When Walls Become Doorways: Creativity and the Transforming Illness

By Tobi Zausner

Book Overview

Chronic illness may feel like an impassible barrier, but it can become the doorway to a new and more creative existence. Leonardo da Vinci, Frida Kahlo, Michelangelo, and Georgia O'Keeffe are among the many artists whose physical disorders enhanced their creativity and transformed their lives. Illness shaped their work, and their masterpieces changed our world. In the face of pain and disability, they showed perseverance and ingenuity, revealing that life's lowest moments can hold great potential for creativity and growth. The artists profiled in this book came from many different backgrounds and worked in a variety of media. But all of them experienced a transforming illness by using creativity to triumph over challenges. A transforming illness can happen to anyone at any time, from early in life to its very end. It can even happen more than once. Whether it is a single episode of poor health or a chronic condition, things are never the same afterward. When Tobi Zausner was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1989, her doctor didn't think she would last the year, but her life was transformed. For Zausner and the other artists discussed in these pages, the wall of illness became a door of opportunity. Using fascinating and well-documented life stories of artists and drawing upon her own experience, Zausner offers us methods for accessing our creative abilities and ways to turn a time of poor health into achievement and a more meaningful new life. Creativity is a basic human capacity extending across racial and cultural boundaries, as shown by the artists in this book. In their diversity and their determination they demonstrate that the transforming illness is fundamental to the human condition.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0307238083
• ISBN13: 9780307238085
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Harmony
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.5" x 1.3" x 6.6"

Customer Reviews

Illness as an opportunity for growth

Whole Person Healthcare [Three Volumes] In a society that values physical perfection and youth, people with illnesses have psychological as well as physical challenges. Tobi Zausner, whose background is both in art and psychology, has showed us how to use illness as a source of inspiration and creativity by reviewing the lives of both historical and contemporary artists. For healthcare professionals working in medical settings, for students learning about the meaning of illness, and for the lay person who has an illness, this beautiful new book is a must!

Not Another Book Like It!

Of course, I had to flip right over to the chapter about Vincent van Gogh - having attended one of Dr. Zausner's lectures on the subject, which is so fascinating to me! Vincent seems to always be THE ARTIST we run to when we think of overcoming terrible odds and "combating [his] sickness with creativity." Tobi's empathy for these suffering artists is evident on every page, for this book is a very personal elucidation, which absolutely goes hand-in-hand with her own masterfully transcendent paintings. It's easy to feel her deep and soulful compassion with every word and brushstroke. You'll be so inspired with each anecdote, and all the carefully researched data, and understand the creative process more profoundly than ever... and all at once you'll discover she offers not only the problems but the solutions. Artists, by nature, CREATE - they making something out of nothing. But herein Tobi teaches you how the depth of the human spirit truly glows in the countless examples she has found to flesh out her thesis. Her cover of Vincent's 'Wheatfield and Cypress Trees' is so appropriate for this wonderful book because it is filled with all the juxtapositions of serenity and conflict, harmony and pain... I can't wait to read her next book!

courage and creativity

This remarkable book by Tobi Zausner, artist and psychologist, is principally a compendium of people whose lives have been transformed by illness or injury, from one of adversity to one of productivity and fulfillment through art. It includes psychological insight and some autobiographical elements. Besides introducing us to some remarkable people, and stimulating our empathy for them, it tantalizes the reader to explore their art (Googling makes it easy. Visits to real museums and exhibits are, of course, more rewarding). For those of us who may not be as creative as her artists, is may give us the courage to become more creative and fulfilled. Thank you, Tobi. You've created a book that, like your art, is truly great.

From darkness to light

This book is inspiring and, also, well-researched. Dr. Zausner is both an artist herself, and an art-historian/psychologist. Here are stories and vignettes about artists, both well-known, and not so well-known, for whom illness has brought unsuspected gifts and opportunities. This occured for them in part through good fortune but also by their ability to seize and transform a situation or a life. What makes this possible? Here is the challenge. We can learn from these accounts ourselves as we face our own life trials. Many categories of illness and disability are covered. I just gave this book as a gift to a friend with her own serious illness, to give her new hope. It adds to the power of this book that Dr. Zausner, herself, has had transforming illnesses, and she shares these as well with the reader.