In 2021, Petaluma artist Marla Pedersen was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer, at age 40. She spent much of that year alone in patient rooms with a warm blanket across her lap, waiting for PET scans, infusions or oncologist meetings. As she sat naked in her hospital gown with feelings of grief, uncertainty and fear, she often thought of all the people who had used that same gown and blanket before her.
It was then that she needed something. She didn’t know what. Now, five years later, she has unraveled a bit of what she needed as a cancer patient, and she is making art in hopes that patients and their loved ones can find words for one another in difficult times.
“When we put on a hospital gown, we are in a very vulnerable place,” she said. “We have no belongings, we’re waiting to hear news or we’re waiting for a scan. It’s this universal space where everyone has felt that vulnerability and isolation and is sitting with grief. And everyone has something they longed to hear when they were in that space, and yet we don’t talk about it.”
Pedersen’s exhibit, “Threads of Comfort,” is on display at the Dance Palace through May. She uses vibrant colors, mixed media and thread from hospital blankets to express the sorrow, humanity and love intertwined with living through illness. One part of the show is a series of screenprints on hospital blankets. She collected phrases that people in her cancer community say they wanted to hear but didn’t, words that would have provided them with a sense of comfort and calm in a moment of hardship.
Pedersen said often people don’t know what to say to someone who is grieving, while the person who is going through the grief doesn’t know what to ask for.
“We’re all supposed to be strong, be positive, and not be too much for anyone,” she said. “If we say how we are honestly feeling, we might scare someone. Instead of speaking to what we actually need, we hold it inside, but if you don’t share what you need, then how will people know?”
Once diagnosed, Pedersen, an art teacher and a mother, stopped making art altogether. She was afraid it would expose her to her more vulnerable feelings, or even break her. Months later, she found U.C.S.F.’s Art for Recovery group, which meets once a week to express and facilitate the grieving process through art.
“It wasn’t a place to complain about our ailments,” she said. “Since we were processing through art making, it moved the feelings through my body so I could release them. I could breathe again.”
Pedersen said she’d like to see a shift in the norms in how we care for each other. As she sat in the waiting room and received the news of her diagnosis, what she needed was a hug, not a solution. “This journey has taught me how to speak for what I need,” she said. “You don’t always have to be so strong. There’s no love without grief, there’s no light without the dark.”
Marla Pedersen’s exhibition is part of the Dance Palace Art Committee’s monthly rotating lobby series. The show runs through May 28 and can be visited Monday through Friday, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. An artist reception will be held at 11 a.m. on May 16.
Caitlin Sullivan is the Dance Palace’s administrative coordinator. She lives in Inverness Park.