RA & The Arts

ARCHITECTURE

Antoni Gaudi
Description: Antoni Gaudí i Cornet, Catalan architect and one of the most important visual artists of the 19th and 20th centuries, suffered from a recurrent and often persistent arthritis since he was 6 years old. His diagnosis is uncertain but juvenile idiopathic arthritis is most likely. He coped successfully with his rheumatic illness during his life. It is proposed that his arthritis may have influenced him to the development of 2 of his major skills: observation power and analysis of nature.
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Raymond Hood
Description: Hood is the architect of the Daily News building in New York City, Rockefeller Center in New York City, and the Chicago Tribune building in Chicago. Born in Rhode Island, Hood studied at Brown University, MIT, and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Hood lived with rheumatoid arthritis. Both his career and his life were cut short when he died in his early fifties, due to complications from rheumatoid arthritis.
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ART

How Renoir Coped with Rheumatoid Arthritis
British Medical Journal
Description: Few people know that Pierre-Auguste Renoir, who lived from 1841 to 1919, suffered from severe rheumatoid arthritis for the last 25 years of his life. At the 13th European congress of rheumatology in Amsterdam in 1995 Mr Paul Renoir, the artist’s 70 year old grandson, revealed several previously unpublished aspects of his grandfather’s disease.
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BOOKS

Another Alice: An Inspiring True Story of a Young Woman’s Battle to Overcome Rheumatoid Arthritis
Alice Peterson
Description: Love, lust, boys and coursework – the main worries of a teenage girl? Not for eighteen-year-old Alice Peterson, who, at the height of her youth and an extremely promising tennis career, was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. In the midst of shock and denial, and the enduring question, ‘Isn’t it old people who get arthritis?’, Alice had to learn to live with what quickly turned from the odd ache and pain to a very aggressive form of the illness, and rediscover a new path in life. “Another Alice” is at times utterly heart-breaking, and at others laugh-out-loud. Here is her story of how, armed with humour and courage, she left behind a world she loved to overcome the pain of a degenerative illness. Told with wit, charm and frankness, “Another Alice” is also a story of friendship, family, growing up and the desire to be ‘normal’. But, above all, it celebrates the power of the human spirit.

Jodie’s Journey
Colin Thiele
Description: Twelve-year-old Jodie, disabled by juvenile rheumatoid arthritis and no longer able to ride her beloved horse Monarch, faces a crisis when the two of them are alone at her remote Australia home and a devastating fire approaches.

Juvenile Arthritis: The Ultimate Teen Guide (It Happened to Me)
Kelly Rouba
Description: A self-help guide for youth, Juvenile Arthritis: The Ultimate Teen Guide will also be useful to family members, friends, and caregivers of those suffering from the disease. Readers get an overview of juvenile arthritis from the point of view of teenagers and their parents, and there are discussions related to diagnosis, symptoms of the disease, its history, and various related conditions.

Out of Joint: A Private and Public Story of Arthritis
Mary Felstiner
Description: She begins, in the morning, by casing her joints: Can her ankles take the stairs? Will her fingers open a jar? Peel an orange? But it was not always this way for Mary Felstiner, who went to bed one night an active professional and healthy young mother, and woke the next morning literally out of joint. With wrists and elbows no longer working right, she’d discovered one of the first signs of rheumatoid arthritis, the most virulent form of a common disease. Out of Joint is her account of living through arthritis, a distinction she shares with seventy million Americans. While arthritis pain affects one out of three Americans, this book is the first to tell the personal story of the nation’s most common yet neglected disease. Part memoir, part medical and social history, Out of Joint folds the author’s private experience into far-reaching investigations of a socially hidden ailment and of any chronic condition—how to handle love, work, sexuality, fatigue, betrayal, pain, time, mortality, rights, myths, and memory. Moving from the 1940s to the present, this story of one life with arthritis exposes little-known medical research and provocative social issues: alarming controversies over arthritis miracle drugs, intense demands concerning disability, and the surprising and disproportionate number of women affected by chronic illness. From this prize-winning historian comes a call for healing through history, a moving meditation on the way chronic conditions can be treated by enlisting the past.
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Poor Liam
Jack McGlone
Description: Poor Liam was written by Jack McGlone for his brother Liam, who lives with Juvenile Arthritis. It’s a wonderful little book (I particularly enjoyed the drawings!) that will take you just a few minutes to go through, so be sure to take a look!
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Send Yourself Roses: Thoughts on My Life, Love, and Leading Roles
Kathleen Turner and Gloria Feldt
Description: Kathleen Turner has always lived her life according to her own rules. The screen icon opens up about her own life–both personal and professional–the risks she’s taken, and the lessons she’s learned from her film and stage career, 20-year marriage (and recent seperation), raising her daughter, and her successful struggle with rheumatoid arthritis.
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MOVIES

