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Monday, 26 March 2007 |
 Linda Brandt, a Wapakoneta High School graduate, may have a movie made of her life. Shown is page of her story about Henry the tulip. (Image provided)
By ANNIE LINDER
Staff Writer
The story of a Wapakoneta High School graduate, who survived a rare brain tumor two years ago and had to relearn to walk, write and paint to continue her career, may have her life as an artist and author made into a film.
Linda Brandt, the daughter of regionally-known artist Marge Brandt and Bob Brandt of Wapakoneta, said she remembers being close to death as she underwent a 10-hour surgery to remove the malignant tumor.
“My (late) son Scottie was with me then, and the one thing I said was I couldn’t die because I had too many paintings left to paint,” Brandt told the Wapakoneta Daily News in a telephone interview.
The experience changed her, Brandt said, not only as a person but as an artist. She now uses her work to help and inspire others who suffer from serious illnesses, using proceeds from her art shows to fund cancer research and creating commissioned pieces for hospitals.
She writes and illustrates children’s books with themes based on faith, kindness and overcoming hardship, using an unlikely hero as a main character and metaphor.
The first book in the series, “Henry’s Life as a Tulip Bulb,” was recently published in her home of St. Augustine, Fla. Subtitled “Developing an Attitude of Gratitude,” the book tells the tale of Henry, who is uprooted from a comfortable life on a store shelf to be stepped on, buried beneath the ground, and left out in the cold. At the end of the year, Henry realizes that everything happens for a reason, although he may not understand it at the time.
Brandt, 56, is working on the second book in the series, “Henry Goes West and Dreams Big” and plans to release a total of eight “Henry” books.
“It’s about how you can decide to become a better person and not a bitter person,” she said.
The fear, frustration anger and sadness Henry experiences are feelings Brandt is all too familiar with, she said.
Five years ago, her son Scottie died suddenly in a car accident. Three years later, physicians discovered cancerous tumor in her brain.
The surgery damaged many of her gross and fine motor skills, and Brandt, who started painting at age 4, was told she would have to train herself to paint all over again.
“I went through some very despondent periods,” Brandt said. “My hair was falling out, and I looked at myself in the mirror and thought, ‘I hate you.’ But I had a friend who told me that regardless of how I felt, the old Linda was gone.
“She told me to embrace this new one, because she’s a very precious soul,” she added.
Today, Brandt describes her “new” self as a person who is more peaceful and spiritual, with a different set of priorities.
“Going through a near-death experience and two months of critical care, you come out a different person,” Brandt said. “You realize that all the petty stuff we get consumed by really doesn’t matter.”
Brandt said she always felt the need to express herself through art and began a professional career at 19 as a political cartoonist. Her mother and two of her five siblings are also artists, but Brandt said she developed a style that is distinctly different — impressionistic, rather than realistic, as her mother’s artwork is.
“My mother taught us to think outside the box,” she said.
Marge Brandt said her daughter’s interest in art inspired her to start working with watercolors again and later open up her own studio.
“We’re very proud of her,” her mother said. “She’s a very fun-loving, vivacious person, and I think that what she’s gone through has brought her closer to God.”
Wapakoneta artist Deb Henkener, a friend of Linda Brandt’s since the early 1980s, described her as a talented artist who has had an inspiring career.
“She has a unique style — it’s a little quirky, fun and lighthearted,” Henkener said. “Linda is the kind of person who could do anything she set her mind to. She’s a very strong person — she has to be — and her faith in God and family support are what keeps her going.”
After recovering from her surgery, Linda Brandt started a studio in St. Augustine. She and her husband, Jimmy, a culinary chef, also own a restaurant in Cedar Key called Frog’s Landing.
She also produces paintings with religious themes for the Marial Museum of Sacred Art in Paris, France and is now working on seven large pieces for the University of Florida Hospital.
The first 5- by 8-foot painting, called “Body Grief,” will be unveiled June 8 and signed by survivors of the Neurosurgery Unit.
“When they look at my work, it’s very unusual,” Brandt said. “I can’t explain the phenomena, but they experience all kinds of feelings within themselves and are very touched by it. I want people to recognize that there’s a spiritual intelligence that guides me in these paintings.”
A higher power also guides her in her volunteer efforts, Brandt said. Brandt recently founded Artbreakers: Artists for the Cause, a non-profit organization that provides assistance to cancer patients through its art sales. The organization held a show last month and is planning another one in May.
In the midst of all her efforts, Brandt received an e-mail from a Tom Saunders, a psychologist and screenwriter who stumbled upon her Web site by coincidence after looking up another artist with a similar name. Saunders asked for permission to write a script about her life, and after giving it some thought, sheagreed.
“The title of the script is ‘Born Again and Again and Again,’ ” Brandt said.
The screenwriter would like to see actress Kathleen Turner play Brandt, with actor Jim Carrey possibly playing the role of her son Scottie, she said.
The details of the production at this point are tentative.
Watching her life being written into script was difficult, she said, particularly because it forced her to relive her most tragic moments like the death of her son, her own surgery, and the double mastectomy of her best friend.
“As they were writing it,” Brandt said, “I had to read the highway patrol reports, the autopsy reports, things my children had hidden from me.”
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Last Updated ( Tuesday, 27 March 2007 )
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