Stitching Stories

My friend, artist Elizabeth Shefrin, has a book launch and exhibit at Vancouver's Roundhouse on September 15th. Her book is the "Embroidered Cancer Comic", a poignant, intimate and gently humourous true story of what she and her husband (legendary folk singer Bob Bossin) experienced after his diagnosis with prostate cancer. Elizabeth's own words (from the Singing Dragon blog) are better than mine here.

“How did I come to write a comic?” I’m glad you asked. As soon as my husband Bob Bossin was diagnosed in 2011 with prostate cancer, we started making cancer jokes. Every time we could laugh about the situation, one of us would say, “That goes in the comic”.  At this stage the comic was completely imaginary.  But eventually I picked up my needle and stitched and stitched until I had over sixty embroidered squares…
... I like the comic book medium because it gives some lightness to a pretty serious situation.  On the night of Bob’s diagnosis we made a decision to get married and one of our marriage vows was to never lose our sense of humour. I have created this comic as partial fulfillment of my wedding vows.

After embroidering 60 panels of the comics themselves, Elizabeth decided to make them into quilts. I took a few shots of her in her lovely bright studio. ( I have had the privilege of assisting her with assembling the quilt tops. She is doing all the hand-quilting herself.)

You can hear a delightful interview with Elizabeth on CBC's North by Northwest, (starts about 39 minutes in) and keep up with all her news on the Facebook page Embroidered Cancer Comic. And if you are in or near Vancouver, check out the Roundhouse show!