eyes.

Vanessa was on maternity leave, caring for her then three year old daughter Nina, and six month old son Stanley when in 2019 she was diagnosed with a grade two astrocytoma, a type of brain tumour.

“Initially they said that we wouldn’t be able to get rid of it,” recalls Vanessa of the consultant’s prognosis in Beaumont. “He said all we can do is stunt it and try to stop it from growing any more.”

As such fifteen per cent of the tumour remained after the surgery, which was then treated with radiotherapy. Meanwhile Vanessa explored how she could boost her own resilience.

“I went down the whole nutrition route. I was juicing every day and taking supplements - that type of thing.

“I believe that over time your body can heal itself, so I think after an amount of time it just went.

“I went in one day for scan results and they said there’s no sign of it. Which was amazing, and they were in shock. It was a great result.”

Vanessa is confident of the contribution she made to her own wellbeing.

“Now it could have been the radiotherapy continuing to work,” she volunteers, “but I think all the health stuff would have helped, because essentially you are building your body’s strength. It was all immune-boosting supplements and immune-boosting food. You are making your body stronger to fight whatever’s there.”

It’s a measure of Vanessa’s character that when she initially received the diagnosis, she viewed it as a chance to pursue her love of art, a love that had to that point been subordinated to the necessities of earning a living. Fortunately her career has been in creative fields, as a photographer and graphic designer, and with much success. She even worked in London for the world famous art publishing house Thames & Hudson.

Having returned to Ireland to raise a family with husband John, her illness emerged in 2019. The combination of amazing support from her employers Publicis, who put her under no pressure to return to work, and salary protection, gave her the means and freedom to concentrate on her health and indulge her passion for art. These two things are not separate for Vanessa.

“All the art and courses were giving me a sense of purpose and would have contributed to my healing in the sense that they would have been art therapy, and a great distraction because I had a lot of time on my hands.”

Whenever you’re creating artworks, the Celt asks Vanessa, where is your mind?

“It’s just in a lovely place. I get into a flow state and all stresses and worries are gone. I’m very focused on what I’m doing, which is a very mindful practice.”

One of the works to feature in Heal is a series of four prints under the title ‘I Will Build My Own Fort’, which speak to her graphic design background. She found images of original designs of medieval forts dotted around Europe. Using digital software, she overlaid coloured shapes, creating truly harmonious compositions.

“When I came across them I was very much housebound and it became my safe space. Trying to leave the house and be comfortable anywhere else was quite hard.

“At the time I think I wrote a poem saying ‘I’ll build my own fort’ and I think it was about creating a safe space.

“So these to me are order and structure.”

As we discuss these works Vanessa offers: “What I do find hard in art is just letting go.

“When I was doing the drawing and sculpture course in NCAD my teacher kept on telling me to stop trying to control it, to loosen up and let go, and that was a big learning curve.”

Vanessa definitely loosens the grip when it comes to her abstract works on canvas. As we scroll through them, we fall upon her favourite, which she refers to as Blue Painting.

“I remember when I did it, I just went for it,” she says explaining the music she paints to is important - acts such as Bonobo, Tribe Called Quest or Jon Hopkins.

“The music would relax me, and get me in the zone, and I’d just get lost in it. And this one, I really enjoyed doing it. It just happened, I was in the right zone and went for it. You see colour combinations that start working. It very much evolves and is quite spontaneous.”

She recalls it captured exactly how she felt.

“I was in a very happy space,” she says, despite the dominance of blue.

“The energy is in it,” she expands. “I did it in one sitting, I was very certain when I was doing it.”

Her exhibition opens this week in Johnston Central Library and promises to be full of such moments of certainty and energy.

“It’s all about how art has helped me heal, and some of the pieces are very specific to my story, for example I have my radiotherapy mask and we’re going to have a weaving circle, where some friends and family are going to weave the mask with embroidery, which is almost like an installation.”

Her sister Caroline locates the plastic mesh mask, moulded to replicate the contours of Vanessa’s face.

“It’s transforming it into something more beautiful and taking the positives out of something quite scary,” says Vanessa.

“Because this experience has changed me so much my themes for the whole sculptural part is transformation.”

Unfortunately, over time the cancer returned, this time as a grade three. Such heart-breaking recurrences of cancer after a lengthy period of remission are not uncommon. It is obviously hugely challenging.

Vanessa explains how she has become “very spiritual” through this whole experience, finding a new appreciation for religion.

“I think you have to have faith to get through something like this, whether it’s religion or spirituality or just to believe in something that’s greater than us, because if you don’t I think it’s very hard to have hope.

“I would be very like - everything happens for a reason, even the shit stuff. For me part of the reason it’s happening is because I had forgotten that – and then I got caught up in daily worries and getting back to real life – so you lose that connection with yourself.”

Facing such difficult health challenges, and all that entails has led her to struggle with depression at times.

Vanessa notes “the prognosis isn’t great” if she just has radiotherapy alone. As such her scans and records have been sent to specialists in Germany with the aim of undertaking immunotherapy.

“If I am suitable for it I will be doing that – one hundred per cent,” she says.

“For some reason I’m a lot more at peace now, I think. It was a big wake up call and you just stop worrying about little things. This is more important, my kids are more important and at the end of the day, even though this has happened, the only thing that matters is them.

“The idea of just wallowing in self-pity would be such a waste of time. Time is so precious, and they’re so precious – I try to be strong for them.”

Vanessa generously regards Heal as a group exhibition, given the support of friends such as curator Rebecca O’Connor, and fellow graphic designer Jonty O’Neill in helping with the technical aspects, and Vanessa Daws who let her share her studio in Dublin for a time.

Heal by Vanessa Fay opens on Saturday, December 6 at 3pm in Johnston Central Library’s exhibition space and runs to January 6.