THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, April 29, 1995 TAG: 9504280067
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TERESA ANNAS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MOYOCK, N.C. LENGTH: Long : 133 lines
ON EASTER SUNDAY, Lawrence of Moyock was feeling well enough to get dressed and hang out on the porch with the family.
He wasn't really looking like Lawrence of Moyock on Easter. That's what the nurses called James Worley as he came for chemotherapy treatments over the last year wearing a long Arabian-style headdress over his balding head.
Worley - a lifelong artist whose first exhibit takes place Sunday at Chesapeake General Hospital - is the sort of good-humored character who can carry off a joke like that.
``That kind of embarrassed me at first,'' said Worley's sweet-natured sister, Jean Mobley, with whom he lives. ``Then I thought, `What the heck. If they weren't staring at us, they'd be staring at someone else.' ''
On this day, Worley's hair was sufficiently grown out to a thick thatch of salt and pepper. Still, he wore his tan cap backward, giving him a beatnik look. Other than the cap, there was nothing remotely beat about Worley.
The expression of this upbeat cancer patient verged more on the beatific. His large brown eyes shown with inner light.
Worley, 50, was diagnosed two years ago with lung cancer, which by January had spread to his brain. In previous weeks, he had been experiencing pain in his left side, and anticipated further testing to determine the direction the cancer was taking.
If he was suffering on this day, he did not let on.
The scene was cheery enough. No one outside the family would have guessed that they were grieving the fact that Jean and James' 73-year-old mother was also seriously ill from cancer down in Georgia.
Out in the yard, in front of Jean and Joseph Mobley's cozy double-wide mobile home, the dogwoods were in full white bloom. The couple's 8-year-old grandson, Bill, hunted for Easter eggs - a family tradition. The boy came with his parents, Karen and William ``Butch'' Robins.
Worley sat on the porch and beamed. A mother bird who had made her nest under the porch awning didn't flinch as Worley's kin cavorted nearby.
To Worley, Easter signifies ``the love of the family, and sharing love together. And I do love Jesus Christ with all my heart and soul. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for Jesus Christ. And my family.''
Hope is a hallmark of Easter. It is also at the core of Worley's artwork.
Since childhood, Worley has sketched and painted, both for personal expression and to keep depression at bay. The self-taught artist may portray a joyous childhood memory, or re-create a setting from more recent good times - perhaps from a visit to the Mobley's vacation home in the Virginia mountains, or a spectacular sunset viewed just down the street.
Now, when he feels able, he paints to take his mind off the cancer.
``It seems to be one thing I can always go back to. It has always been a big help - to have this talent to take the place of something else, like working.''
For three decades, Worley worked in grocery store produce departments, starting at Piggly-Wiggly stores in his native Georgia; his last position was at Food For Less in Virginia Beach. Wherever he worked, Worley said he was known for boosting sales by creating eye-appealing arrangements of fresh fruits and vegetables.
``It was like art,'' said his niece, Karen Robins, proudly. ``Like doing a painting.''
Worley had to quit two years ago, when the cancer made him too sick.
Since then, he's had more time for art, but there's less money for materials.
As he said of the early days, when he painted with housepaints or whatever supplies he could muster, ``where there's a will, there's a way.'' Somehow, paints and paper continue to find their way into his hands.
Yet he daydreams of oil paints, canvas and, heaven forbid, an easel - all of which are out of his financial reach at the moment. ``It's kinda weird, I know. But I love the smell of those oils.''
He tried to explain how making a picture can release dark spirits from his system - spirits of depression, anger, cancer.
``I might have worries on my mind. So I think of better times, when I was happy. If I can go back and visualize that in my mind, I feel better.''
Generally, he paints with bright colors, signifying hope. ``Every once in a while, you can tell when I'm down. My colors aren't as bright.''
Worley will be among kindred spirits on Sunday, when 23 artists who are living with cancer will exhibit their works at Chesapeake General Hospital. The afternoon showing is called ``The Healing Arts'' and coincides with a community open house for the hospital's new state-of-the-art cancer treatment center.
Some of the other artists are professionals with an exhibition history, such as Edna Sara Lazaron and Craigie Gordon of Norfolk. Others discovered art - or elevated their passing interest into a passion - after being diagnosed with cancer.
What the artists share, besides a tooth-and-nail fistfight with cancer, is the discovery that artmaking in itself has a capacity to heal.
Worley is among those who have never shown their work.
Through his life, he said, ``I didn't always take the chances I got. So I really want to do this.''
Life has had its ups and downs for Worley. As a child, losing his grandfather to the great hereafter was a major blow. Then there was that scary year he spent in the Army in Vietnam when he was 22, though the worst part was being welcomed home by curses from his peers.
A larger trauma came in 1976, when his marriage split up after six years. His wife persisted in keeping their two daughters from him.
With divorce came depression, a condition that was sometimes debilitating over the years.
When in that state, ``I felt like nothing meant anything. As far as going to work, paying bills: I don't care. That's a terrible feeling.''
One of his paintings, titled ``Escape from Satan,'' features a black-and-white abstract figure leaping from a fiery domain into a vivid, pastel universe.
He made that painting in 1985, just as he was ``coming out of a dark depressed period into new hope and light,'' said Worley, who has attended Pentecostal services in recent years.
Another painting, titled ``Memory of My Grandfather,'' is his belated response to his grandfather's death in 1959, when Worley was 15.
The face of a cat hovers on the canvas. ``To me, the cat is so mysterious - in the way it lives, the way it moves. And I just didn't understand why my grandfather's death had to happen. It should have happened, and it shouldn't have happened.''
His best childhood times took place ``when my grandfather was living. He was always there - like a father, really - to help us through.''
In the painting, ``I tried to express the feelings I was having, of great loss. Yet, at the same time, there was hope in it.''
So the painting ``is a memory of hope.''
Like the cat on the canvas, Worley looks out and beyond the surface. The moment has its challenges, but he remains optimistic.
``I intend on getting better,'' he said. ``I won't give up until my last finger drops!'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Motoya Nakamura, Staff
Cancer patient and lifelong artist James Worley, center, with his
family, from left, William and Karen Robins and Bill Robins, 8, and
Joseph and Jean Mobley.
Worley was in a depressed mood when he painted "Escape from Satan."
His response to his grandfather's death, "Memory of a Grandfather."
by CNB