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Staying in the Game
Avenue Magazine Edmonton – December Issue 2008
Despite radical surgery that stops most people in their tracks, artist Steven Csorba is pumping out innovative paintings, elite soccer players and charity dollars at a torrid pace.
Steven Csorba is living his life “like an old man in a hurry,” and laughs while he says so. But you know he couldn’t be more serious about the hurry part.
Five years after a cancer diagnosis and groundbreaking reconstructive surgery to his throat and neck, Csorba — a well-known Edmonton painter and printmaker who first came to attention with images of sports heroes such as Wayne Gretzky — projects the drive and depth of a person who knows life is precious. There’s focus in every waking moment, a kind of deep-truth view that gives cruisers-through-life pause for thought.
The energy can be seen in a series of new paintings Csorba is doing using experimental techniques with vinyl, acrylic paint, broken pieces of Plexiglas and found objects. These bold works explore pop art themes and graffiti, for a look he calls “neo-pop expressionist.” (Select works will be exhibited this month at Peter Robertson gallery’s Jasper Avenue location.)
His energy is also revealed in the world-class approach he brings to training and mentoring a team of 13-year-old soccer players from Edmonton’s north side, now one of the top-ranked in the country thanks to his large ambitions for the teens. And it’s in his uncommon talent for fundraising — since his illness and recovery, a period he philosophically describes as his “time out,” he has raised over $250,000 for a variety of community and charitable causes.
That Csorba puts in 90-hour weeks (50+ hours on art, 15 on the soccer team, the rest hanging out and weight-lifting with his three sons, ages 13 to 17) is nothing short of mindboggling. More than 95 per cent of cancer patients who go through his type of rare, radical surgery never return to work.
“They cut right across your neck, peel your face off, crack your jaw, take part of your arm to rebuild your throat, stick a tracheotomy in there and follow up with radiation,” he says matter-of-factly, noting how he lost almost 80 pounds, took morphine for a year and had to teach himself to speak again. He still wakes up every half hour during the night for a drink of water because he lacks saliva, eats mainly soft food and has lost count of the number of followup procedures he has had. He awaits a final oral medical procedure to implant some teeth.
“I kept myself in the game just by doing all this art and community work, using visual art as therapy,” he says, relating how he began to create images post-surgery of “wonderful round balls of energy.” These became part of his Art of Hope series, another ambitious fundraising project to improve quality of life for cancer patients, as well as an ongoing motif in his work.
“Clearly it’s a challenging way to live. You’re going week-to-week with $40 in your pocket, trying to figure out how to pay the bills,” says Csorba, who lives from art sales. “From an inspirational perspective, I’ve learned that I use my energies to inspire capacity in other people; the capacity lies within them.”
On a fine autumn evening, Csorba is out in the river valley putting the soccer team through its paces. The boys’ families come from Bolivia, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, Afghanistan and Italy. In many cases, both parents work; some struggle to cover the soccer fees. “The kids’ commitment is never less than 100 per cent,” says Csorba, whose son also plays on the team (his other two boys are gifted baseball players). Lora Farmer, mom to one of the players, says Csorba dedicates an incredible amount of time to the team and it shows. “Steven works very hard with the boys, and he realizes they are only 13. And he’s amazing at fundraising.”
Earlier this year, Csorba donated $85,000 of his art and eventually raised over $115,000 to take select players on a three-week trip to Spain, where they played against some of the best clubs in the world. It’s an example of the super-high standards and goals he sets for the lads. “If you’re going to go to the well, go with the big bucket, not the small bucket,” Csorba likes to say. “It takes just as much energy to think big as think small.”
Bob Chelmick, an Edmonton media producer, radio host and artist, met Csorba 10 years ago in commercial art and print-making circles. He describes Csorba as a remarkably dynamic, generous person and a cutting-edge artist of compelling work. “The creative energy is palpable, to be in his aura, because he’s a very excited person about living and expressing his ideas,” says Chelmick. “The cancer really made him turn and look within, I think, and get rid of some superfluous stuff in his life and focus on what he can do really well. And he can make art really well. His energy is so vital and vibrant. He goes and goes and goes.”
words by Mairi MacLean
photography by K. Jack Clark
