'As she loses her senses, I take pictures for her': photography to console a dying friend
By The Telegraph
When Cig Harvey's friend was diagnosed with leukemia, she resolved to help her the best way she could – through her art
In 2017, my friend Mary is diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia. She is 34 years old. She has a bone marrow transplant, lives in a bubble, and goes into remission. But the disease comes back.
As Mary’s world becomes more and more restricted, she texts and FaceTimes, asking me to send pictures. Each day I go out and make something to send her. Each day she asks me to send more.
It is late spring and then summer in Maine – glorious. As she loses her senses, I want her to experience them through my pictures. I finally feel useful.
There is precedence for being drawn to colour and nature when dying or surrounded by death. Josef Albers dedicated his last years to the study of colour, publishing Interaction of Color in his mid-70s. Derek Jarman wrote Chroma, a journal of his garden through colour, while dying of Aids.
On one visit to Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, I hang prisms in the window, and in the afternoon, for a brief 20 minutes when the sun moves between the two high-rises opposite her hospital bed, Mary’s room fills with rainbows. A gift of light. It becomes her favorite time of day.