A stroke is never something that’s expected, and the effects of one can be life lasting. Tom Watson III had a stroke, rehabilitated and is a stronger person today.
Watson said he has a passion for art and through his art he documented the struggles he went through after suffering a stroke. His art was on display from Feb. 2- 28 at the Glen Helen nature preserve in Yellow Springs.
An alumni of Sinclair Community College, Watson graduated with a degree in graphic design in 2003. He then continued to obtain his bachelors at the University of Dayton.
While sitting in class at UD, on March 17, 2005, Watson had his stroke. He was 34 years old.
“I was sitting in class and it just happened,” Watson said. “It happened during what was supposed to be my last semester at UD.”
He was rushed to Miami Valley Hospital and after a couple of days woke up to find out his condition. He suffered a massive brain stem stroke, which is categorized as one of the worse strokes.
“A stroke effects everything including involuntary functions like breathing, swallowing or anything else that may be taken for granted,” Watson said. “If it doesn’t kill you there is the chance of you becoming a quadriplegic.”
Watson began attending therapy two times a week at Miami Valley Hospital for four months.
During therapy, Watson worked on occupational and physical training which are geared to help someone try and re-gain their life.
“Occupational training is like handwriting, buttoning buttons and zipping a coat. The focus is on a persons motor skills,” Watson said. “Physical is like learning to walk, jog, run and throw a football. It’s basically like you’re a child in a grown body trying to re-learn how to do everything.”
With being physically handicapped, Watson had a lot of limitations, and went through a lot of physical and emotional stress. He suffered from Post Traumatic Stress, a condition that is normally associated with soldiers suffering after they come home from war zones.
According to Watson, when he attempted to write it came out as chicken scratch. He had no control over anything his body did. He had to learn how to “re-wire his brain.”
“You can’t regroup brain cells that are damaged, they are gone,” Watson said. “You just have to re-connect everything. It takes a lot of will power.”
With the support of friends and family, Watson began to get back on his feet. And though it took some time for him to get his life back together, Watson returned to school at UD.
Back in school, he took a class named print making, and he began to make an artistic representation of the struggles he has been through.
“Art can be thereputic,” Watson said. “The more and more I worked, the closer I got to what I wanted to express.”
Some of his work includes medical imagery of his own body, like x-rays of his brain. Something that started as a project for print making turned into his “Stem/ReAssemblage” series.
“I chose the name and the way of its spelling because I’m trying to stress the fact that I had to reassemble everything,” Watson said.
For his art, Watson only uses recycled material because he had to “recycle his brain.” He views the destruction of those materials as tearing them down and re-building it into new, just like he did to himself.
Although his current display is over, Watson will be at the Yellow Springs Arts Councils Arts of Healing and Transition art show on March 18, 2011. The date after the anniversary of his stroke, what Watson now calls his “Stroke-iversary”.
“I used this to refocus myself and my life,” Watson said. “I battled through a lot of emotional and physical issues during my recovery, and this is my way of shedding light on my experiences.”