Today is Diabetes Art Day.  The last time I took part in Diabetes Art Day was in 2012 when, instead of making art, I looked at it. We were in Rome and spent the day wandering around the Sistine Chapel. But this year I decided that it was time to actually produce something. I’m not a great artist. In fact, our daughter overtook my drawing abilities when she was about…oh, maybe 12 months old. However, Diabetes Art Day isn’t about producing perfect works of art. It’s about thinking about how diabetes can be represented in ways other than words (I kinda missed the brief as you will see below).

photo 1

So in an endeavour to do something quiet and cool (and indoors) to escape yesterday’s sweltering heat, my family sat around our kitchen table and made some art. Out came coloured paper, crayons, textas, colouring pencils, stencils, stamps and anything else in the craft basket that looked like it might be fun.

And then we drew and collaged and stamped. I decided to use lots of different colours and place the blue circle over the top. I liked the idea of a rainbow-esque kaleidoscope of bright and not-so-bright colours because to me, that’s how diabetes is. And while the elusive pot of gold at the end of the rainbow may be a cure, there is still hope in between even if we never actually find it.

Renza's pic

Hope. For me, there always needs to be hope….

And the kiddo and Aaron came up with these gorgeous pieces.

Kiddo's pic

Is that a Twitter bird I can see?

Aaron's pic

More colours and a blue disc of hope.

So, here is our family’s contribution to Diabetes Art Day. I’m going to frame the pictures and put them up in my office so that I can be reminded that sometimes it helps to look at diabetes in a different way.

Postscript:

And then I got a little carried away with the stamps and did this:

photo 2

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