New ways of creating

The beauty in deterioration. And the joy in laughter.

by Brooke Pelczynski

Comic

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The day I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2012, the thought of not being able to use my hands was all I could focus on. I was 22, finishing my last year as an illustration major at the School of Visual Arts in New York, and it was like being slapped in the face over and over again. I am in love with the process of simply creating: all the hands-on grunt work of making art, the all-nighters with a large canvas and a brush, the movement of my body to convey the feeling and emotion in a piece. My fine art work focuses primarily on the beauty in deterioration. I capture the feeling of things falling apart but remaining beautiful, which is what I feel my MS is doing to my body and my work. Repetition of shapes are a device to invite viewers to travel through the whole image and prevent them from getting lost in one section. It asks the viewer to step back and absorb the whole image. MS is a part of my life, but it is not my whole life. I create with the feeling of urgency, never knowing if one day I won’t be able to hold a brush.

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The comics that I create about MS take a moment to laugh about my situation. Yeah, it’s pretty horrible sometimes, but it could always be worse. My main objective is to produce as much work as possible, to learn how to adapt, and to be open to new ways of creating.

Brooke Pelczynski created the comic  and the cover of the Spring 2019 issue specially for Momentum magazine.

See more of Brooke Pelczynski’s work.

Watch a video and read about how Brooke Pelczynski lives with her MS.