Stroke of Genius

After nearly dying in the OR, anartist comes to life--BY E L L E N S H E R M A N

The skies were crystal clear over theCape Ann Golf Course that day in October1988 when Jon Sarkin, a buttoneddownchiropractor from Gloucester,Massachusetts, bent over to retrieve atee. Sarkin, 35 at the time, suddenly feltan intense physical sensation—a deepshiver—go through him. Everything lookedand sounded different. “I remember thinking,I’m going to die,” he says today.

He drove himself home to his wife, Kim,who knew with just one look that somethingwas wrong. In the weeks that followed, the weirdsensory shift became something much worse. Jonwas intensely sensitive to light and sound, andthe initial shiver became a distressing reverberationin his head. Ultimately it turned into a hellishroar that wouldn’t quit.

For the next several months, he and Kimsearched agonizingly for a cure to the ringing inJon’s ears, a condition known as tinnitus. For acan-do professional like Jon, Kim explained,not having a definitive answerto a medical issue was his worstnightmare—a nightmare he almostdidn’t wake from.

The son of a dentist andhomemaker, Jon Sarkingrew up in Hillside, NewJersey, with a secret passionfor art. But the dutifulstudent set his sightsinstead on a career in architecture,then chiropractic, to satisfy his practicalparents who thought he shouldbecome a doctor. He married KimRichardson, a teacher, in 1986, and thecouple mixed in well with the laidbackbut status-conscious lifestyle ofthe seaside community where theysettled. They soon had a baby boythey named Curtis, but even then Jonrarely slowed down. The only exceptionwas during breaks between patientsat his thriving practice, whenhe quietly doodled or drew imaginativeinvitations to family parties. Hethought that one day, when he retired,he’d turn more fully to creating art;he envisioned himself, an older man,painting at the beach.

Then the ringing began to sound inhis head. After months of seeing specialists,Jon was diagnosed with aswollen blood vessel pressing on hisacoustic nerve. On August 8, 1989, surgeonsin Pittsburgh operated to inserta small Teflon wafer between the offendingvessel and the nerve. The doctorspronounced the surgery a success,and as Jon came to in the recoveryroom, Kim asked the question oneveryone’s mind: “Is the ringinggone?” Jon mouthed the word yes. Andhis family cheered.

A day passed as he recuperated.Then, during a visit with Kim, Jon,who was propped up in his bed, pattedthe covers and called out, “Comehere, Ida.” Ida was the family dog backin Gloucester, hundreds of miles away.In an urgent voice, Kim called for anurse. One of Jon’s doctors came tothe room, gently unwrapped his bandageand found that the wound wasfull of blood. “Please step out now!” heshouted at Kim, and Jon was rushedto the OR.

Once again, Jon went under theknife—only this time the medical teamwas racing to save his life. He had sufferedmassive bleeding and a postoperativestroke. “I was told that I diedon the table and they brought meback,” he explains. The doctors wouldultimately save him, but not withouthaving to remove the entire left sideof his cerebellum, an area of the brainthat controls balance, coordinationand movement.

This time, when Jon came out ofsurgery, there was little cause for rejoicing.“There were tubes everywhere,”says his sister Jane. “He had amachine breathing for him. It wasawful.”

Jon languished in a semi-comatosestate, losing weight and sufferingpneumonia and bleeding ulcers. Buttwo months later, he began to regainconsciousness. The recovery was bittersweet.What soon became clear wasthat he would have to relearn themost basic functions of speech andmovement. He was deaf in one earand suffered from double vision. Kimrecalls that Jon, under a mass of tangledtubes, would squeeze her hand inan effort to communicate. “He’d rollhis eyes, seeming to say, Can you believethis?”

Three and a half months after hissurgery, Jon was finally able to returnto his Gloucester home. He arrived viaa medical van, emerging in a wheelchair.“We were coached beforehandnot to be frightened by how horriblehe looked,” says his long-time friendJohn Keegan. “Jon had been a superstrong,athletic guy. Now his oncemusculararms were like an inch indiameter, and his skin was yellow. He’dlost almost everything.”

But Jon made great physical stridesthrough rehab. Within five months,he was walking and had regainedmost of his strength. Inside him,though, profound emotional changeshad been wrought. While his intelligenceand sharp wit remained intact,Jon was now unfocused and unableto attend to the minutiae of everydaylife. Bills were left unpaid, appointmentsforgotten. He also, for a time,developed all-encompassing obsessions.One was with recycling. SinceGloucester didn’t recycle at the time,he got the idea to send all his family’splastic bottles 500 miles away to hisbrother in the recycle-friendly city ofBuffalo.

The Sarkins had known that the removalof the left cerebellum wouldhave physical consequences, but doctorsdidn’t have a concrete explanationfor the psychological changes.Jon, it seemed, was now devoid of theintangible censors that control whatwe think, what we say and how weact. He would blurt out anything thatcame to mind, no matter how inappropriate.“I was like that characterin the Jim Carrey movie Liar Liar,” herecalls. “I had to say everything I wasthinking. It really was scary.”Social conventions were a thing ofthe past. If he thought someone wasnot interesting, he would walk awaymid-conversation. He’d laugh at thewrong moment. He found himselfhaving trouble empathizing with others.“I would say, ‘I know how youfeel,’ ” Sarkin says, “but inside I wasthinking, What?”

