By Kristin Rothwell, NurseZone feature writer
When Lisa Fittipaldi lost her eyesight almost 10 years ago, she
discovered a new appreciation for art and a talent for painting
brilliantly colored landscapes, street scenes and still life’s while
relying solely on her "mind’s eye." In an exclusive NurseZone
interview, Fittipaldi, former RN, MSN, shared the ups and downs of
losing her sight and how art has empowered her to go on. Today, she
educates the public about visual and hearing impairments.
Painted scenes of people shopping in a bustling Egyptian
marketplace; a young girl dressed in a pink leotard practicing
ballet steps; and a ripe apple held in the clutches of a strong hand
are but a few of the art pieces painted by Lisa Fittipaldi.
Today, these and many other paintings by Fittipaldi adorn the
walls of such prestigious galleries as the Witte Museum in San
Antonio, Texas, and the Wentworth Galleries in New York City, among
30 other galleries nationwide.
But getting there took perseverance and faith on Fittipaldi’s
part.
Reinventing the Wheel
In 1993, Fittipaldi, then a certified public accountant at an
Austin, Texas hospital, was driving to work along Interstate 35 when
the truck in front of her and everything around her vanished.
Seconds later, her vision returned. But a similar incident a few
weeks later would not be as forgiving. Fittipaldi lost her eyesight
permanently.
Despite seeking medical attention and undergoing eye surgery, it
was determined that her sight would never return but she wouldn’t
discover why for another five years. Depression soon set in.
Fittipaldi confined herself to her bed for some time until her
husband, Al, who heard that art therapy was an effective means to
treat depression, gave her a children’s watercolor set.
She wasn’t amused.
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Lisa Fittipaldi on Nursing
Lisa Fittipaldi, former RN, MSN, graduated from the
University of Maryland in Baltimore in 1975 and took her
nursing skills all over the East Coast, moving with her
husband Al, then a U.S. Navy Medical Service Corps member,
before she changed careers in 1982 to become a certified
public accountant. While working as a financial analyst at a
Austin hospital, she also did nursing part-time. However, when
Fittipaldi lost her eyesight, she was no longer able to
fulfill either job as each required vision. Nevertheless, she
hasn’t lost her love for the nursing profession-always
believing it to be an admirable and challenging
career.
"In a generation in which I grew up, I knew that I would
have to support myself. Nursing was a very lucrative field for
women in the 1970s. It provided flexibility and it would give
me a job.
When I graduated from college the first time with a degree
in English before earning my nursing degree, I couldn’t get a
job. And as a single woman I knew that I needed to do
something that was challenging and also financially stable.
That’s why I went into nursing, though it really was much
more.
People will laugh, but in some respects nursing was more
intellectually challenging than being an accountant because of
the fact when you’re working in intensive care-and I worked
the last couple of years as a clinical nurse specialist-you
really have to know what you’re doing-especially to work in an
emergency [department] and burn trauma unit. You really have
to be on your toes. It was always challenging.
What I think is marvelous about nursing is the fact that
there was, and still is, no other field out there [especially
when I was analyzing what I could do with my life] that has so
much diversity. You could stay in the profession and your
interest could change with it. There’s no other profession
that still gives flexibility of time, hours, physical location
and intellectual diversity. You can do as much or as little,
intellectually, in nursing as you wish." |
"I thought he was being insensitive," she said. "I was in bed and
he threw [the paint set] at me and I said, ‘Well, to shut you up
I’ll do something.’ It was of four glass jars—a transparency
study—with the corks on top. That’s the first thing I ever
painted."
Impressed by her ability to paint, Al encouraged Fittipaldi to
enroll in a two-week art class where she learned basic painting
techniques and the ability to memorize her palettes, relying mostly
on her photographic memory to create vivid images.
Once she gained her self-confidence back, Fittipaldi began
attending the Chris Cole Rehabilitation School for the Blind in
Austin. With only three or four sessions under her belt, that would
be the last formal rehabilitation training Fittipaldi would
receive.
She was determined to carry on the best way she could. Her
perseverance was needed as she soon faced more challenges.
While her husband was visiting relatives in San Diego,
California, he suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak
temporarily and short-term memory problems that required
Fittipaldi’s care and attention.
"Everything I learned I [learned] on my own," she said, referring
to the tasks she has had to re-learn to survive on a daily basis. "I
do everything backwards…I had to reinvent the wheel myself. I always
laugh, figuring well, I may not always do it right but at least it
gets done."
In 1998, the same year Fittipaldi was diagnosed with having a
form of vasculitis (a genetic disorder that inflames blood vessels,
blocking circulation to tissues and organs), Al began sending media
kits to museums with samples of Fittipaldi’s artwork.
Her first show, held at Dallas’s Florence Art Gallery, sold all
14 paintings and netted more than $20,000.
The irony?
"I never considered art," said Fittipaldi, who admitted that even
as a young woman traveling through Europe she never visited Paris’s
L’ouvre Museum or the Galerie Nationale du Jeu de Paume. "Art
museums weren’t really on my list of things to do. I’m more
interested in them now than I was when I could see."
Beyond Art
Since becoming an artist, Fittipaldi’s interests have also grown
in other ways.
Using funds from the sale of the artwork, Fittipaldi and Al (who
retired from the U.S. Navy after his stroke and two triple bypass
surgeries) settled down in San Antonio, Texas, where they purchased
The
Beauregard House. They turned the house into a five-bedroom bed
and breakfast inn two years ago. Fittipaldi enjoys being a hostess
and baking much of the pastries and baked goods served at the
inn.
She also established The Minds Eye Foundation in 1999 to educate
the public about blindness and to provide advocacy for the
approximately 1 million visually impaired, blind and hearing
impaired people in the United States.
The foundation is a clearinghouse of information, including
information about technology products and other resources.
Fittipaldi hopes the foundation will
help children with visual or hearing impairments to be
"mainstreamed" so that they will be "on par with their sighted or
hearing peers" by the time they reach college and seek a job.
"Seventy-five percent of the people who are blind are
unemployed," she said. "In a lot of cases it’s because of a lack of
education, lack of opportunity and a lack of technology. While a lot
of people have the finances to be educated, many are not aware that
these [resources] are available to them."
As Fittipaldi has become more recognized, appearing on the Oprah
Winfrey Show, Ripley’s Believe it or Not and numerous television
programs abroad, she also does speaking engagements. Depending on
the group, she has discussed what it’s like to have vasculitis and
has demonstrated her painting techniques.
Comparing her speeches to that of a fireside chat, she said that
even if there’s 1,000 people in the audience, she’ll find herself
getting up in front of the group, curling her feet under her while
sitting on top of a table, figuring, "I don’t have any fear of
talking to large groups because I can’t see them. And I don’t have
to prepare a speech."
Despite the trials that came with losing her sight, Fittipaldi
has gained a new perspective on life through her blindness. Knowing
that her disease provides an average life expectancy of five years—a
timeline she has surpassed—she is grateful for each and every
day.
"That power to live and to participate in life is very
sustaining," she said, "much more sustaining than people give us
[people with disabilities] credit for."
To learn more about Lisa Fittipaldi, visit her Website.
If you liked this article, read other NurseZone articles,
including:
Feb.
8, 2002. © 2002. NurseZone.com. All Rights Reserved.