Cedar Mill artist Annie Salness relearns how to paint after ...

Most mornings, Annie Salness pulls out a piece of scratch paper and sketches. Squiggly lines, circles, anything to get the artistic juices flowing. She'll draw flowers in the downstairs studio of her Cedar Mill home, or paintbrushes sticking out of a jar like flowers in a vase.

Two years ago, Salness suffered a stroke. She lost the use of her dominant right hand, but never accepted that art was out of her reach. The art comes from the brain, not the hand, she said. "I just found a new way, and it's just coming out."

The morning warm-up is much like an athlete's. Salness, 48, has retaught herself how to draw, with her left hand. Warm-up or not, painting still feels awkward.

Her right hand rests against her stomach, frozen and unable to grip the brush as it once did, but the final product is inexplicably consistent with her previous work, which has been in a local gallery and art shows.

"My work really isn't that much different than what it was before," she said.

Through two tumultuous years of rehabilitation, the one constant, according to her husband, Lad, was Salness' commitment to regaining her independence. "If your mind wants to do it," he said, "then your body will allow you to go the direction you want to go."

Coaching a family

Salness grew up in Orange County, Calif., painting. Sketching family members, studying art in school. At Cal State Long Beach, her emphasis was "biomedical illustration." She likened it to a minor in anatomy.

Her artwork always had a sense of realism to it. Self-critical, Salness said that background always made it difficult to loosen up artistically.

Fit and trim, she played basketball, volleyball and soccer. She met Lad, her husband of 26 years, during her second year in college. In California, she coached football alongside him for seven years. "I started with the wide receivers, and I moved to defensive backs," she said. Former players still call her "Coach" decades later.

The family moved to Oregon in 1990, shortly after their eldest, Thomas, was born. Lad Salness, 57, coaches volleyball and tennis at Sunset High School. They had three more kids. Annie put art on the backburner for years.

Her skills never left. She painted at her church, Sunset Presbyterian, and around the house. In 2008, she started to plug in to the Portland area's art scene via social media.

The couple set up a downstairs studio in their home. "I was pretty prolific," she said.

Salness started selling her work, primarily acrylic paintings of cityscapes, landscapes and people, online and in a local studio.

Then the moment on Oct. 14, 2010. She fell to the kitchen floor. Unable to speak, her right side frozen, she could only think, "Who is going to pick up my kids?"

Friends rally round

Moments are frozen in time like a piece of art: Relearning to talk, walk and drive, the early morning workouts, the unwavering faith and outpouring of community support.

Lad Salness describes his wife as a competitor, but one with a genuine spirit of compassion for others. Tough as nails, but in a sweet way. She likes a challenge. The type of person you'd want to raise your kids, to share your life with, he said. A woman with an infectious love of life.

Her personality and skills seemed tailor-made for facing a grueling rehabilitation.

Learning to drive again was humbling. Her daughter, Laurie, was getting her learner's permit at the same time. "Guess what, I'm more nervous than you are," she told Laurie.

Support came from everywhere. Two months after the stroke, friends organized an "art walk for Annie." Artists donated work to raise money for medical bills. In a wheelchair, her speech impaired, Salness was overwhelmed.

Lad suggested they not sell any original artwork, in case Annie was unable to paint. "I was like, uh-uh, I'm going to paint again," she said. "It's just going to take a while."

Picking up the brush

A month ago, Salness held her first art show since the stroke at Beaverton's Art on Broadway gallery. She felt nervous, but mostly for attendees who didn't know. "I feel like I have to tell everyone, 'So, I had this stroke,'" she laughed.

Salness said she still feels slow, artistically and otherwise.

Age: 48

Home: Cedar Mill

Family: Husband, Lad, teacher and coach at Sunset High School; children, Thomas, 22, Katherine, 20, Laurie, 16, and Claire, 15

Occupation: Artist, working in primarily in acrylics of cityscapes, landscapes and people

Words can get stuck, but not her laugh. She is relentlessly active, exercising every morning, negotiating the steep stairway to her basement studio.

Her husband noted she isn't using a brace on her right leg much these days. The drive, the push to rejuvenate is overwhelming. "She would like to be running now," he said.

Lad asked Annie if she was mad at God. The answer was an emphatic no. "It was crummy, but it happened at a perfect time," she said of the stroke.

Her kids were there to help pick up the load. Katherine, a setter and point guard at Portland's Corban University, helped with errands. Teenagers Laurie and Claire were growing up as well. The kids and Lad have been fabulous, she said, as has the community.

"I don't even know what it is we've learned," she said, "but I know that it's been something."

The brain is more powerful than we know, she said.

-- Andrew Theen

Source: http://www.oregonlive.com/north-of-26/index.ssf/2012/10/cedar_mill_artist_annie_salnes.html

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