"Artist Looks at the Scars and Begins to Heal"

This is a wonderful article for which I'm grateful.  I wish to add that my friends helped me heal.  Without friends, life is an empty and scary place.  Thank you to each of my treasured friends.  I love you.  - Diana

(As featured in the San Luis Obispo Telegram-Tribune weekly Focus magazine the week of June 5-11, 1998.  Article was written by free-lance writer and poet, Francesca Nemko who lives in San Luis Obispo, California.)

San Luis Obispo artist Diana DeMille chose to deal creatively with her two bouts with breast cancer.  Of course this is not to say DeMille didn't suffer pain, humiliation, loss of self and all those negative emotions that are attendant on any such experience.  With a big smile on her radiant face, DeMille says, "I'm just as healthy as can be -- except for the cancer."

She says her association with other cancer survivors has enabled her to stop concentrating so much on herself and to help and encourage others: She has set up a website, "Dancing Tree Frog" at http:fp.tcsn.net/dianademille/.   Half the site is dedicated to a Dream/Cancer Survey and and Healing Ways; the other half to hundreds of her drawings.

DeMille is showing two pieces of her breast cancer artwork in the "Art.Rage.Us" exhibit through June 14 at San Francisco's Main Library.  Concurrently, a book has been published under the same name, which includes art and writing of more than 75 professional and non-professional women from the United States and Canada.  DeMille's two entries are amongst its pages.  The book is published by Chronicle Books, with an introduction by Jill Eikenberry, and is available locally at Novel Experience.

When asked to explain how she became involved in such a worthy project, which is scheduled to travel all over the country until December 2000, DeMille asked to start at the beginning.

"I had my first mastectomy in 1991.   I treated it simply as an annoyance because I was teaching and going to school to earn more degrees.  I said I didn't have time to deal with this.  So, in a way, at that time, I didn't.  I refused to look at the scars and went on as though nothing had happened."

DeMille continued with her art, spending more and more time in her studio -- often painting for eight hours after coming home from work.   It was a way of expressing her anger and rage, but in a sense she was also running away.

After moving to San Luis Obispo from Phoenix three years ago, DeMille was diagnosed with cancer in the other breast.

"This time though," she says, "I felt I was in a more supportive atmosphere and dealt with my feelings differently.... Then I heard about an organization known as BCAG (Breast Cancer Artist Group) that was planning the Art.Rage.Us show and book.  I applied and had two of my three entries accepted.   Since then, I've had three of my other paintings on display at the Unitarian Universalist Church on Foothill Boulevard."  (Call the church office to have a look.)

This is far from DeMille's first public appearance as an artist: She's been in various venues in Canada, Vermont, New Mexico and Phoenix.  However, she feels that she's not as obsessive about the art as she used to be, and is devoting more time to her surveys.  She now works as a secretary for Tri-Counties Regional Center and belongs to the Saturday Artists Group.  Never one to rest on her laurels, though, DeMille is also taking ceramics classes and already working on her next major project.

"It's called 'Woman and Trees,' and I've already finished one.  I have four more in my head, and an entire collection will be part of an exhibit at Linnaea's in July 1999."

In the meantime, you can see the results of some of her Saturday Artists output at Linnaea's in September.  [I will also be showing at Linnaea's in October, 1998.]

Speaking of Linnaea's, DeMille's face lit up as she talked of plans for another website devoted to some of her local favorite places: the coffee house, of course, Finders Keepers, and The Frog and Peach,among others.

Yet another venture she recently launched that she'd like people to know about is her one-of-a-kind portraits, in which she surrounds the subject with images and colors that are extremely personal to them.

"It's like a photo of their soul," muses DeMille.

Even animals can be portrayed, such as her Art Deco setting for Luann Verhelst's "two cultured cats," which are depicted in an abstract collection of piano keys to reflect their human companion's love of the instrument.  Here again, you'll find examples on DeMille's website.

Diana DeMille is a positive example of using seemingly insurmountable obstacles to recreate a life full of purpose and joy, which she gladly shares with others in a multiplicity of ways.