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Artist Uses Talent in His Fight Against Parkinson's KELLY L. COUNTS The Daily Mountain Eagle, AL Published May 31, 2004 8:49 PM CDT Looking at Butch Gray's sketches, you realize they convey more life than photographs do. His sketches have more detail - especially when his subjects are people. You can see the creases in people's faces when they are smiling and the sparkle in their eyes when they are happy. Small lines create the folds in their clothing. Shading allows you to imagine how the sun is hitting their faces. Even more amazing than the quality of these sketches is the fact that Gray, who spends hours attending to every detail of his drawings, suffers from Parkinson's Disease. One of the many symptoms he must endure on a daily basis is shaking. "If you let it, Parkinson's will get you down," Gray said. "I know because I let it get me down at first. After I was first diagnosed, I was embarrassed to go out in public with my children, due to the shaking" Gray said, "You would expect an old man to shake like this. But I'm not an old man." It didn't take Gray long to abandon that attitude. He tries not to let Parkinson's affect his everyday life. "The good Lord gave me this to fight and I'm going to fight it as long as I can," he said. "You have to fight. That's all you can do. If you give in to it, it will take over. You'll lose a little bit of yourself every day." Gray was diagnosed with Parkinson's in 1998. Ever since his childhood, he has enjoyed art, especially drawing. A few years ago, he decided to pick up this hobby again as a way to help him work through Parkinson's. "With Parkinson's you have to occupy your mind and force it to do things it doesn't want to do, like make your muscles work," Gray said. Gray said the disease sometimes causes him to forget how to do everyday tasks he's done for most of his life, like walking. Drawing helps him focus his mind, which also allows him to achieve better focus on other tasks. He says that when he's drawing, he just tries to interpret what he sees. "I've done some still lifes, but here lately people have become more interesting, especially family members," Gray said. Gray said drawings of his wife, children and family members all hold a special place for him. He has also drawn many pictures of his children's friends. "Some of them have called to tell me they still have my sketch hanging on their walls, and that means a lot to me," Gray said. One of his son's friends once asked Gray to do a sketch of his child. "He couldn't afford a mother's day present, so he asked me to sketch their baby so he could give it to her," Gray said. "She was elated when she got her gift." In fact, the sketch meant so much to the child's mother that Gray gave her the original, something he rarely ever does. "Usually I just scan a copy of a drawing straight from my sketchbook and I will give away the copy," said Gray. "I won't give people the original because it's a piece of me." Gray digs deep into his soul and tries to put as much personality and emotion into a picture as he can. Although he sometimes bases them on posed photographs, he often takes candid shots of his family, such as his wife sunbathing. His sketches are something he wants to be able to leave behind for his family. "They are just a little piece of me that I'm leaving here for people to remember me by," he said. The reason Gray enjoys drawing people is probably because they mean so much to him. He says he loves when all his children come over and everybody gets together. He and his wife Rhonda have six children between them. He has three sons from a previous marriage, Clayton, 20; Zach, 18; and Matthew, 17. His wife has two daughters from a previous marriage, Jessica, 19; and Adrienne, 15. The couple only have one child together, daughter Lelani, who is six. "Rhonda is my lifeline. She keeps me focused," Gray said, adding that his sons have also helped out a lot during his illness. "The boys are just Godsends to me and her. When he needs them, they're here." Mrs. Gray is also grateful for the help the children have given them. "In fact, Zac drove his father to the hospital last week for surgery," she said. On top of Parkinson's, Gray now has additional health problems with which he must deal. He recently had a cyst removed from his lower back. Last week, his surgeon told him it was malignant and there was a danger it could spread. Earlier this week, he underwent an additional surgery to remove more of the area that surrounded the cyst. "I'm not going to worry about it, "Gray said. "I just hope they get it all." Ironically, Gray used to work in healthcare. He received a nursing degree from Bevill State in the late '80s and worked as an L.P.N. for awhile. "I enjoyed nursing but I just couldn't handle all the death and dying," said Gray, who mostly worked with cancer patients. "You see people you grow to love dying each day and it's not a pretty picture." Besides nursing, Gray also worked for Northport Southern Railroad for 15 years. However, he said his favorite occupation was carpentry. He feels it is a big accomplishment to build something from the ground up. His wife says he still builds on his good days. He even built the mantle and the kitchen cabinets in his house. His wife says he still occassionally builds things on his good days. One of Gray's favorite things about living in Walker County is the sense of community and the way neighbors look out for each other. "If my neighbors don't see me out in the yard then they come check on me," he said. "And if I don't see my neighbor on his tractor, I know to check on him." Gray describes Jasper as "the best place in the world." He said that although it has changed and grown a lot, it has held on to the family and community atmosphere. His plan is to keep fighting Parkinson's every day. He points to his six-year-old daughter. "I want to be here to see this one graduate from high school and college," he said. SOURCE: The Daily Mountain Eagle, AL - 31-May-2004 http://tinyurl.com/2daus * * * ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn