press release
56 Bogart Street Brooklyn NY 11206
Book signing and reception: May 11, 2013, 6 - 10PM
Matt Freedman: Relatively Indolent but Relentless
Studio10 introduces Relatively Indolent but Relentless, 2013, a book by Matt Freedman. Refreshments will be served. Matt Freedman will be in attendance to sign and dedicate books. Price upon request.
This summer I was surprised to learn that my years of earaches were not caused by nighttime teeth grinding, but by cancer. Specifically I had Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma, a rare and slow growing cancer that had begun in a tiny salivary gland under my tongue and had spread over time, no one knows how much time, but years certainly, to nodes in my neck and into my lungs. After a lot of running around we determined that the best immediate treatment was to attack the tumors in my tongue and neck with proton radiation and chemotherapy. The tumors in the lungs we would have to leave alone for the time being. They weren’t bothering me yet and besides, there is at the moment no effective cure for ACC lung tumors. The course of treatment was 35 days of radiation and weekly doses of chemotherapy over seven weeks at Massachusetts General Hospital. In early October, just before I moved up to Boston a friend gave me a blank notebook and said I should fill it up. I counted the pages and saw that if I began a daily journal on October 3 and wrote or drew four pages a day, I would finish on December 1 having completed a 240 page book. I’ve always liked working that way, incrementally adding to a project until a formidable amount of work piles up. The idea of “writing” a book while going through therapy was very appealing to me. It seemed like it would only take a little bit of discipline and would in the end give me the last laugh over my cancer treatment. I did complete the therapy and I did complete the book. The therapy was hard, just as everyone said it would be, but of course in ways I hadn’t anticipated. Finishing the book was neither easy nor hard, it just happened. I didn’t worry much about continuity or coherence, I just let almost everything that flitted through my head in, if I could remember it for more than a few hours. As the pain medication increased, this became more of a challenge. While I was still in therapy I liked thumbing through the pages as they piled up, but as soon as the book was done I stopped looking at it for awhile. Now some time has passed (not a lot; I am still suffering some acute symptoms from the therapy), and I am ready to let other people see the book. It’s not really about cancer or cancer treatment. It’s not really about anything in particular that I can identify. Maybe that’s why I want other people to read it now. So they can tell me what I was talking about.
Relatively Indolent but Relentless will be published in April 2014 by Seven Stories Press. A limited number of 100 artist's copies is available for sale during the exhibition from this pre-publication special.
Upcoming solo exhibition. Matt Freedman - May 10th - June 16th.
For more information and images, please contact Annelie McGavin at (718) 852-4396.
Gallery hours: Thursday through Sunday 1 - 6 pm or by appointment
Contact: studio10bogart@gmail.com (718) 852-4396 www.studio10bogart.com
The gallery is across the street from the Bogart Street exit at the L Train Morgan stop.