A Love Supreme
Nilesh Patel
Description: A Love Supreme is a ten minute black and white documentary film produced by Nilesh Patel in 2001. This film was a tribute to Patel’s mother, who lives with rheumatoid arthritis. The goal was to create a record of her skilled hands preparing samosas, in case they became affected by RA in the future. This film is available for viewing at the BBC Film Network. (Real Player or Windows Media Player required.)
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Kathleen Turner
Description: Actress Kathleen Turner (b. June 19, 1954) came to fame in the 1980’s after appearing in movies such as “Body Heat”, “Serial Mom”, “Romancing the Stone” (for which she won a Golden Globe Award), and “Prizzi’s Honor”. Her rising career was halted in the 1990’s, however, when Turner was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis. Kathleen Turner’s rheumatoid arthritis finally went into remission almost a decade later. The actress returned to making cameo appearances on television shows, and was most recently seen playing a small role in the movie “Marley & Me”.
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La Vie en Rose
Description: Picturehouse and HBO Films present a critically-acclaimed biopic about the legendary international singing icon Edith Piaf, whose voice and talent captivated the world. Starring award-winner Marion Cotillard (A Very Long Engagement, A Good Year) in an astonishing performance, the film is a portrait of a remarkable artist born into poverty who survived using the only gift she had: her voice. Piaf’s tragic life was a constant battle to sing and survive, to live and love, with no regrets.
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MUSIC

Arthritis Song
Chris Kirby
Description: He’s a witty, spitey, pasty white kid from the woods whose style is simply addictive. Kirby, a 26-year-old son of Norris Arm, NL, moved to the city of St. John’s in 2001 where he began playing in a string of bands on the local club scene. With the release of “Chris Kirby on Rum & Religion” in 2006, Chris finally emerged as a solo artist and a captivating songwriter and performer.
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Edith Piaf
Description: Edith Piaf was one of France’s most beloved singers, with much success shortly before and during World War II. Her music reflected her tragic life, with her specialty being the poignant ballad presented with a heartbreaking voice. The most famous songs performed by Piaf were La Vie en Rose (1946), Milord (1959), and Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien (1960).
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Her Diamonds
Rob Thomas
Description: Alternative rock musician Rob Thomas is both the lead singer of the band Matchbox Twenty and a solo recording artist. His most recent album – Cradlesong – was released just last month. Rob Thomas has been married to Puerto Rican American model Marisol Maldonado for almost ten years. Marisol lives with a rare autoimmunity disorder that is similar to Lupus. “Her Diamonds”, the lead single on this latest album, shares the story of the couple’s battle against this autoimmune disease.
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PHOTOGRAPHY

Autoimmune Disease Portrait Project
Jodi McKee
Description: I am starting a portrait project of people who have an autoimmune disease (rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, ankylosing spondylitis, fibromyalgia, celiac disease, hashimoto’s disease, etc.).  Often, these diseases strike people at a young age and are chronic.  We don’t usually look sick, but they never really go away.  There are so many people out there who are struggling with these health issues, and the general public doesn’t really understand.  I want to give a face to these diseases to inform my friends and family at least, and the world at best, that we really aren’t “too young to have that”; and that even though we “don’t look sick,” we are.  And we need your care and support.
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RADIO

Pushing Limits
KPFA 94.1 FM Berkeley
Description: Disability radio. Live broadcasts on Fridays at 2:30 PM PST (alternating weeks). Podcast available.
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TELEVISION

Lucille Ball
Description: Lucille Désirée Ball (August 6, 1911 – April 26, 1989) was an American comedienne, film, television, stage and radio actress, model, film and television executive, and star of the sitcoms I Love Lucy, The Lucy-Desi Comedy Hour, The Lucy Show and Here’s Lucy…Returning to NYC in the early 1930s, Ball was hired as a Hattie Carnegie model but that career was cut short by a bout with what was diagnosed as rheumatoid arthritis. Following two years of intense pain and experimental treatments, she had recovered sufficiently and embarked on a Hollywood career…
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Aida Turturro
Description: Aida Turturro played the role of Janice Soprano in the HBO show The Sporanos. Aida Turturro was first diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis when she was 12 years old. Turturro’s earliest memories of the pain associated with the disease are connected to a family vacation at the beach at Martha’s Vineyard. Unable to walk from excruciating pain, she had to be carried to the water by her father. Following a visit to the doctor, Turturro was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis but little was offered in terms of treatment options. Turturro lived with the pain, continued in school, and later began working. Admittedly, she did not understand the consequences of her diagnosis initially and was even unaware that a rheumatologist is a specialist and expert in treating rheumatoid arthritis and related diseases. All that has changed now for Turturro. She has become educated about her condition and realizes how vitally important that education is to fighting the disease.
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THEATER

Miracle Mile
Clark Middleton and Robert Knopf
Description: Actor Clark Middleton wrote this autobiographical dramatic monologue in collaboration with Robert Knopf. Stricken with juvenile rheumatoid arthritis at age four, Middleton enacts his early painful experience — painful physically and emotionally. He takes us through an adolescence complicated by physical difference, his interaction with medical professionals over the years, and his craving to become an actor. Middleton struggles with the medical establishment, the pain and humor of coming-of-age, and ultimate self acceptance. Eventually, he was able to have both hip replacement surgery and a career in theater and film. The play is funny, poignant, and instructive.
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