Portrait of an Artist with Parkinson’sphoto and story by Lynn Broughton

These days Sue Richards considers herself a Community Arts Project, and she’s not far off. Much like Art Jam - one of her ventures from1998 - she is engaging community members in a collaborative creative process; this time in her ongoing efforts to recover from Parkinson’s Disease (PD), a condition that has devastated her wellbeing for the past decade. The word re-cover is key here. Sue is steadfast in her belief that she is fighting to conquer this disease.

A regimen of complementary therapies combined with tradi-tional medicines have become crucial to her day to day move-ment as a means of lessening the stress and the symptoms. She is literally trying everything. In a remarkable display of community activism and support, Sue is employing a full team approach to support her on this odyssey: Chiropractor, Chinese Medicine Practitioner, 2 Naturopaths, Reflexologist, Reiki Healer, Massage Therapist, and Nutritionist to name but some.

It isn’t all about the professionals, to be sure. Sue is also propped up by the sweetest type of payback. Friends, even strangers bring food by, bring their beloved dogs for a visit, chop and stack her wood, repair her home using recently do-nated piles of Canadian Tire money, take her for pushes about on her winter kick-sled or summer Wike. And she has found a devoted housemate who has lived rent free the past three years in exchange for assistance at the most difficult times of day, and with the most grueling of tasks. Task that you and I take for granted. This is payback for a life of giving.

Despite this healing support network, living with PD has taken the ultimate toll on her ability to continue to work as an artist, publisher, writer, a social entrepreneur. In 2000, Sue was hon-ored with a Woman of Distinction Award for Arts and Culture from the YWCA - YMCA. She has juried the Juno Awards, co-written over 50 one-act children's plays, mentored countless artists and musicians. Long before she ever knew that she would be a direct beneficiary, Sue Richards has had a persis-tent goal in terms of her contributions to community: she has always wanted to create a legacy of art that keeps on giving.

It is now impossible for her to work at all. The hour to hour management of simply being consumes all her wits and strength. And work she did. Since Sue landed in Guelph in the early 1980‘s, she’s been a key driver in putting Guelph on the world map. A pioneer of the celebrated Hillside Festival as Artistic Director in its early days, Sue also co-managed James Gordon’s career for a decade. Fast forward to now, and she finds herself unable to attend neither Hillside nor Gordon’s lat-est CD release.

In 1998 Sue secured significant grants to her pilot project, Art Jam. Soon after she obtained permission from the Upper Grand District School Board to house the Community Creative Art Project in the old Torrance Public School. As “Empress of Con-cept and Direction”, her programming dream turned reality im-pacted the lives of over 3000 children and adults. Now the website artjam.org is all that is left, a testament to the dedica-tion of vision, frozen in time.

Never one to rest, Sue’s next project was the Breast of Canada Calendar. Where better than “top free Ontario” to intro-duce the topic of breast health that she discovered just didn’t exist. There was plenty of information on breast cancer, but nothing on health. Becoming an authority on the subject, and in true Sue mode, Breast of Canada showcased Guelph talent and photographers while offering the world some much needed guidance. Reflecting on the calendar now, she recognizes that its success, “...gave me a window into the world of serious and terminal illness plus a view of the psychology of sickness - both of which has come in handy as I face my own health cri-sis."

It was around this time that Sue began suffering symptoms of Parkinson’s which radically altered her capacity for physical activity, so she turned to the internet as a means of survival. Blog Guelph was born, showcasing Guelph in many stunning ways through the eyes of close to 5000 local photographers. She successfully continued to create and to eke out a living in this more physically manageable way, writing and photograph-ing for Blog Guelph, her Calendar Girl Blog, The Breast Views and My Menopause Blog. And she did so with trademark hu-mour and panache. The others are idling, but at last count Blog Guelph houses 9000+ photos and has had hundreds of thou-sands of page views from around the globe.

Waking up each day unsure if your brain and body will connect enough to simply lift the covers off makes for a challenging life. But Sue “You can’t imagine what you are missing when you are missing your imagination” being Sue is able to see that life can come full circle, and one reaps what one sows in the absolute best sense here. Sue Smith, Jeff Bird, Tannis Slim-mon, Harry Manx, Jude Vadala - just some of the talent she booked and promoted for Hillside Festival - have organized three fundraisers for her over the years. There is also the happy fact that Blog Guelph continues to this day, still func-tions and evolves, shining a light on Guelph with the help of guest bloggers. While Sue remains the owner of the site, it is solely as an audience member, able to catch a glimpse of the events and changes in her town. This is her connection now.

The fact is, you just cannot keep an artist down for long, nor her audience. Last year Sue masterminded The Great Canadian Tire Money Home Reno Adventure, a brilliant campaign to fund necessary home renovations. She received hundreds of ne-glected bills, and documented each story. And lately Sue has been tentatively writing raw and reflective Facebook posts as a way of reaching out to friends anew. By telling us her story in her own words, she’s keeping us rapt on this brutal journey of hers.

With the help of friends she is working on a video documenta-tion of her struggle with Parkinson’s aptly named The HeArt Project as a means to acquire some monetary aid through the helpingfriends.ca website, yet another giving project that she hopes can grow into assistance to others. Financial strain is ever present. A career as an artist has impeded her ability to collect disability. Like many of the self-employed, she has no access to medical benefits or extra health insurance.

It’s certainly tough to look at Sue’s present life and struggles. But she’s buffered by friends, neighbours, and her home - a place critical to her well-being. True to form, she sees how all the things she’s had a hand in creating are living organisms that keep on giving. A rich tapestry. To look at her now, one can see that Sue Richards has truly become her own Art Jam.