Art at the Mayo Clinic

feat. Tiffany Manning

I did not notice the art on the walls of the Mayo Hospital and Clinic in Jacksonville until I’d been going there for several years.

I had another set of tests and appointments at the Mayo in mid-March, and I’m still getting information about the results. My run of luck has ended; the results were not as good as I expected. They set off some alarms to tweak the treatment a bit because my brain shows signs of returning plaques in the cerebellum, near the brain stem. At first when I learned the news I was heartbroken because I thought it meant the miracle medicine that I began in October of 2023 had stopped working. There is a history of treatments working for a time on sarcoidosis and then being rejected by the body. There were no options when I got this one, and so I don’t expect there to be more. However, my doctors want to try a higher dose and retest soon. Six weeks. Right after my 59^th birthday.

I also learned that my breathing is getting worse, just as I started taking singing lessons to bring me joy. And yes, I notice symptoms – the difficulty and faintness I feel when singing, the gasps I have at night, even on the BiPAP. I notice the brain symptoms too, the clumsiness, the lack of balance, the increased jerkiness. But I don’t think about them. I wonder, but don’t dwell. I have pain on my left side that I think about every day. I always hope that is not permanent. I spent loads of time with local doctors last fall trying to learn and treat the cause of the pain and got nowhere. Casually, my rheumatologist mentioned the brain and spine could be the cause of that. Today the sleep doc casually said, the lesion on the brain could be causing the breathing muscles to weaken.

I am angry. I’m tired of being this sick. This is a flicker of realization that the disease may very well kill me. I am tired of being disabled by all of this. I don’t know how to heal my brain. My BRAIN! My beloved source of pride all my life. It is a deep betrayal.

**************

Of all the places I’ve found art, The Mayo is the most accessible. Ha.

The people in the halls of Mayo are a grim lot for the most part. We are special people, and we know it, but not the kind of special anyone wants to be. We never say, for example, “Hi, I’m here for neurosarcoidosis, what are you in for?” Perhaps the gravity of things weighing on our minds keep our eyes trained on the floor. When the test results get better, we can smile a bit and take in our surroundings. Before I hear the MRI results, I enjoy the bubbling beauty of the landscaping on campus, the brilliant flowers and Floridian flora. As I wait for the special MRI machine in the Mangurian Building, I rest my head on the back of the swivel chair and train my eyes on the design of the lights and metal bars that curve like lassos spreading three stories. The Mayo has a mission to support art and humanities as part of the healing process. All the halls feature some designs, and many include original art works: paintings, collages, paperwork, photos. In the hospital proper, just outside the donors’ auditorium there is an enormous and stunning Chihuly display on the ceiling. Leading to that room there is a hall that features a rotating artist’s exhibition.

I visit the exhibit after the MRI, and I know the results. I am holding down my disappointment and worry. Tiffany Manning’s abstract acrylic paintings, mostly in blue, are featured. They distract me. Tiffany Manning is a painter and photographer who works from her studio in Jacksonville. The exhibit is different than the one I saw in September last, which involved maps of the St. Johns River. That matter appealed to my intellectual brain that didn’t need or want attention. Manning’s work fits, though. It connects to my breaking heart.

There are six large canvases, two small ones and one extremely large painting in the center which resembles a giddy bouquet of bows and ribbons. I am drawn to the weeping paintings. There are several weeping paintings at the Mayo, where the lines of pain(t) drip evenly down the canvas. Manning uses the device in a couple of her paintings on display; this one offers a rainy frame for the whole work.

Absorbing. Energetic. Filled with life. The St. John’s River that runs through Jacksonville and defines its geohistory inspires Manning’s work, and the layered blues and greens of this painting give it an aquatic feel. The lowest third of the canvas features waves and plant figures bouncing upward in a riverine environment, with fish tails and scales and a central turtle swimming to the surface. The strong dark segmented verticals look like a city of reeds emerging from the bottom right, growing upward into the swirling clouds of white and beige. Above all, the dominating figure is a languid circle of blues in the upper left, at once a gigantic eye of a flower and the sun itself. Circles within circles like suction cups lie under the sun, while spray-painted white circles like smoke-rings float above, toward the city of reeds. The sunrays are sinking wiggles of blue and slanted white stripes pointing up. The white circles create a downward, diagonal energy that contrasts with the perpendicular drips extending from outside the top of the canvas. The weeping. The rain that feeds the river, and the sun that begins the circle of life. The Kusama-like circles on the canvas – the symbol of joy and continuity and perfection – relieve the chaotic growth of blues and greens and browns, creating a kind of emotional balance amidst impermanence and relentless change. The more I look at it, the more joy I find. There’s even a tiny bit of atomic energy hidden in the left margin. Like a good poem, it offers many ways in.

Once again, I note that my readings of art are not meant to be the end or even the truth. I hope you can see your own ideas in the abundant canvas.

I am grateful to the Mayo for having faith in the arts and humanities, so important as our national supports crumble, and for the artists for their creations, their spirit, imagination, and work. After a year of good tests results, I thought our time together would be ending, but it looks like I’ll be visiting for a while. At least I can look forward to the next exhibit.

I’ll let you know how it goes next month.

Laura