Meet Bill Woo; an artist and philanthropist who owns Gallery Woo in St. Petersburg, Florida. Toonari Post met him at his gallery to speak about his charity work, his art, and his connection with the St. Pete area.

There was a time when Woo lived a different life. His father, William Correira, a well known scrimshaw artist, died at the age of 50 from pancreatic cancer. Woo tells us that this experience opened his eyes. “I wasn’t really satisfied. I had the big job, the big car, the big condo” – but he wanted more from life.

At one point, he talked about quitting his job as a graphic designer almost every week so when he finally made the jump, his bosses didn’t believe him. “That’s six years ago now,” Woo says.

As an artist, Woo is known for painting fish and sea life. “I started off painting nudes,” he tells us, “but one day a lady came up to me and asked if I could paint a snook and a grouper as a present for her husband.” He did so and handed them to the gallery for the lady, but the gallery managed to sell the two paintings before the lady was able to pick them up. Woo painted a new set, but those were sold to walk-ins as well. Finally, he manage to get the snook and grouper to the right people but Woo realized that there was a real market in fish paintings “I sold six paintings in one week! So I thought to myself ‘maybe fish is what I should be doing.’”

He started out by looking for exposure. With a blank canvas, he sat down in front of the Vinoy in St. Petersburg and started to paint. The happening was a success. He quickly realized that people appreciate the opportunity to see a painting come to life and his decision to work in front of restaurants led him to charm both the patrons and the management alike, creating long-lasting relationships with restaurants and furnishing their venues with his mesmerizing fish motifs.

Woo had initially rented a small location for his work space but after three months, he was doing so well that he started to look for a new place. He saw the space in downtown St. Petersburg but after speaking to the landlady, was told that they “didn’t rent out to artists.” As he was walking away, the landlady’s secretary recognized him and commented ‘do you know who that is? That’s Woo!’

It turned out that they had both admired his work from the restaurant and it immediately made her change her mind and let him set up his Gallery in the building, confirming to Woo that exposure is the key to success.

‘You get as good as you give’

Woo explains that he’ll be the first to help fellow artists. “Life’s too short,” according to Woo.

When he started out himself, asking established artist for help “everyone would be really tight lipped,” he explains, “like I was gonna steal their ideas or something.” However, once in a while he would meet a good samaritan willing to help. One advice he got was to read a book called Art Marketing 101. In his opinion “it was essentially simple stuff, but doing it, now that’s the hard part.”

Woo often does benefit events in the local area. Recently he attended an auction event where he painted live while attendees could bid on the painting as it was being created. “That painting brought in $750 for the cause, which is pretty decent for just four hours of work.”

The involvement in charity work serves a double purpose; it is a chance for an artist to give back to the community – but it is also a chance for Woo as an artist to put himself in front of a particular crowd, and a different crowd from time to time. “I will always meet people who are new to my art,” he explains.

On a more personal level, doing good also makes Woo feel that he can make a difference to other people. “My mother always tells me ‘you know, you can’t help the whole world,’” he laughs. Still, he actively supports multiple causes, including the Children’s Dream Fund and Creative Clay.

He told us the story about a young girl whom he had let paint for him at a benefit event in the past. “She was so excited, she couldn’t believe I was gonna let her paint on the canvas.” The following year, he met her parents again but in the meantime, the girl had passed away due to her illness. “They came up to me and [were] like ‘letting her help you with that painting was the highlight of her year.’” The experience had meant the world to the girl and her parents. “Little things like that, they mean so much to people.”

A life-changing experience

Woo told us about the experience that changed his life. On Thanksgiving evening he started to feel strange. He remembered a heightened sense of smell right before passing out. He was rushed to the hospital where he lay in a coma for 50 days.

When he awoke, he was given the diagnose: Glioblastoma – brain cancer. The prolonged coma meant that he had to learn how to walk again and the cancer meant chemotherapy. “Cancer isn’t just physically draining. It’s mentally draining as well. You sit there with a couple of other people, getting your chemo and you get to know people’s stories and then the next month, they may not be there and we all know what happened to them. When you start to outlive people, you start to think ‘why me?’”

After a successful surgery, Woo slowly regained his health. “This type of experience changes you, I mean, I’m a whole different person today than I was before the cancer. It taught me life truly is short.”

The surgery that Woo had cut through the left side of his brain “The doctors told me I could lose my sense of smell, of taste, my artistic qualities.” Since the surgery however, Woo has kept up the painting and admits that his painting has since gotten better. “It comes down to practice, keep working, keep practicing.”

If you meet Woo, you notice that his arms are covered in tattoos; particularly a beautiful koi fish on his right arm. “When I was at the hospital, my nephew brought me a little rubber koi fish,” he tells us. “The koi represents longevity.” To this day, he still carries the little rubber fish in his wallet.

Speaking of fish, the majority of Woo’s paintings focus on fish heads. Woo explains “When I was a kid, we would go fishing and when we caught one, I used to look them right in the eye. I would always wonder, what is he thinking? Each fish has a character.”

Woo fascination with fish is borne from growing up in Florida, and many of his commissions are for popular Floridian fish. When it comes to painting them, Woo has his favorites. “The harlequin tusk fish I like to paint, because it has such interesting coloring. And tunas have their own expressions.”

