WHEN LIFE IMITATES ART,
TIME TO START PUSHING
Journal of Healing – June 25, 2003
By Mary Koch

It takes a lot of cheek to tell an artist he's misinterpreted his own creation.

So there I stood, cheeky as a hog jowl, contradicting sculptor Richard Beyer over a character in his latest work. Never mind that Rich's sculptures are internationally acclaimed and beloved – his famous "Waiting for the Interurban" in Seattle a case in point.

Who did I think I was? I should have been simply humble and grateful that Rich allowed us to visit the foundry in Pateros where his work is in progress. It would have been more gracious to keep my opinions to myself. But silence, graceful or not, has never been my strong suit.

"The woman is kind of snooty," Rich was saying with quiet amusement.

"No she isn't!" I blurted.

The woman in question was part of a life-size family grouping that will be placed on a Puget Sound beach at Edmonds later this summer. She is standing with her husband, two young children and grandma and grandpa. Grandpa is in a wheelchair, which the woman is pushing, and grandma is a tiny woman, almost overshadowed by the other family members.

Rich thinks the woman is "snooty," I guess, because of her upturned face and erect posture. As someone who does a lot of wheelchair pushing, I admired her upright stance. If you're taller than, say, five-foot-three, -- and both she and I are -- it's challenging to maintain good posture behind a wheelchair. The handles are too low, and the temptation is to stoop and lean into the chair as you push.

I saw the woman as proud, determined, capable and strong. She is the family caregiver, a member of what they call the "sandwich" generation, sandwiched between frail and aging parents and growing youngsters.

She's not the lithe, slender woman that we're brainwashed into thinking we should all be. She's big, buxom, hippy and probably has thighs like a football player. She's powerful, a woman to be admired.

As with any complex Beyer sculpture, there's a lot going on to take attention away from the care-giving woman. Her husband has just spotted a whale out in the sound. Eyes popping, mouth exclaiming, he is calling everyone's attention to the sight with a grand gesture.

That drama, I suppose, is what will capture most people's attention. But when we walked into the foundry, the first thing I saw was the wheelchair.

Why have you included a wheelchair, I asked Rich. Because, he answered, you don't see a lot of wheelchairs in art. Then he explained a little further.

The sculpture began with the family lying on the beach, enjoying a picnic. Rich decided it needed something more, so he put grandpa in a wheelchair. That decision created artistic problems. The chair took over, dominating the grouping. Rich had to pick the family up from lazing on the beach, dust the sand off them and stand them up straight.

The sculptor's experience, it seems to me, mirrors what happens to a family when a wheelchair is introduced. It has an impact not only on the wheelchair user, but on everyone in the family; it changes all of them.

In life, as in art, a wheelchair can inspire the rest of us to stop lolling in the sand, to stand up, help out and start pushing.

(Mary Koch writes about health care issues and her experiences as a family caregiver. Her husband, retired newspaper publisher John E. Andrist, was severely disabled by a stroke in 1993. They welcome your letters at P.O. Box 3346, Omak WA 98841 or e-mail them at marykoch@marykoch.com.)