Positive Life NSW

3 Fools and the Wise Ignored: by Peter Schlosser, Oil on canvas, 2001For Peter Schlosser, the creative energy that surfaces through his art is a true life force.

When I was three, so I'm told, I would often sit with Lego blocks or paper and pencils at the coffee table, chin in hand, elbow on table, in the classic pose of deep thought. Mum would smile and walk away. Ten minutes later she'd return and I wouldn't have moved.

"Peter, what are you doing?" she'd ask. "Thinking," I'd reply. Mum would ponder what a child of three had to think about.

Another 10 minutes and another 10 would pass. Suddenly, the building or the drawing would begin and then continue for hours. A glass of milk and homemade cookies would be supplied as I busily worked. I was so happy to be lost in my creative world, time stopped, peace reigned. When done, I'd sit back critically, viewing my work. Mum has said that unlike most kids, you didn't need to ask, "And what have you drawn or made there?" because it wasn't an unrecognisable scribble or amorphous lump of Lego. Mum would simply say, "Oh, what a nice cat" (or "robot" or "castle" or whatever it was that I'd created).

As my life had begun, so it has continued, though not with cats, robots or castles.

It gets better

Throughout my school years, art and creativity in any form was my joy and my escape from the cares of the world. However, it was the 1970s and 'the arts' were considered an abnormal interest for a boy. At my school, only one such subject was allowed. So I chose Art. English, Science, Maths and technical drawing were also among my subjects, which was fine as my hero was not a footballer or cricketer but Leonardo da Vinci and these subjects were his as well. Perhaps needless to say, my scholastic loves were the cause of my hellish school social life of taunts, abuse (both physical and mental), eroded self-esteem, shyness, fear and loneliness. Art and study were my refuge and comfort. I loathed being at school and the people in it. However, as the recent global campaign against gay teenage suicide states, it gets better. Eighteen and freedom from high school and independent living arrived. I enrolled in a BA at the University of Sydney, a double major in Fine Art and English Literature. It was a time of growth and discovery, a time to accept my sexuality with a sense of happiness. Then in 1984 at the age of 21 and happily in a relationship, the grim reaper took it all away. I had HIV and was told I'd not see 25. Hopelessness took over. People started dying and were even committing suicide upon diagnosis. I continued to work but I'd lost meaning and purpose. I was privately waiting to die. I even gave up on my art for two years. Then I went back to college in an attempt to cheer myself up, doing a BA (Visual Arts), majoring in Design, with no thought of career paths.

The turning point was reaching 25 fit and healthy and discovering that statistically I would probably not die till I was 32. I'd finished the degree I loved and in which I'd made lifelong friends. Little did I know, I was already ill and was insidiously and progressively approaching the threat of death. In short, in late 1990, after two years of doctor consultations over a set of bizarre and seemingly unrelated symptoms, I collapsed at a family dinner. Three days later, frightened and delirious, I was admitted to the St Vincent's AIDS ward with stage four Hodgkin's lymphoma. I was given a prognosis of two weeks to live and only a five percent chance of surviving the toxicity of chemotherapy. I slipped into a coma. It was the best bloody thing that's ever happened to me. Exactly a week later I came out of the coma, unafraid of death, no longer shy, joyful at another chance at life and all the experiences it brings that I so much wanted. Ill as I was, I had an inner conviction that all would be well. I demanded that art supplies be brought into hospital so that I could create.

Full spiral

A Man, 1992-9: by Peter Schlosser, Papier macheDespite the negative expectations, I survived nine months of chemotherapy. The final result of this was remission from cancer but with a shattered immune system. I had a T-cell count of 28. I could not go out in public. Visitors were kept to a hygienic minimum. One year later, without further treatment, my T-cell count was 550. Everyone except me was surprised. I decided there were a lot of things I wanted to do. One of them, following the care and love of friends, health workers and total strangers during my illness, was to give back to people in some way. I only had my art, which was a joy to me, and I hoped to share that joy. So I enrolled in a Dip Ed course and became a secondary school teacher in Fine Art and Design.

Before I'd finished the course, I was offered a job by the Department of Education at a school one suburb away from the one I attended as a teenager. The irony of becoming a teacher in the area I grew up in did not escape me. You could say I'd come full circle. I prefer to say I'd come full spiral, in the same place but as a different person, with a different attitude and a newfound confidence and passion.

Teaching Art and Design was the first job I truly loved, though it was to be a bittersweet experience. My partner of eight years had just had his first AIDS-defining illness and began to waste away. I felt guilty at being so happy at work while my partner was slowly dying.

