Annette John-Hall: Artist makes the most of his senses to battle a paralyzing disease

Terrence Gore was in dance class when he felt throbbing in a right toe in 2005. He chalked it up to injury, until the pain over the next two years gradually took over his leg and raged up the entire right side of his body.

Gore tried to get tested regularly. AIDS had taken out too many friends to count - friends, Gore says, who died isolated because of "silent fear of judgment."

Yet Gore, 45, continued to live a grand life that kids like him from the South Philly projects only dreamed of. By 35, he had traveled the world, curating art, dancing, and just exploring. When home, he'd undulate through the streets on in-line skates or his 20-speed, his 'locks flowing, his sinuous dancer's frame in perpetual motion.

He always tapped into all of his creative gifts - as hairstylist, art curator, gallery owner, interior designer, dancer, caterer. But above all, he was an aesthete. Everything he created was for beauty's sake.

But now he was sick. This time he tested positive. His paralysis worsened. Doctors eventually diagnosed one of the most deadly by-products of the AIDS virus: progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a relentless infection that eats up the protective coating of the brain. More than half the people who contract PML die within months.

Yet despite the ravages of PML - two years of countless seizures, comas, temporary blindness, and partial paralysis that lingers on his right side, which makes most people think he's had a stroke, Gore is still here. And by learning to create art with his left hand, he has taken the upper hand in his battle.

What started as one watercolor on a 9-by-11-inch piece of poster paper in his hospital room has flourished into 24 works of collage, mixed media, and acrylics using fruit, vegetables, herbs, flowers, fabric, and other natural materials. He'll show 18 pieces from 1 to 5 p.m. today at his exhibition, "Stroke of Genius," at WURD-AM (900), 1341 N. Delaware Ave.

"Before, I felt like I had everything, but I felt empty and insatiable," says Gore, his speech slightly slurred because of his illness. "I'd ask, 'God, why do I feel so empty?'

"Well, God slammed me, but now I know what my mission is. And I know I can achieve anything I want."

Gore credits doctors at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania for stabilizing him to the point where he can speak, and walk independently, albeit with a dragging right foot.

He adds that his metamorphosis would not have happened without the support of concerned friends, most notably his guardian angel, Hilary Beard, whose hair he used to cut.

Beard, 47, a Philadelphia author, editor, and health writer, knew a lot about the mind-body connection and the effects of nutrition, having watched her father recover from a debilitating stroke.

But most important, she knew Gore and understood his needs.

"Terrence is an art aficionado, he cooks amazingly, and every time I went into his home, every one of my senses would be stimulated," Beard says. "I knew whatever was going on with Terrence medically would be determined in large part by his environment."

So Beard packed a care package that included candles, scented oils, and posters and took it to Gore during one of his many hospitalizations. She also juiced for him, bringing him concoctions made of carrots, beets, spinach, garlic, and strawberries.

The first time Gore drank the juice, "it was stunning," Beard recalls. "He said, 'Oh, my god, I can feel my brain firing! And then he stood up and sat in his wheelchair by himself."

But the biggest changes came when Beard gave Gore watercolors and brushes and insisted that he paint with his left hand.

She taped the watercolor paper at wheelchair level. Gore ordered her to put it at eye level. He was determined to stand up and paint.

Now Gore rises at dawn to create, juices three times a day, does a regimen of stretching and movement, and goes to bed early.

And he's made it his public mission to proclaim the power of art to people with debilitating illnesses who have all but given up.

If he becomes a poster child for HIV-AIDS in the process, so be it.

"I have to," he says. "I've had my life spared, so I can't sit here silent. Yes, I'm infected, but I'm a walking and living example of a survivor. . . . Now I know what living is all about."

To see Terrence Gore's art

by appointment, contact him at 267-304-3970 or aneye4it@aol.com.

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