Beach Feb 2016

“Fight like a Girl,” by Karen Yee.
“Wish Fulfilled,” by Karen Yee.
drops
Until the shoe
Karen Yee has documented her struggles with cancer
through self portraits
by Bondo Wyszpolski
Karen Yee has been on Death Row for 13 years. The executioner
is always on-call, and lingers close by. You could
say, in fact, that’s he’s gotten under her skin. Under her
skin, and in her very bones.
“In 2003, I was diagnosed with inflammatory breast cancer,”
Yee says, “which is a pretty rare, aggressive type of cancer. I
went through two years of treatment, very arduous, chemo, then
surgery, then chemo again, and radiation, then reconstructive
surgeries. I’ve been through the ringer.”
Living dangerously
The El Segundo resident had always been “artsy.” She liked to
draw and make things and had toyed with the idea of trying to
paint in oil. What actually pushed her into doing so was her sudden
brush with mortality. It was, she felt, now or never.
“When I started painting I found it was tremendous therapy,”
Yee says. “I would sit at the kitchen table using a tabletop easel
and when my daughters would come home from school I’d have
to move everything so they could do their homework. That went
on for a few years. Then I took over a structure in the backyard
as my studio. I found that when I was in my studio and when I
was painting it was really the only time that I was living in the
moment. I wasn’t thinking about if I was hungry or if there were
bills I had to pay. It was the only time I just didn’t think about
anything else but what I was doing.”
Yee didn’t let up on her painting once she felt better, but she
began to wonder if oil was the medium best suited to her subject
matter.
“I like to paint traditionally and realistically,” she says, “and I
found that I could do that better with acrylics. That’s what I
paint with now. And as soon as I just accepted the fact that this
is my style, I kind of found my voice and I got a lot more recognition
and more compliments on my work.”
The amount of painting that Yee manages to accomplish has
depended on her fluctuating health and energy.
“This past year my cancer has been active,” she says. “A year
ago October I started chemo and I was on chemo for a year and
this is like the third or fourth time that I had to do chemo because
my cancer would become active again. So, from October
2014 to 2015 I was on one chemo after another and I wasn’t responding
to anything. It just kept progressing and progressing.
“In October 2015, my doctor told me, ‘This is it. You need to
get your things in order. Your liver is more than 50 percent affected.’”
She explains: “It started in my breast, and then spread
to my bones, my liver and my lungs. So that’s what I’m fighting
now.”
It was back to more chemotherapy, in which Yee’s doctor didn’t
place a great deal of faith, but he did think it would buy his
patient more time.
“So I tried it,” Yee continues, “and I responded. My tumor
markers started coming down.” However, “the chemo really
knocked me for a loop. It was really strong chemo and I had no
energy, so for this past year I’ve pulled back. I’ve pulled all my paintings
out of shows and tried to get them all back because I didn’t know
what was happening, and I haven’t had a lot of will or energy to paint.
I am working on a few pieces, but it’s not like I used to.”
Mirror, mirror, on the wall...
When we see Yee’s paintings of herself we realize that pictures are
indeed worth a thousand words.
“The self-portraits that I did about my experience living with cancer
was definitely therapy as well and definitely a voice that I needed to
express for my own benefit. The first of them was a nude torso because
I think I was just so freaked out about my scarred body and what it
had been through. I felt like an empty shell, Frankenstein, with all these
scars. It was kind of coming to terms with who I was, but I was still
embarrassed about it so I didn’t include my face, just my torso.
“In 2009, the cancer came back to my bones,” Yee says, and at the
time she didn’t want to go through chemo again. “It was a horrible experience.
My doctor knew that, but he also knew that I had to do it.
‘I’m really sorry, but you have to go back to chemo.’ I was like, whatever,
let’s kick this sucker to the curb. I don’t care, I’ll do whatever’s
necessary. So, I wanted to do a self-portrait that portrayed that resolve
and determination, which is why I painted myself in the armor with
wings, like I was a fighter. My doctor loves (that work) so much he has
a copy of it in his office.
“Every few years I would do another (self-portrait),” Yee says, “depending
on where I was at. I was talking with other metastatic breast
cancer patients about what it’s like to live with cancer, and I said it’s
like living under the sword of Damocles. I have a very good life, I love
my husband, I love my children, we travel, we do things, but always,
always, the cancer is hanging over my head, and I know that one day
the dagger’s going to fall. So that was the reason for that painting.”
Regarding her latest self-portrait (“The Waiting Game”), Yee says, “my
husband didn’t want me to do it because he thought it was too dark,
but I think it’s actually more hopeful than it looks. I’m behind bars,
like I’m on Death Row, because I felt like 12-1/2 years ago I was given
a death sentence. You know, when you have cancer it’s like getting a
death sentence. But people live for years on Death Row, so you learn
to live with it, kind of. You have this thing hanging over your head, but
what’re you going to do? You’ve got to keep on living, right? You got to
keep going.
“So I painted my infusion line,” Yee continues, “and instead of going
to the bag of chemo it ended up going to a telephone like it was a line
to the governor’s. Because I feel like every time I have chemo it’s like
a reprieve or a stay of execution. Also, I’m holding a shoe like I’m waiting
for the shoe to drop, because I know eventually my time’s going to
be up when I exhaust all my appeals.”
And when the time comes...
Having a life-threatening health condition makes one appreciate the
time that remains, except of course when the pain is unbearable.
“It has taught me to do the things I want to do now,” Yee says. “I had
always wanted to go to Europe, so I went. I was like, Okay, I’m going.
That’s it, I’m not waiting.” As with her desire to make art, her disease
motivated her not to put things off.
Some people, however, prefer to keep their medical condition to
themselves, or to share it only within the family.
“I understand,” Yee says. “A lot of people don’t like to talk about it. I
know from this support group I was in there were a lot of women who
said they never told their co-workers. They didn’t want anyone to know.
I’m much more of an open book. To me, it’s almost like a secret is a
burden. It helps me just to talk to people about it, to let people know
what’s going on with me.” She laughs. “I don’t know if I’m burdening
people with my troubles, but…”
How did Yee find out that she had breast cancer?
“I was 43,” she replies (she’s 56 now), “and I had not had a mammogram.
You’re supposed to start when you’re 40, and I just noticed that
something was wrong with my breast. I asked my husband, Does this
one look different than that one? and he’s like, No, no, but I knew. So
I looked in the phonebook, and I lucked into one of the best oncologists
in the business. Inflammatory breast cancer has been misdiagnosed by
“Penelope’s Robe,” by Karen Yee.
Karen Yee. Photo by Bondo Wyszpolski