I found that the gratification I got from seeing students' confidence grow, watching them achieve beyond their own expectations and develop a love of art, was immense. With that came a burgeoning desire to produce my own artwork. Teaching left no time for this though. In my second year as a teacher, as I cared for a dying partner, I relapsed with cancer. Chemo began immediately, as did the damage it causes. I was determined that my students would not lose their teacher until they'd progressed to their exams. Teaching and art were the only things that helped me cope with my partner's and my own illnesses, both as therapy and as escape.

Life without vision

In The Moment: by Peter Schlosser, Pastel on paper, 2003

In October 1994, my students were ready for their exams. I was frail and ill and took leave without pay to have my final cycle of chemo and care for my partner fulltime. Art, creativity and joy were set aside. Both of us were in and out of hospital, but never at the same time. We were always crossing paths. My partner died at home post-Christmas 1994. In January 1995, just before my 32nd birthday, I was rushed to hospital with a temperature of 42 degrees with a MAC infection. In the following two weeks I was diagnosed with KS, cholecystitis and last of all a toxoplasmosis infection on the sight centre of the brain, causing blindness and an agonising headache. My partner of 10 years and my beloved job were gone and I was facing eviction. Our emergency Housing Department housing was in my partner's name and not mine. Now at my lowest ebb, I had to consider a life without vision and my final love, art.

On a day in January 1995, without a word to anyone, I literally willed myself to die. Never before had I considered that I would lose everything that mattered to me. The only thing I'd had left was my lifelong love of art – now that was gone too. I embraced death in exhaustion and tears. Everyone I knew visited me on that day, which was unusual. Everyone was sombre and gentle, quiet and loving. I was used to false levity and pep talks. As I wondered at the change in mood, it dawned on me that they were saying their goodbyes. Despite my self-pity, I was dismayed and shocked that everyone had given up on me. I stopped crying and was angry and thoroughly pissed off. How dare they? I told myself that I still had a sense of touch and could learn to be a blind sculptor. Two weeks later I was in remission from my AIDS-defining illnesses and I could see.

Recovery and damage

Recovery was long and slow. I was told I'd be dead by the end of 1997 of either cancer or AIDS. In 1996, with my superannuation and death and disability payouts, I was in New York visiting the Guggenheim and Museum of Modern Art galleries.

When I returned to Australia I began to draw, paint and sculpt. At 1997's end, my T-cell count was in the 500s, my viral load was undetectable. If I could remain in cancer remission, I'd live a good while longer. In 1999, I celebrated five years of remission and with a dear friend's help set up a fine art and design company. Lately I've been doing more interior design work than art work. The process and the feeling I get from this is very much the same for me as creating art. It lacks one thing, though, and that is that it's not quite as personal or meaningful for me.

My hope was financial independence from a life on DSP. This has not been possible as a great deal of permanent damage to my health occurred during chemotherapy and my subsequent illness. I have peripheral neuropathy, which I can mostly ignore. Lipoatrophy has left my nerves unprotected by normal fat layers and bits of me go to sleep if pressure is applied for too long. Some years ago I lost the use of my right foot for six months from sitting at my computer designing something with crossed legs. Life continues to be a challenge as I face osteoarthritis in my hands, back, hip, knees and feet. As an artist, my hands concern me most. Unfortunately my right hand is worst. However, to this day I continue with my artwork and interior design work as and when I'm able, avoiding anything that involves joint stress or impact, like power tools, carving and anything heavy.

Same place, different person

My passion for the creative is unending. It allows me to go out and observe, contemplate and question the world, its beauty and ugliness. In the process I understand others and myself better. I then go home or to my studio, which is my late Dad's workshop at the back of my childhood family home. There I enter that glorious world where time, daily concerns, illness and even pain vanish into oblivion. Thinking, dreaming and creating, as I did aged three. Again this is a case of full spiral – same place, different person. Most of all I'm happy and content, barely containing the anticipation of sharing my work with others. Art gives me purpose, challenge, pleasure, reward and joy. Sometimes it even gives me goose bumps.

Missing teaching, I joined the Positive Speakers Bureau in 1997. I use my artwork to challenge people, to get them thinking and hopefully impact positively on their lives. Speaking is another avenue that achieves these goals. Recently I reconnected with my former university and other designers and artists. I have plans for artworks in a variety of media for several different exhibitions, some of which I've begun. In the event that I can no longer produce art, I will have the time to use my computer to write as I've always wanted to and have often been asked to do. As I view it, writing is art too. Art is a necessity of life for me, like food. A life without art? I don't think so! Peter Schlosser