Meanwhile, Kim felt like she’d lostthe anchor of a steady, reliable partner.“He was very much like a teenagerwho has a lack of control over hisemotions,” she says, “whose perspectiveis warped and who is terribly selfabsorbed.I hung in there because Jonis my family. I love him and I believefirmly in looking out for family.” Shealso felt her husband’s core had notchanged. “Jon’s inner personality andvalues remained the same.”“My wife is great,” Jon says in simpleunderstatement. “She was like oneof those dolls that you hit and it alwayspops back up.”In 1990, a year before his secondchild, daughter Robin, was born, Jonfelt that he had relearned enough ofthe social skills required for a healthcare provider and decided to go backto work as a chiropractor. “I wanted tosupport him,” says Kim, “but I wasvery uncomfortable with it, becausehe got so fatigued trying to keep hiscomposure.”The first few months went all right,but it soon became clear that Jon’sheart was no longer in his work. Seeingpatients exhausted him, both physicallyand emotionally. What now firedhim up was the compulsive sketchinghe did in between appointments. Hedrew anything from pointy-hairedpeople to the Chrysler Building, thenscrawled quotations around the images,scrambling the words, creatingwhole new meanings. Lines fromThoreau were interspersed with cutoutsof Elvis or car tail fins. He explains,“Where once my art was verylinear and organized, it became drivenand chaotic.”Jon’s sister Jane, impressed with thework, asked her brother if he mindedif she submitted some of it to the venerableNew Yorker magazine. “I rememberthinking it would be kindacool getting a rejection letter from TheNew Yorker,” Jon says.Then one day, as he sat at his deskfuriously creating one of his “doodles,”the phone rang. The voice on theother end said, “This is The NewYorker.” “First thing I thought,” Jonsays, “was, Well, it’s nice of them tocall with the rejection.” To his surprise,the magazine was accepting notone, but eight, of his drawings.In the spring of 1994, Jon sold hispractice. It was not an easy decision.“He was heartbroken,” says Kim, “butboth of us knew the stress was toomuch for him.” He began to turn toart full-time, not so much as part of aconscious career change but as an outletthat suited him like never before.In art, he had found a place wherehe could express himself withoutworrying how anyone judged him.The transition wasn’t easy for Kim,who had just given birth to their thirdchild, Caroline. Though the family wasreceiving disability payments andKim, in a pinch, could have returnedto teaching, she had reservations. “Mybiggest concern was having to leavethe children to go back to work. Jonwas not someone I could leave themwith. It took me a while to give up theidea of a normal life,” she says.Meanwhile, Jon’s work had caughtthe attention of art dealer Jane Deering.Over the last few years, she hashad successful Jon Sarkin showings ather gallery in Gloucester. “His workis like a shock in its abundance,” shesays. “Pictorially, it’s a puzzle. Theremay be a beautiful pattern. Anotherlevel is the language.”In 2003, the Diane von FurstenbergStudio in Manhattandisplayed Sarkin’s art to an audiencethat included MerylStreep and Diane Sawyer(these days, his pieces can sellfor as much as $10,000). In his inimitablefashion, Sarkin started speakingloudly at the gathering, saying,“That’s Meryl Streep. I can’t believeI’m sitting at the table with her.” Sayshis friend Keegan: “Jon doesn’t alwaysknow when to shut up, but that’s justwho he is now, and you accept him.”Sarkin, who has sold movie rightsto his story to actor Tom Cruise, says,“Sometimes I may get too excited andpeople will stare. But if you make alist of the top ten reasons why youdon’t care what people think, you’dhave to include a near-death experienceright up there at the top.”There are days, though, when hemourns what he has lost. At the beach,he watches teenagers surfing. “I’d loveto take my son windsurfing, and Ican’t,” says Sarkin, who 16 years afterthe stroke still suffers from poor balanceand sometimes uses a cane. Hehas to constantly remember to speakslowly or his speech becomes slurred.“I was in a semi-comatose state,” hesays. “You really don’t ever come outof it completely. I know there are partsof me that aren’t here,” he admits.But his family and friends also knowthat he has emerged on the other sidehaving gained, not just lost. “Daily lifewith Jon can at times be frustratingand exhausting,” Kim says, “but hispositive attributes make us proud.”Communication is the couple’s lifeline.“Jon and I talk to each other allthe time.”Jon and Kim’s youngest child is 11now. Jon Sarkin, the artist, is the onlydad the kids have ever known. Fromtime to time, Sarkin brings them to hisworkplace, where together they createtheir own art projects and help theirfather with his. “They’ll go throughmagazines and say, ‘Use this picture,’” Sarkin says. “Or when I’m drawing,they’ll look over my shoulder andsay, ‘Why don’t you make this guy havethree eyes—or five.’ I love it.”He chuckles. “If I was still a chiropractor,what would they have done?Come to my office and look at thex-ray machine?”Sarkin points to one of his studiowalls, splattered with quotations, imagesof Bob Marley, Oscar Wilde, MartinLuther King, Jr. “This is the way Isee the world now,” he says.“I really think he has a gift that wasunleashed by the stroke,” his sisterJane says. “It comes right from hisbrain onto the page.”It’s been an incredible journey,Sarkin concedes. “People ask what myfuture will be like. Remember the oldBob Dylan documentary, Don’t LookBack? For me it’s ‘Don’t Look Forward.’It’s tremendously weird how I livenow. I don’t fit. That’s very isolating.”He pauses, and a slight smile crosseshis face. “But it’s very liberating at thesame time.”