Her time short, a Brooklyn woman exerts a passion to

paint
Author: Corey Kilgannon
Date: Feb. 12, 2009
From: The New York Times(Vol. 158, Issue 54584)
Publisher: The New York Times Company
Document Type: Article
Length: 800 words
Content Level: (Level 4)
Lexile Measure: 1170L

Full Text: 

A year and a half ago, Cordula Volkening's doctors gave her a grim diagnosis:
brain cancer. Still, having been told that she might have a year to live, she
decided to embark on a career as a painter.

Ms. Volkening, a 52-year-old mother of two from Brooklyn, said she thinks of
painting as a coping mechanism. Years ago, as an art student in Germany --
before immigrating to Brooklyn and starting her own interior construction
design business -- she considered painting her passion. Now she finds that
painting keeps her in the moment, instead of worrying about the future, or
pining for her healthier past.

''I wanted to make the most of my remaining time; it's keeping me sane,'' said
Ms. Volkening, whose speech has been impaired by her condition. ''When I
paint, it's happy, it's independent.''

She is painting not only for her state of mind, but also for the future of her
two children, who live with Ms. Volkening's former husband: her son, Skye,
16, an aspiring actor, and her daughter, Eden, 13.

Ms. Volkening paints quickly and often finishes several paintings a day. She
finished 30 paintings in her first three months and went on to have three art
shows in Brooklyn at which she sold thousands of dollars' worth of her work,
to leave to her children, to augment what her life insurance policy provides.

One show had the fatalistic name ''YOU: Would You Like an Invitation to My
Destination?'' but Ms. Volkening is far from maudlin about her situation.
After a year of ineffective operations and chemotherapy treatments, Ms.
Volkening has now given up on medical treatment, after being told that it
would give her some more time but leave her too weak to paint.

Ms. Volkening, who moved to New York from Germany in 1985, raised her
children in Park Slope and had a business planning and executing
renovations of Park Slope apartments.

After she had a seizure in June 2007, a CAT scan revealed a brain tumor, part
of which she had surgically removed. She underwent chemotherapy and
radiation, and doctors gave her a year to live, at best.

She started sketching in the hospital and once she got out, she was unable to
continue her hands-on design work. Lacking money, she gave up her
apartment and took a spare room with relatives in Brooklyn, which allowed
her to rent art studio space at the Brooklyn Artists Gym on Seventh Street.

Steroids, for her condition, affect her sleeping patterns, so she gets up well
before sunrise and takes two subways to the studio.

Ms. Volkening even tried a special experimental study at

NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital, which involved spending her
days with electrodes attached to her head. But by last March, the tumor was
back and doctors operated again, which damaged her speech capacity, and
last September, doctors found a second, inoperable tumor and said that
heavy chemotherapy could give her a few more months but probably would
leave her without the energy to paint.

Ms. Volkening said she would essentially opt for quality over quantity.

So she spends her remaining time in a comfortable chair by a window at the

studio. She painted years ago but with more mental interference, she said,
making it more of an ''intellectual pursuit'' than the urgent, spontaneous
process it is now. Now the brush itself seems to decide what to paint.

''I paint what comes out,'' she said. ''It's not intellectual -- it's instinctive.''

She paints rapidly, and her images are primal and powerful. There are
insistent brush strokes, bold colors and bleak backgrounds. There are faces
laughing and others cringing. There are winged characters flying into the
beyond. There are people hugging each other. Different as they are, she said,
they all reflect aspects of her condition.
She said the terminal illness has simplified things, washing away the worry
and petty preoccupations that almost made life harder when she had plenty
of it. And she has never felt more connected to the canvas and to her
creativity.

Mostly, she wants the best for her children. Before her diagnosis, her
daughter was always clingy, and her son always seemed independent and
was often out with his friends. Now it is reversed: the boy talks intimately
with her about difficult things, and the girl will not talk about it.

She said her illness has driven her to paint, and she calls every painting a
''gift'' from the cancer.

She said her painting style is shaped by one thing: ''I have nothing to lose.''

CAPTION(S):

PHOTOS: Cordula Volkening focused on art after learning she had cancer.
She aims to leave her earnings to her children, and for now, she says, ''it's
keeping me sane.'' At left, her painting ''Gotta Laugh.''(PHOTOGRAPH BY J. B.
REED FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

By COREY KILGANNON
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2009 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com
Source Citation (MLA 9th Edition)   
Kilgannon, Corey. "Her time short, a Brooklyn woman exerts a passion to
paint." New York Times, 12 Feb. 2009, p. A33(L). Gale In Context: Opposing
Viewpoints,
link.gale.com/apps/doc/A193435717/OVIC?u=j101907002&sid=bookmark-OVI
C&xid=4dc2dd5e. Accessed 29 Apr. 2022.

Gale Document Number: GALE|A193435717