Some articles take time to be
written. There are a number of reasons
why. For this feature on the artist Mary Fisher, which appears in the current issue of Popular Patchwork, the reasons
were fairly straight-forward. Mary is a
talented artist, whom I met at last year’s Festival of Quilts. She graciously agreed to be interviewed by
email. Her work is fascinating and deals
with a very serious subject matter: HIV/Aids and in particular, our treatment
of women in sub-Saharan Africa who suffer from this terrible disease. So it took time for me to craft something
that was suitable for an entertaining quilting magazine, read primarily for
light relief, whilst treating such a subject with the seriousness it
deserves. Hopefully for Mary and the
other women she helps, I have got the balance right and have helped highlight
an issue we would generally prefer not to think about.
For Mary, this isn’t a possibility
as she has HIV too. Prior to meeting her
and doing some more research, I had naively believed that with the new drugs on
the market, it was pretty much life as normal for HIV sufferers in the
West. You take the medicines and
basically it is no more inconvenient than the migraines I suffer from and treat
with drugs on a daily basis. Sadly, that
isn’t the case, as whilst the HIV drugs prolong life, like all drugs there are
side effects and these can be devastating.
Aids isn’t a crisis that has passed, it is still ongoing and when you
discover that in some parts of sub-Saharan Africa, half the population are
infected and the life expectancy is
lower than the years I’ve already achieved (and I’m young in quilting
terms!), it is an outrage that more isn’t being done.
As well as being an artist, Mary has
become a major international campaigner on this scandal and devotes much of her
time to trying to make people aware and change lives.
I know this is more serious than
things I normally write about on my blog: my art doesn’t affect life and death,
but hopefully you’ve stuck with me to the end of this piece and will be
inspired to try and do something about HIV locally or internationally. Ironically for Mary, as a white,
upper-middle-class American Republican, she does not find much companionship/
support in the States as she does not meet many women in a similar position. In her book (well worth a read), she says
that the contrast in the support she received when she was diagnosed with
breast cancer was telling. People knew
what to do in that situation. She often
finds herself more at home with African women in the same circumstances as her:
can I live long enough to see my children through
education/college/marriage/parenthood.
We should all be doing more.
PS If all this makes Mary sound over-assiduous
and humourless, you couldn’t be further from the truth. There is a definite sense of fun and joy
pervading her work and her life too. I
strongly recommend you visit her website or read one of her fascinating books.
