As strange as it sounds, epilepsy is one of the best things that ever happened to me.
I am an artist who has painted in oils full-time for the last eight years. Currently, I am the Artist-in-Residence at the Franco-Manitoban Cultural Center in Winnipeg. I have won numerous awards and my work can be found in private and corporate collections, including the offices of several members of parliament. My motivation for taking the plunge into painting full-time was largely the result of being diagnosed with epilepsy.
The news of my diagnosis came to me as a shock. It was 1990. I was 30 years old and having both grand mal (or tonic-clonic) and complex partial seizures. (The seizures had been occurring before that, but I didn’t know what they were.) I began the process of dealing with the different emotional stages that any illness or death brings about: denial, anger, depression, bargaining and, finally, acceptance.
Dream Time” by Denis Gagnon
At the time my epilepsy was discovered, I was selling real estate in Toronto. I immediately lost my driver’s license, which ended my career. I also lost the sense of freedom that driving a car can bring—this was a big adjustment.
Coping with the implications of what having epilepsy meant was another. I actually knew very little about this disorder, and what I believed about it was based on myths I’d absorbed. Like a lot of other misinformed people out there, I thought that there was an association between epilepsy and mental impairment: I believed that I was going to deteriorate and eventually go crazy!
I didn’t talk to anybody about my concerns. Epilepsy wasn’t in my family, and I didn’t know anyone else who had it. (It was only through my own reading that I eventually learned how epilepsy need not necessarily hamper one’s pursuits.)
For a couple of years after my diagnosis, I struggled to adjust to a number of other issues. I went through a divorce and moved from Toronto to Ottawa, then to Elliot Lake, before finally settling here in Winnipeg three years ago. Because the courts limited access to my young daughter in Toronto on the grounds of my epilepsy, I went into a depression lasting the better part of a year. To this day I have not had overnight access to my 12 year old daughter.
Throughout my life I had always dabbled in art and longed to pursue painting as a career, but it was not realistic. Now, at this time of difficulty in my life, I was able to once again find my purpose through my art. That inner small voice within me said to follow my heart’s greatest desire, that of painting and being an artist. Thus my diagnosis was, ironically and, in a bizarre twist of fate, one of my greatest blessings, as it finally prompted me to pursue my lifelong dream.
In 1992, full of anticipation, I took the plunge and began painting on a full time basis. Initially believing that I would quickly become rich and famous, it wasn’t long before the reality of what becoming an artist entailed set in. This came to me as a slap in the face.
Over time I realized that before any form of success would arrive, I needed to develop my skills. Primarily self-taught, I did this through extensive research, practice and determination. For as gifted as one may be, many long years of dedication and training has to take place before anyone can consider himself or herself worthy of being called proficient in their area of expertise. Was it not the great master Titian who at the age of 99 expressed that he was only then just beginning to learn how to paint?
Denis Gagnon’s Story continues
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