Delaplane artist featured in foundation calendar

Alan Rubin is determined not to let his disease get the best of him.

“If I become shaky I can always become an abstract impressionist,” the Delaplane resident jokes.

Rubin, a self-taught painter who has been selling his work for the past 13 years, was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease “three or four years ago.”

“I was having back problems, and I went to some local doctors and then went to Johns Hopkins to get a second opinion,” Rubin recalled.

One of the physicians suspected something else was causing his pain and sent him to a neurologist, who pinpointed the true cause.

According to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation, the disease is a “chronic and progressive movement disorder, meaning that symptoms continue and worsen over time.”

Symptoms include tremors of the hands, arms, legs, jaw and face, slowness of movement, rigidity or stiffness of the limbs and trunk and postural instability or impaired balance and coordination

Nearly 1 million people in the United States are currently living with Parkinson’s disease.

In Rubin’s case, the symptoms “seem to be well-controlled with medication.”

“Sometimes Parkinson’s comes on gradually and sometimes it comes on very quickly. It is not affecting me physically all that much, but I do have a lot of chronic pain,” said Rubin 75.

In order to cope with his diagnosis, - ers in the community who are afflicted with the disorder. He also turned to the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation and said the organization has been “terrific.”

Among other things, a foundation initiative called the Creativity and Parkinson’s Project “encourages those living with Parkinson’s to explore their creativity and its potentially beneficial effects,” according to foundation spokesman Melissa Barry.

Research suggests that creative activities may temporarily ease Parkinson’s symptoms, Barry said.

Launched at the first World Parkinson Congress (WPC) in 2006, the Creativity and Parkinson’s Project included a hugely popular exhibition that featured the artwork of 186 people with Parkinson’s disease from 13 different countries, Barry said.

The exhibition included art in a variety of media, including painting, poetry, sculpting, dancing, jewelry making and photography.

The Parkinson’s Disease Foundation also started an online gallery featuring the works of the artists included at the first WPC. Today, the gallery has grown to include the artwork of nearly 300 artists living with Parkinson’s, Barry said.

Each year, 13 artists are selected for the annual Parkinson’s Disease Foundation Creativity and Parkinson’s calendar.

Each of the 300 artists featured on the site are eligible to be featured in the calendar. These artists are chosen after three rounds of competitive selection and voting performed by a committee of foundation volunteers, staff and graphic designers.

Once the top 13 works are chosen, the foundation asks the Parkinson’s community to choose the calendar’s cover image through an online vote.

Rubin said he found out his work was selected for inclusion when he got a phone call from the foundation.

His work will now be seen by 20,000 people who receive the calendar throughout the country.

Using oil, Rubin paints people, places and things.

“The ideas come into my head and sometimes they bang around for a year. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night,” Rubin said.
He credits his past experience as co-owner of the Biograph Theatre in Georgetown with influencing his style.

“I paint scenes that are like single frames from a film – they have no context,” Rubin said. “This means that other people’s interpretations of my paintings are often not what I had in mind, but that’s the beauty of it. It’s not about what I see, it’s about the story they see when they look at the paintings.”

For more information about Rubin’s work, visit www.pdf.org/   creativity.