THE PATH TO HEALING
Art helps battle health issues
Melissa Bergeron’s painting of a pathway in the woods called Happy Trails belies the seven years of frustration and layers of paint and emotions brushed into the autumn scene.
“Every time I was frustrated I pulled the piece out and worked on it. I called it Happy Trails because in the end everything pulled together and the piece became something I was really happy with,” she said. “It was a journey to get there.”
Turning her frustration into something positive has been a 30year journey for the 46-year-old Comber artist who has gone from mysterious symptoms to partial paralysis to a diagnosis of multiple sclerosis and now hope for healing from Lyme disease.
“You feel like nothing’s going right in life and nothing’s working. I go into my studio and I start painting .... I reach a point that I’m like, ‘I hate this piece. I absolutely hate it.’ And then I put it away and I create something like that that’s very peaceful,” she said motioning toward a colourful closeup of a flower at the Art-Speak Gallery Wednesday.
“All of a sudden, one day everything clicks and it comes together and then the piece becomes something important to me because it has brought me along that path of healing.”
Bergeron has about 200 pieces of mixed media and acrylic paintings in her show called The Love of Healing this week at the Walkerville gallery.
It’s part healing, part fundraising for the artist who wants to raise US$30,000 for what she hopes is a cure for Lyme disease in Mexico.
Bergeron grew up in east Windsor and at age 15 developed vision issues.
By age 22, she was experiencing severe vertigo, she said. Lots of odd symptoms over the years, but no answers.
At age 26, Bergeron said she woke up one day and couldn’t move the left side of her body.
She had already planned her wedding, so a month later she rolled down the aisle in her wheelchair to her husband who believed in the sickness-and-in-health part of the vows and in her.
She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She learned to walk again, but has struggled for 20 years with various symptoms. She didn’t want to take medication and turned to naturopathic treatments, exercise and a healthy diet free of processed foods and sugar.
She hit her head in March and when she wasn’t feeling better months afterwards, she saw a functional neurologist. He said it could be Lyme disease and she now believes her joint pain, pressure headaches and trouble with shortterm memory and mental fogginess are linked to Lyme disease, a chronic condition that shares some symptoms with multiple sclerosis but is caused by a deer tick bite. It is difficult to diagnose Lyme disease, so she can’t be sure.
So far, her painting has been her healing, helping her stay positive and not focus on illness.
“Instead of spending your whole life thinking about I have an illness and I’m sick, I’ve turned it to, ‘I have an illness but I’m going to use that to make things beautiful and share with others.’ ”
Bergeron will be at the 1942 Wyandotte Street East Art-Speak Gallery from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday and from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Friday with a special reception starting at 7 p.m. Friday.
It comes together and then the piece becomes something important to me because it has brought me along that path of healing.