Street roots
Aprii I I , 2014
An illustrated outcry
Patients’ stories reach a wider, influential audience painted on the backs o f business suits
BY SUE ZALOKAR
Regina Holliday
STAFF W R IT E R
"O egina Holliday wears many hats. She is
A vis an activist, artist, speaker and author.
She uses the tools of technology anti social
media to better understand the patient
condition and the landscape of medicine.
But nothing had prepared her for the
experience of navigating the nation’s health
care system. In 2009, Holliday’s husband,
Fred Holliday, died from long-term
undiagnosed kidney cancer. It was a
catastrophic diagnosis that opened her eyes
to the entrenched bureaucracy of our health
care system.
Holliday realized pretty quickly that there
was a massive lack of communication in the
system5, and many times the patient and
family caregivers really weren’t part of the
conversation. She started Regina Holliday’s
Medical Advocacy blog and helped advance
the burgeoning “e-patient” movement
She put her artistic talents to work as
well. She started the campaign “The
Walking Gallery” in which people wear
paintings of people’s health stories, and
those of their family members, on the backs
of their business suits. They can be seen at
medical conferences throughout the world
as a way for providers to present their
“patient self first then a provider second,”
Holliday says.
Today, Holliday has become a leading
patient advocate and artist-activist who
travels the country speaking to groups
about the importance of a transparent
health care system in which patients have
will be the keynote
speaker at the We
Can Do Better
Conference, April
24, at the
Ambridge Event
Center in
Northeast Portland.
timely access to their medical histories. In
doing so, she has not only heightened
awareness, but also, likely, saved lives.
Regina Holliday will speak at the 2014 We
Can Do Better health care conference in
Portland April 23-24.
S.Z.: How did The Walking Gallery get
Started?
R.H.: I met a friend on Twitter whose
name is Jen McCabe. She worked within the
whole world of the quantified self-movement
where people are tracking their own data.
She direct messaged me on Twitter that she
had an idea. She was going to some
conferences that were hard to get into if you
were a patient — the American Medical
Association, fot instance. She asked if she
could send me some jackets' that she was
planning to wear at the conference, and if
so, would I paint on the back of them? I
thought it was great idea.
I painted my story — mine and my
husband’s experience — on her back in
three different ways. Somebody else saw it
and liked it, so I painted one for them and
then another request came in. These first
paintings were all from my experience and
my worldview. We called them nrt jackets.
That was back in early 2011.
In April 2011, Kaiser Permanente opened
The Center for Total Health in Washington
D.C. It is an educational center. The idea is
that it is an open use space that anybody
can reserve that is about total health of
citizens. I was in there and I loved the
space. I had a friend who was affiliated with
Kaiser and I said, “Wow! We should do a
gallery show here.” And my friend laughed
because one entire wall of this room is a
smart wall. I explained that the paintings
won’t be on the walls, the paintings will be
on the people’s backs who are in the room.
They will be the docents of their own lives
and stories.
I had one month to find other artists
besides myself to paint 56 jackets for 56
people. We did it! And we called it The
Walking Gallery. The idea was that they
would walk around the center and they
would tell about their jives.;But it didn’t stop
there. We ask that in trade for the jacket
you walk at a public event pr health
conferences two or three times per year.
You will go to conferences where you might
be the only one wearing a painted jacket
But by telling your story, you will get other
people to tell their stories as well.
S.Z.: That sounds amazing.
R.H.: It was. We have walkers all over the
world. We have folks in France, Canada,
Australia, Senegal, The Netherlands, as well
. as all over the United States, And they are
going to conferences every week, telling
their story and spreading the word. It has
been a massively powerful movement. At
this point there are, besides myself, 24
other artists - five of whom are children -
who are artist members of The Walking
Gallery.
S.Z.: How many jackets.are in the gallery?
R. H.: We have 282 “walkers” walking
around the world.
S. Z.: How does someone commission a
Walking Gallery jacket painting?
R.H.: I always tell people it’s not a
commission, its a co-mission. (Laughs) If
you wanted to be part of The Walking
Gallery you basically say, “I want to tell my
story on my back. I want to wear my story
two or three times per year.” The jackets
have to be a business suit jacket That was
because I noticed that at conferences, the
important people wear business suits. It’s-
sort of the uniform of a conference. You
aren t really taken that seriously if you
aren’t wearing the uniform.
I S.Z.: A nd what is the cost?.
R-H.: There is no monetary charge,
though if people want to donate toward
See Holliday, page 11