Creating art while battling cancer, how Leani Auxilio heals
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Cancer patient Nikki Auxilio: She does art when she ‘feels the itch.’ Photos by The FilAm and OSM
On Leani Auxilio’s bed at Mt. Sinai St. Luke’s hospital are drawing papers and pencils of different colors. On days when she is not exhausted after a will-sapping chemotherapy treatment, she likes to draw to keep busy. At times, she turns to the Procreate app on her iPad where she sketches, colors, and doodles. Art, for this young AF3IRM militant battling colon cancer, is creative therapy and a form of activism.
On March 12, the Cebu-born Leani – nicknamed Nikki – held an intimate exhibit of her drawings shared with close friends in the basement of Lucky Jack’s on Orchard Street. The fundraiser called “Feminism Heals: Open mic and mixer” raised more than a thousand dollars that would support Nikki’s medical bills and other expenses as she goes for six rounds of chemo treatment. The latest chemo in February was her second.
“Thanks for coming; buy my art,” said a visibly skinnier Nikki, 26, laughing through her friends’ hugs and well wishes. She would show some her IV-lined arm, or her ostomy pouch kept in place like it was a gun holster. Nikki, to those who haven’t met her, is beloved for her unfiltered humor.
Six pieces of digital illustrations were sold out in a silent auction, and among them drawings of Nikki’s feminist “sheroes” — writer and AF3IRM founder Ninotchka Rosca, Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg, and Christine Blasey Ford, who bravely faced Congress and accused Associate Justice Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
Illustrations of AF3IRM founder Ninotchka Rosca (top photo) and Supreme Court Associate Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg went to the highest bidders.
“I chose strong women who have always inspired me,” Nikki told The FilAm. “I wanted to do a portrait of AOC (Alexandra Ocasio Cortez) as well, because she’s my current shero, but eh. Doctors wanted to do a TEE (Transesophageal Echocardiogram) on me and I got dosed up with anesthesia. I just didn’t have the time anymore.”
She told The FilAm how art “has always been my outlet” even when she was well and not yet diagnosed with colon cancer. She has been designing AF3IRM’s flyers and T-shirts since 2013, “and I guess it just sort of stuck with me.”
She usually does art “when I feel the itch.” Sometimes when she is attending a meeting of the transnational feminist organization AF3IRM or riding a subway. She once did a funny doodle of the guy sitting in the subway with his mouth open. Nowadays, she keeps at it while stuck in the hospital with a blood infection. “No specific time of day,” she said.
Her mother, OSM founder and editor Marivir Montebon, is always by her side. If she is not soliciting support, she is scouring the city for the perfect vegan pizza and other healthy food. Nikki underwent a strict holistic program with meditation and vitamin detox to prepare her for chemo.
“I felt deeply this is a battle Leani is going to win, because of the power of faith,” Marivir said during the Feminism Heals art exhibit.
Nikki is grateful for her mom’s constant presence. She said, uncomplaining, “We continue to annoy each other a lot and she’s always sleeping in my room these days, but, yeah, I guess that’s a mom for you.”
Please visit Nikki’s GoFundMe campaign.
© The FilAm 2019
Nikki with friends who showed support for her fundraiser.
With mother Marivir Montebon. Grateful for mom’s ‘steady’ presence.
