'I just stopped being afraid': Artist Deidre McAdam fought through cancer diagnosis with the help of silk painting

Deidre McAdam was vacationing in Tucson when she received the call about the bump on her cheek.

The cyst had lingered there for eight years; been removed and returned. Then it started growing.

McAdam went to a plastic surgeon to have it removed once again. Her doctor submitted it for a biopsy.

'I just stopped being afraid': Artist Deidre McAdam fought through cancer diagnosis with the help of silk painting

“He said, ‘You have (a slow-growing) lymphatic cancer,’” said the Albuquerque silk painter. “I was in shock because I felt great. I had no symptoms at all.”

It took months before she could get a CAT scan for treatment and to diagnose the spread.

She spent that time in limbo making art – eventually, more than 23 silk paintings.

McAdam will be showing her work in “The Art of Healing” at Gallery with a Cause in the New Mexico Cancer Center. Forty percent of each sale is tax-deductible and funneled into the New Mexico Cancer Center Foundation. The money supports the patients’ nonmedical needs. The exhibit showcases 350 works, predominantly by artists whose lives have been impacted by life-changing illness.

McAdam’s scan revealed cancer in her cheek and in two lymph nodes. She endured 12 radiation treatments in five-day segments.

“Radiation is very debilitating for the whole body,” she said. “I had fatigue for five months. It burned the skin on the side of my face and inside my cheek.

“I just painted, painted, painted,” she continued. “They just came to me; you’re just in another world.

“Cancer destroyed my illusion that everything would be OK and introduced me to chaos, fear, ambiguity, death, fragility and reaching out without shame or fear,” McAdam said. “Cancer taught me to get out of the way and to nurture a felt but unseen collaboration while painting. I just stopped being afraid.”

Within eight months, she was cancer-free.

A retired educator who last directed the Taos Charter School for five years, McAdam had always loved art, but thought she couldn’t support herself with it. After she retired, she flew to her wife’s home in Austin, Texas, to decide what to do next.

“I spent a year walking in the woods,” she said. “I was shedding the library of educational knowledge to make space for something new.”

She took some painting classes and workshops and began using oils. She moved to Albuquerque in 2019.

Just before she was diagnosed, McAdam visited Gallery with a Cause to discuss working as a volunteer. Instead, she spotted a silk painting and fell in love, enraptured by the vivid colors.

“Silk is produced by silk worms and the structure of the fiber is like a prism, so it reflects light,” she said.

She took a two-hour tutorial with a silk painter to learn the technique

“For two hours, she kept saying, ‘Try this, try this, try this,’” McAdam said.

Painting on silk has been practiced for centuries in Asia. After the painting is complete, the artist rolls it in paper and hangs it in a steamer for three hours to fix the dye.

“Painting with French dyes on Chinese crepe de Chine silk is a dance between imposing control and risking chaos,” McAdam said. “It’s very similar to watercolor. You start with the light and work into the dark. I have a bowl of folded silks that I call ‘my failure bowl.’”

McAdams’ painting “May You Walk in Beauty” captures her photograph of an aspen grove.

“Every morning I sit with my coffee and look at these paintings,” she said. “I had no idea what to name any of them.”

The exhibition will feature silk painting, metal art, stained-glass, painting, drawing, watercolor, mixed-media and photography.