March 3 to April 29, 2016
Ron Duffy
This 34-painting, 31-poem exhibit shares Ron Duffy’s feelings and experiences living with chronic illness. Starting with confusion, anger, frustration, and isolation, he moves toward hopefulness, joy and making peace with the situation, seeing his experience with fresh eyes-more acceptance and less judgment. These abstract paintings and poems sparked in Ron a renewed zest for living that had been dulled by illness.
After a long career that included creating and producing the Inner Journey Radio Program, Ron Duffy retired due to complexities of long-term illness. Painting and writing poems continues to be a gentle, healing activity, central to his life.
Artist:
Ron Duffy began his career in 1975 working on constituent service and legislative research assignments for the Minnesota House of Representatives. Subsequently, Ron worked in sales and management positions for a home improvement company, video publishing company and a TV commercial film production company. He also spent 3 years working as a trainer teaching quality improvement and team problem solving strategies to corporate clients across the country. From 1997 to 2007, Ron created and produced the Inner Journey Radio Program, broadcast on 17 public, university and commercial stations. Due to complexities of long term illness, Ron retired in 2008. Ron continues to work on artistic and creative projects that are important to him.
Painting came later into Ron’s life, as a total surprise. Starting in 2010, at age 57, and continuing for more than a year, paintings figuratively erupted out of him. Ron experienced an intuitive desire to portray feelings and experiences about living with chronic illness in paintings and poems. This creative period led to the birth of his 34-painting and 31-poem exhibit titled “Brushed Back To Life: Healing From Illness through Intuitive Painting and Poems.”
Visually and through original poems, Ron share’s feelings and experiences that began in confusion, frustration, anger and isolation and moved through these feelings towards acceptance, healing and joy. For Ron, painting and poem writing continues to be a gentle, healing activity, central to his life.