Art teacher paints to cope with pain and makes $15,000
TWO years ago, when MsChun Wee Ping, then 32, was diagnosed with breast cancer, she turned to painting.
It helped, not only to take her mind off her illness, but also to pay her bills.
Ms Chun Wee Ping with some of her paintings. She holds a self-portrait which shows her painting while she was undergoing chemotherapy. -
Picture: KUA CHEE SIONG
She went online and sold her works on eBay. Her watercolours, mostly landscapes, attracted buyers from all over the world.
In the end, she earned enough to cover about half her medical bills, with the rest coming from insurance.
She has sold more than 500 paintings online, for an estimated $15,000.
Ms Chun, an art teacher, said: 'I felt a lump on my left breast while showering. I didn't take it seriously.'
Six months later, in May 2005, she caved in to her friends' pleas to get it checked.
She said: 'Part of me didn't want to see the doctor because I'm afraid of needles and injections. My fear was having to go through a biopsy.'
But she had to do it, and doctors found a lump the size of a ping-pong ball. The cancer was in the early stages.
The next six months saw her undergoing a battery of tests and treatments, including chemotherapy and radiation, before surgery.
She lost her bob-length hair, often felt weak, vomited and had diarrhoea - all side-effects of the treatments.
Ms Chun, who is single and lives with her parents, quit her full-time teaching job at an art studio in Toa Payoh North.
'I felt drained most times, but I also felt that I should not stop doing some things I love, like painting,' said the eldest of five siblings.
In the beginning, she finished up to four A4-sized paintings a week.
Then it was seven paintings weekly. The paintings also got larger, to A3 size.
They are based on photos she took while doing her three-year diploma in visual art in Tokyo. During this time, she explored Japan and also travelled to Europe.
Most of her paintings sell for between US$30 and US$50 (between $45 and $75) though one fetched as much as US$150. She has had buyers here, as well as in Europe and Australia, and many in the US.
Ms Hope Powell, an art seller in Newport, Oregon, has bought about 200 paintings.
She said in an e-mail: 'I buy them because I love them. I have her paintings all over my walls and sell some of them.'
Ms Chun has now returned to teaching art, on a part-time basis. Doctors have not found any more cancerous growths.
But a reminder of her battle hangs at her workplace.
It is a self-portrait of the time when she was undergoing chemotherapy. It shows the back of a woman wearing a hat and painting sunflowers.
At the bottom are these words: 'To my fellow cancer warriors and their families, although it is a time that is filled with confusion, anxiety and even depression, I exhort you to learn from the sunflowers. Stay positive, always looking up toward the light.'
Love for art pays her cancer bills 
Linear Mode
