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ART OF MEDICINE

Waterloo

"Chemo"
Collage on Paper
By Naomi Hartov

Naomi Hartov has always been interested in art but spent years seeking the right medium. "I tried drawing, which I don't do well," she says. "And wood sculpture culminated in 11 stitches and caused my teacher to quit teaching carving!" Finally, about six years ago, she discovered collage. It is "a medium that anyone can do," she says, and "the recycling aspect of it also appeals to me." She collects pages from catalogs and magazines and files them by color and type of object. "I approach it like a jigsaw puzzle, searching for a piece and then moving it around to see where it 'fits.'" She believes the process can "facilitate access to unconscious thought and feelings." As it happens, she had plenty of those when she created the work above, one of her earlier collages; she was working then for DHMC's Comprehensive Breast Program and had just been diagnosed with breast cancer herself. Although some of her pieces, like this one, are "obviously therapeutic," often she is "just having fun playing with images." Then, she says, she gives her works titles that are "a bit vague, so each observer can read into it what he or she 'sees.'"


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