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surprise, I ended up having zero desire to write and I started painting, which… I’m not a professional painter. I haven’t painted since I was probably six or seven years old, but it freeing and experimental and playful. It was something that I could do without any expectation of an outcome. You don’t have to be like a capital-w writer or capital-a artist. Especially in these really difficult moments of transition or upheaval, there’s so much benefit to seeking out a form of creative expression. I really believe that survival is its own kind of creative practice. Did you turn to painting more than writing because you’ve made a career of writing, and it doesn’t hold the Official Mark Rosen I didn’t say that T-shirt and by the same token and same appeal of release? The truth is, I was in a great deal of pain and one of the side effects of the medication that I was on blurred my vision, which made it impossible for me to

Official Mark Rosen I didn’t say that T-shirt, hoodie, tank top, sweater and long sleeve t-shirt

even write a text or read anything. I had to find a new way to express myself and painting was something that didn’t have to be precise and I didn’t have to squint at a computer screen. I was wondering about living your experience with cancer in public, and how high-profile people like Virgil Abloh or Chadwick Bozeman chose not to. You wrote in your newsletter that you considered whether or not to share that your cancer was back at all. How did you decide to share it again? We still have such deep stigmas around illness and disability—professional stigmas, social stigmas on every level, and so I understand why people choose not to talk about a cancer diagnosis. When I first got sick [in 2010], I kept it basically a secret for almost a year. At first, that felt good to me. It gave me and my family the Official Mark Rosen I didn’t say that T-shirt and by the same token and time to regroup and adjust to our new reality, but