Calendar Girl Blog: Helping Friends

Artist with Parkinson's 'shooting for a miracle'

by Rob O'Flanagan
Guelph Mercury
April 8, 2008

Sue Richards believes in miracles.

The Guelph artist and arts community builder says she is witnessing them in the generosity and support she is receiving from friends and neighbours as she struggles with Parkinson's disease. One neighbour brings her fresh bread every week, others have shovelled the snow from her walkway.

She is open to one big miracle: A cure to her illness.

"I'm shooting for a miracle," said Richards, 50, who helped build Guelph's renowned Hillside Festival as artistic director in its formative years.

"I truly am. I mean, why not -- it happens and why not me? I get a loaf of bread delivered to my front door every week, sliced. That's a miracle. A bigger miracle, a reversal of my health issues. . . . Bring it on."

Richards has been the driving force behind the Breast of Canada calendar, but had to cancel the 2008 edition due to her illness. In recent times, she spearheaded the community arts project Art Jam, and represented a number of artists as a music agent. In 2000, she was honoured with the YMCA-YWCA Woman of Distinction Award for Arts and Culture.

The symptoms of her illness -- an immobilized left hand, tremors and rigidity -- are preventing her from working and earning a living. Parkinson's is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system.

"I am always optimistic, and I am not changing that tune right now because that is the best tune I can play for myself at this moment," said Richards, who has done much to weave the fabric of Guelph's arts community. Now that community is coming together to do as much as it can to help her as she struggles to cope with Parkinson's.

"She is a local artist and the situation that most artists are in is that they don't have access to social benefits when they need them," said Guelph recording artist Jude Vadala, who will be among the performers at a benefit for Richards Saturday night at the Eden Mills Community Hall.

"The community has decided to help her out until she can get back to work or find a way of making a living again," Vadala said. "A lot of people are just so willing to support her.

"We are that kind of community. It's a village, and we don't want her to have to suffer."

Graphic designer Gareth Lind is a neighbour of Richards.

"Most of her life has been spent working in non-profit and cultural sectors," said Lind, who is helping to set up a longer term fundraising campaign for Richards.

"Like a lot of people who are self-employed, she has sort of fallen through the cracks in our health-care system."

Lind said there are a large number of self-employed people in Guelph and elsewhere who, as they age, will face similar situations.

"On the positive side, her friends and acquaintances who have really been touched by the work she has done, have really pulled together to make sure that she has the support that she needs to heal," Lind added.

Richards said her diagnosis was initially frightening.

"It was frighteningly scary because I felt that I was alone and facing this alone. Now that the community has kicked into gear to the degree that they have . . . I feel much safer, and much more embraced."

mercury web extra

To listen to artist Sue Richards talk candidly about living with Parkinson's disease, visit the multimedia section of our website, Guelphmercury.com.

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