Woo’s father, who was an artist, died before he could witness Woo follow in his footsteps. “No, my father never got a chance to see any of my work,” he tells us.

Despite being his own boss, Woo very much treats his work as a “real” job – getting in at 8AM and leaving at 6PM. He tells us that he enjoys putting all his time and effort into something that is his. “And you know, I work hard because it’s what you put into it that will end up being your reward. It’s mine and it’s something I love to do.”

Woo’s next big project is to market his work in Hawaii.

Toonari Post is auctioning off a painting donated by Bill Woo on September 28 at our open house event. For more details on Woo’s work, go to GalleryWoo.com or visit him on www.facebook.com/GalleryWoo

The article Bill Woo, St. Pete Artist Who Makes a Difference appeared first on The Toonari Post - News, Powered by the People!.

Seattle, U.S.A. — Since its opening in 2008, the Ben & Catherine Ivy Center for Advanced Brain Tumor Treatment (the Ivy Center) at Swedish Medical Center’s Neuroscience Institute has led the expansion drive of major research projects and expanded treatment options for patients living with brain cancer in the Pacific Northwest and throughout the world. The Ivy Center was founded in 2008 to create a world-class treatment and research facility focused on delivering excellent patient care and advancing progress toward more effective treatments for brain cancer.

While great strides have been made in the treatment of breast, colon and other common cancers, only three new drugs to treat brain cancer have been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the past 35 years, and these drugs prolong the lives of patients by only a few months. Such a center was needed at the time, said Greg Foltz, M.D., a neurosurgeon and director of the Ivy Center, because brain cancer had been for far too long a neglected or “orphan” disease.

In fact, today the life expectancy of a person diagnosed with glioblastoma, the most common form of malignant primary brain cancer, is only about 15 months — only slightly better than it was a century ago, Dr. Foltz said. “We felt we needed to focus our efforts on coming up with better treatment options,” said Dr. Foltz. “We felt someone had to champion this cause so we embarked on a mission to get more researchers and physicians focused on this disease. And we did.”

The Ivy Center at Swedish has partnered with and led major brain cancer programs with the Ben & Catherine Ivy Foundation, Institute for Systems Biology, Allen Institute for Brain Science, University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Accium Biosciences and The Elliott Foundation. This has led to a variety of new brain cancer treatment options and research programs for people living with brain cancer in our region. “Previously, none of this existed,” said Dr. Foltz.

Five Years of Progress Made

The goal of the Ivy Center was to create a place where brain tumor patients and their families would have access to the best care and latest clinical research. The Ivy Center has achieved this making it possible for the center’s neurosurgeons, oncologists, radiologists and nursing staff to work in close collaboration with the program’s team of scientists. This collaboration allows clinicians and scientists to provide patients with the best of care as well as direct access to promising new therapies and clinical trials.

The Ivy Center’s clinical team provides comprehensive, integrated care that includes the latest neurosurgery techniques and technology, including intra-operative MRI-guided navigation, precision Gamma Knife radiosurgery as well as the support of a team of physical and occupational therapists, counselors, and other specialists who provide each patient with comprehensive, personalized care.

“People with brain cancer have needs that transcend the traditional requirements of most patients. Care is not just about an operation, it’s not just about a medication,” said Dr. Foltz. “Brain cancer is a life-changing event, so it’s very important from the first meeting that these patients know that we’re there for them, that we care deeply about them and we’re going to provide all the resources that are possible to help them fight their disease.”

Holly Zimmerman, a Bellevue, Wash. resident who has been battling brain cancer and is leading a team in this year’s Seattle Brain Cancer Walk, can speak personally to the importance of the first meeting. “A small seizure led doctors to the discovery of a tumor in my parietal lobe—what immediately followed was brain surgery, radiation, chemotherapy, and a very scary prognosis for me and my family,” said Zimmerman. “This disease is unique and it takes an extraordinary team of medical professionals to conquer it. As a one-year survivor of brain cancer, I have great hopes.”

New Strategies in the Search for a Brain Cancer Cure

Over the past five years the Ivy Center has established an international reputation for its expertise in the genetic analysis of individual tumors. At the Ivy Center, a genetic profile is created of every patient’s tumor with the goal to identify each tumor’s individual weaknesses and to develop new, personalized treatment strategies that target these weaknesses.

The Ivy Center’s genomic database — now one of the largest brain tumor research projects in the country — was developed in collaboration with the world-renowned Institute for Systems Biology. This collaboration brings together physicians and scientists in the fields of neurosurgery, neuropathology, systems biology, genomics and biostatistical analysis. Together they are determining how networks of genes and proteins interact in brain cancer to discover new targets for diagnostic tests and treatments.

In another partnership, the Ivy Center and the Allen Institute for Brain Science are creating a 3-D map of gene activity within brain tumors.  These maps can then be compared with maps of gene activity in normal brain tissue to identify which genes are malfunctioning in the cancer tissue. Once these genes are identified the goal is to develop diagnostics and treatments that target these malfunctioning genes.

All data from these projects are being made available online to researchers around the world for free.

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