Joanna White
About the artist:
Joanna White is a music professor at Central Michigan University. She has recently had creative work accepted for work or published in Ars Medica, Minerva Rising, Naugatuck River Review, Grey Sparrow Journal and other venues. She lives with her husband and has a daughter and a son in college.
About the artwork:
“At a preoperative visit with an anesthesiologist last year, I saw the oxygen mask that she would use and burst into tears. I believe that the sight of the mask brought back fears related to a surgeries in childhood. The startled doctor told me to take the mask home and ‘put it under your pillow’ to get used to it. The mask did not quite make it under my pillow, but I did make a watercolor painting of it.”
Visuals editor:
Justin Sanders
3 thoughts on “Mask”
Beautiful! and, what a wonderful gift and thoughtful, creative intervention from the physician
Joanna, this watercolor does such a beautiful job of depicting your feelings associated with giving up control. I imagine that under anesthesia you are floating in another world not knowing when your ability to be in control will be reinstated. A powerful image.
The picture is beautiful. This goes beyond its face for me.
It looks like a dream. “Adrift” comes to mind.
The way you used the paper; the light coming through…