By Kat Joyce.
Throughout this year I've been diagnosed and treated for lymphoma (primary mediastinal B cell lymphoma to be exact. I've written a blog about my diagnosis and treatment on the main TF website here.
Cancer can be a really isolating and lonely journey at times, despite the wonderful support I've received. During the Devo Evo process I've done my own bit of (therapeutic) R and D, exploring through writing and images an alter-ego called Lynne Fomo who is making her own solitary way through a hostile landscape.
There's a Pinterest board that I've built here
Lynne Fomo
Lynne Fomo has got no time for any shit.
She doesn't know how much time she has left
She is entirely alone in an alien landscape
Lynne Fomo is going to go six rounds in the ring; tooth and claw
Lynne Fomo howls at the moon
Lynne Fomo wrangles horses
She drinks bone broth and wears animal skin
Lynne Fomo can stick a needle in you and not flinch
Lynne Fomo has a poisonous serpent in her chest coiled around her vena cava
She surveys the sudden violence which is occurring at a cellular level
Lynne Fomo has seen soldiers being annihilated with flamethrowers and nerve gas on the battlefields
Lynne Fomo has turned her body inside out.
Lynne Fomo is eyeliner and fierce shoulder pads
She has wigs that are three times the width of her head and twice the height
Lynne Fomo wallows unapologetically in the unbridled and unironic maudlin emotion of country and western songs
She sears fish over flames
She has a direct line into the vein
She's bald as a coot but has strong eyebrow game
Lynne Fomo gave her hair away to the birds
Lynne Fomo knows the calls of all the different owls
She knows thousands of species of plant and animal
She knows hundreds of 1980s power ballads
She knows the back streets and rat runs of South London
She knows how to find her way from the port to a bar that's open in any city
Lynne Fomo knows what time of day or night it is without a watch
Lynne Fomo has bruised veins instead of tattoos
Lynne Fomo wants to lose her mind in a blitz of alcohol and drugs and a packed crowd of sweating surging bodies
She takes the mantilla and grieves her past life with furious stamping
She lies motionless in bed for days at a time
Lynne Fomo goes on the rampage
Lynne Fomo will put you out of your misery
Lynne Fomo is a vessel full of hope
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I've also returned to visual art during this time. I spent an interesting bit of around Easter, missing the Semana Santa processions in Seville which I normally try to join Al for, creating a self-portrait as grieving Mary. I dressed up and then took photos of myself while self-administering an injection (one of the least favourite bits of my day at the time) and then used them as the basis for a sketch.
I'm not sure what the next steps for Lynne Fomo are. I'm interested in exploring the hostile landscape she inhabits in an abstract form, and am currently joining Al online to explore some abstract painting techniques....
By Kat Joyce, Co-Artistic Director of Tangled Feet
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