Emily Chapman Laing
Narre Warren North cancer survivor, art teacher and author Alison Ward turned her illness into a catalyst for her creative endeavours and is now ready to showcase her first book to the world.
“The Corporate Creative: 5 Influential Ways To Build Creativity” is Alison’s exploration into how creativity can redefine the working environment, especially for people who, like Alison, “have always been different.”
“I don’t fall into a system, I can’t always conform to everything that is asked of me,” Alison said.
“My book is about creating vulnerability in a team setting, being able to allow some of the relationships to be exposed and allowing creativity in your workplace.
“I believe at the moment, we’re so led by various institutions, rules and regulations, which is very constricting when you’ve got creative energies.”
With 60 per cent of CEO’s saying they value creativity, Alison began to wonder why there was so little fostering of it in the workplace.
“It’s not rocket science,” Alison said.
“It’s about being vulnerable and opening yourself up with your team members equally, and if you’re a leader, being vulnerable with that as well
“The minute you’ve got a bit of vulnerability, you open the doors for a bit more creativity.”
At 22, Alison was diagnosed for a second time with category 2 Hodgkin’s disease, just six months after her first diagnosis.
“I hit remission very quickly, my body responded quickly to the chemotherapy,” she said.
“And then it came back at a rapid pace again, and I planned my funeral.”
Hodgkin’s disease is a general term for cancer of the lymphatic system, which limits the body’s ability to fight off infections and causes lymph nodes in the body to swell.
Alison was given a 10 per cent chance of survival.
She underwent a bone marrow transplant, which she said was the “reset” point of her life.
A natural creative, Alison decided to take a holistic approach to managing both her health and her life going forward.
Alison set herself four goals, to walk down the aisle, to have children, to hold an art exhibition and to write a book.
“I wound up having three children naturally, which wasn’t supposed to happen because I was deemed as infertile,” she said.
“I attribute that to lots of different things I did.
“I did organic eating, I exercised, I meditated, I read books, I fostered and nurtured my own health and I never took for granted the fact I might not be here next year or in five years’ time.”
Alison began recording her journey as a memoir she could pass on to her children, and added “write a book” to her bucket list, alongside learning how to paint.
“It was a time when I wanted to actually have an art exhibition, but I’d never painted before,” she said.
Much like the reset in her body following the transplant, Alison’s creative endeavours also “started from scratch.”
Alison began taking art classes once a week.
“That was all I could cope with but for that two hours I thought of nothing else, just of being creative,” she said.
“I could go to that space, and I wouldn’t think about the cancer and it was the only time during my recovery that I didn’t think about my illness.”
At the same time, Alison was pushing to regain her body’s natural skills after the transplant wiped much of her movement.
“I was crawling up the stairs to get to my room,” she said.
“I was fainting for the first three months every time I had a shower, so I knew that by the time I got out, I’d sit on the floor, wrap myself in a towel and I would pass out.
“Learning to pedal a bike and actually driving again took me about six months after the transplant.”
Now 50, Alison has healed her body, obtained a fine arts degree, ticked off all of her goals and is now a secondary art teacher with plenty of impressive portraiture and realism under her belt.
She also has her own business platform, My Artistic Innovations, where she offers artistic retreats, workshops and art therapy sessions for individuals, families, businesses and groups.
“I’m truly grateful for the experience, which sounds weird,” she said.
“But I wouldn’t be where I am now, had I not had that.
“So the way I look at it, I was blessed with the gift of it.”
The Corporate Creative will be published by Ingram Spark and and will be available soon through Alison’s business website www.myartisticinnovations.com
