How can art transform the way we navigate life’s challenges? What role does creativity play in healing and connection? In our latest podcast, KWNK 97.7FM, Felicia Perez and Candace Nicole Garlock explore these powerful questions, sharing personal stories, insights, and inspirations from their journeys as artists living with chronic illness.
Felicia Perez, an “artivist” and storyteller, discusses her Holland Project exhibition, Concentrate: On the Small Things. The show weaves themes of joy, life, and mortality through symbolic pieces that use blue to represent life and orange to symbolize death. Her raw, honest approach to art reflects her journey through illness, remission, and learning to embrace her changing body. Felicia describes how art became a way to process her experiences, tell her story, and connect with others meaningfully.
Candace Nicole Garlock, an artist for over 40 years, shares her perspective on adapting her creative process due to chronic illness. She reflects on the importance of art as both a personal outlet and a tool for advocacy, emphasizing its power to foster empathy and create community. Together, they discuss their shared experiences of navigating health systems, societal stigma, and the isolation that often comes with chronic illness.
Listeners will also hear about the systemic challenges facing artists, including the lack of support for the arts in schools and the need for greater recognition of art as a vital, healing profession. Felicia and Candace explore how art can bring people together, even in moments of isolation, and why focusing on the small, joyful moments in life is essential.
https://hollandreno.org/hp-gallery/
https://candacenicolgarlock.com/