FRAMED: WORKS BY ERIN BRADY WORSHAM

November 13 & 14 at Studio East, 1520 Woodland Street

When John Guider and Stacey Irvin (two highly talented photographer friends of mine) tell me I should go and see an art show, I listen.

They can’t say enough good things about Erin Brady Worsham, an artist they’re featuring at their studio gallery this weekend. The fact that Worsham creates art at all pretty much negates most any excuse a person could come up with for not getting a thing done. She suffers from ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, which causes nerve cells to slowly waste away and die.

The disease renders the simplest bodily functions (like breathing or swallowing) extremely difficult, gradually erodes a person’s ability to speak, and can eventually lead to paralysis. But it leaves the mind intact: joy, desire, a love of beauty–it’s all still there, locked inside an uncooperative hull that’s failing, slowly, painfully.

Worsham determination to express her artist’s honed aesthetic and to liberate that intact mind’s vision is of a ferocity that passes understanding for those of us whose lives are far easier.  Confined to a wheelchair, mostly paralyzed, and requiring constant care, she creates with the help of a device that allows her to communicate with a computer via a sensor taped to her forehead. The resulting artworks often require as much as 300 hours to complete.

“Her strength, courage, and convictions have been so inspirational for me at a time when I needed inspiration most,” says Guider, a man whose journey is an inspiration in its own right.

There’s a reception for Worsham on Saturday, Nov. 13 from 5:30 to 9pm and another on Sunday from 1:30 to 4pm. I’ll see you there.