frontlines

From Illness To Art

Suzanne Chessler

I Contributing Writer

S

usannah Elkin Zisk did not
survive breast cancer, but her
creative spirit did.
Zisk, a fabric artist, looked through a
microscope to stare down captured cells
that had invaded her body and went on to
photograph them, silk-screen the images
and sew the pieces into colorful quilts.
"Oncoglyphs," an exhibit with the nine
resulting designs, adorn the Rotunda
Gallery in the North Campus Research
Complex (NCRC) at the University of
Michigan.
Through Sept. 12, researchers and
visitors will feel Zisk's lingering presence
because of the initiative that turned the
ugliness of disease into the beauty of art.
"Using a visual language, I created
images that convey my understanding of
cancer as a scientific phenomenon and
as lived experience," Zisk wrote about her
project.
"The images, based on a cancer cell,
remind me of hieroglyphics. The mute
marks struggle to speak in a language I rec-
ognize but do not understand. Hence the
name bncoglyphs: or cancer language:'
Zisk, born in Detroit to Judith Laikin
Elkin and Sol Elkin, grew up in Albion
and Ann Arbor, where her mother still
lives. She earned a bachelor's degree
from the University of Michigan and a
master's degree in public policy from the
University of Texas at Austin.
After moving to Seattle for her first
job, she found herself gaining interest
in art and enrolled at the University of

Washington to study sculpture, obtaining
a fine arts degree in 1995.
Zisk's first artistic activities were in metal
sculpting. Some of her conceptual sculp-
tures and installations were inspired by sto-
ries she heard from hospital patients, with
one sculpture installed at the hospital affili-
ated with the University of Washington.
After her marriage and a move to the
Boston area, Zisk turned her attention to
fabric. Her designs were exhibited at collec-
tive shows, and she accepted commissions
from churches and schools.
The artist, husband Stephen Zisk and
their daughter, Leila, made time for activi-
ties with Congregation Dorshei Tzedek,
a Reconstructionist synagogue in West
Newton, Mass.
In Albion, Zisk's family belonged to
Temple Beth Israel in Jackson, where she
was confirmed. In Ann Arbor, Beth Israel
Congregation became her religious center.
"The choice of fabric as a material [for
the oncoglyphs] was instinctual," wrote
Zisk, who fought her disease between the
ages of 40 and 47 while being treated at the
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston.
"Fabric conveys comfort, intimacy,
warmth and security, especially when
quilted. The juxtaposition of cancer cells
screen-printed on a familiar and trusted
material creates an irony that highlights the
insidious horror of the disease:'
Zisk's friends agreed and made her work
known to U-M's NCRC.
"The exhibition shares a very important
story," says Maureen Devine, art coordina-
tor for NCRC Art. "The quilts serve as a
reminder of the human side of the disease:'
Devine accelerated the exhibit open-

JN CONTENTS

ING

Susannah Elkin Zisk: Oncoglyph.

ing by two weeks to meet a request
Researchers asked for a display that could
help set the tone for specific meetings, and
Devine reports very positive reactions from
attendees.
"The quilts will remain in the possession
of Susannah's immediate family and be
kept as treasured relics of a daughter, wife,
mother and sister who confronted her fate
with courage and creativity; says Judith
Laikin Elkin.
"A seminar to introduce the concept of
converting suffering into artistic creation
and the support that creative activity
can provide to patients and their fami-
lies is being planned at the University of
Michigan:'

❑

"Oncoglyphs" will be on display
through Sept.12 at the Rotunda
Gallery of the University of
Michigan North Campus Research
Complex, 2800 Plymouth Road,
Building 18, First Floor, in Ann
Arbor. Hours are 9 a.m.-5:30 p.m.
Mondays-Fridays. Information:
ncrc.cms.si.umich.edu .

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