Joan Boxall - DrawBridge

DrawBridge

Copyright Joan Boxall 2019

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without prior permission of the publisher or, in the case of photocopying or other reprographic copying, a licence from Access Copyright, the Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, .

Caitlin Press Inc.

8100 Alderwood Road,

Halfmoon Bay, BC V0N 1Y1

www.caitlin-press.com

Text design by Gerilee McBride Design

Cover design by Vici Johnstone

Edited by Christine Savage

Printed in Canada

Caitlin Press Inc. acknowledges financial support from the Government of Canada and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the British Columbia Arts Council and the Book Publishers Tax Credit.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Title: DrawBridge : drawing alongside my brother's schizophrenia / author, Joan Boxall ;

illustrated by Stephen A. Corcoran.

Names: Boxall, Joan, 1954 author. | Corcoran, Stephen A., 19482013 , illustrator.

Description: Includes bibliographical references.

Identifiers: Canadiana 20190050209 | ISBN 9781773860022 (softcover)

Subjects: LCSH : Corcoran, Stephen A., 19482013 . | LCSH : Corcoran, Stephen A., 19482013 Mental health. | LCSH : Corcoran, Stephen A., 1948-2013 Family. | LCSH : Boxall, Joan, 1954 Family. | LCSH : Schizophrenia and the arts. | LCSH : Art and mental illness. | LCSH : Artists with mental disabilitiesCanadaBiography. | LCSH : SchizophrenicsCanadaBiography. | LCSH : SchizophrenicsFamily relationshipsCanada.

Classification: LCC RC514 .B69 2019 | DDC 616.89/80092 dc

Drawing Alongside
My Brothers Schizophrenia

By Joan Boxall

Illustrations by Stephen A. Corcoran

Caitlin Press

Robert Henri (18651929)
American painter and inspired teacher Stephen A. Corcoran at work. Stephen A. Corcoran pondering a day's work, June 2008.

By Gillian Siddall, president and vice-chancellor of Emily Carr University of Art + Design

DrawBridge tells the poignant story of the authors complex journey of renewing her relationship with her estranged brother through making art together. Joan Boxalls brother, Stephen Corcoran, lived with schizophrenia, and they went many years without seeing much of each other. When Joan decides to make a concerted effort to reconnect with him in middle age, the challenges of their interactions with each other resolve in unexpected and beautiful ways when they begin to take drawing classes together at the Art Studios in Vancouver, whose mandate is to support mental health and addiction recovery through art making. Without being sentimental, the book demonstrates how powerfully making art can connect people, can make community and can give voice to someone like Stephen, who was otherwise socially marginalized by his illness. Stephen finds some measure of peace when making art, and Joan finds a renewed and profound appreciation for her brother and the tremendous struggles he has faced throughout his life. His work culminated in two solo shows in Vancouver.

After his death, Joan established the Stephen A. Corcoran Memorial Award at the Emily Carr University of Art + Design, which Stephen attended in the 1960s when it was called the Vancouver School of Art. The award supports students dealing with mental health issues and is a testament to Stephens strength and creativity, as well as the powerful roles that art and art making can play in our lives.

An apologia is not an apology. It expresses no wrongdoing. Rather, it is an explanation, from the Greek expression in defence ofin this case, an attempt to sidestep societal censure around a chronic mental illness. A quick and loose sketch, done freehand for what was seen and left unseen, vis--vis drawing mediums, such as myself.

My brother Steve and I are about to connect some dots. We are middle-aged siblings. Middle age as a place in time was the Middle-earth that J.R.R. Tolkien wrote about in The Hobbit, one of Steves beloved folk talesa place where humans lived and interacted. Middle age has brought us to a divide. Once the earthen divide is levelled, we draw closer.

Dot connection comes later, as Steve Jobs said: You cant connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards.Believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.

Even though Im looking backwards, I embark on my ramble with Steve in a present tense: a kind of tensor-bandage awareness. I invite the reader to wear its tautness with me: to be aware in our moments together. What difference that makes, you be the judge.

Some names have been changed to protect privacy. Some have been created to connect dots. Here come the dotty dots, the pixie pixels, the didgeridoodles.

Steve and I remain, faithfully yours.

The author, Joan Boxall, with her brother, artist Stephen A. Corcoran.

Steve and I embody two separate circles. Like unicyclists, we roll forward and back, feeling our balance. Pivot, pivot, bump. Two wheels slide into a familial frame. Ker-clunk.

My fifty years to his fifty-five. In family-constellation studies, Steve is an insider and I am an outsider, at number three and number six of seven birth-order positions. Steve, as third child and soon thereafter middle child, isnt predetermined to be a black sheep.

Sociologist and medical historian Peter Morrell says that third children like Steve understand how people operate in social groups fairly intuitively because that is pretty well what they have been forced into doing since birth. They have sound intuition, understand clearly how groups operate, fit in well with teams and work well with others.

I was one of two afterthoughts (even though my mother claimed that none of us were planned). In terms of birth order, number sixes are undocumented. Besides, stellar points youre born into arent ones of your choosing. Star constellations dont last. They run out of fuel. They explode, or implode. The shock waves are felt over time.

The two of us turn out, unwittingly, to be like The Simpsons clan: I am little sister Lisa to his Bart. Contrary to the popular animated television series, I am no genius. Neither is Steve the rebel he makes himself out to be. They, The Simpsons, become Steves pseudo-family. He hangs with them longer than he hung with us. Their dysfunction makes everything else okay.