LIHU‘E — The path Reggie and Becky DeRoos took to becoming artists was a long and bumpy one. But despite health problems and lost careers, it is not a tale of woe. “We don’t want (people) to feel sorry for
LIHU‘E — The path Reggie and Becky DeRoos took to becoming artists was a long and bumpy one. But despite health problems and lost careers, it is not a tale of woe.
“We don’t want (people) to feel sorry for us,” Becky said.
“We are survivors. I can now paint every day of my life. I know who my true friends are because they have the challenge of knowing me as I am today.”
The couple are among the featured artists in the “Kaua‘i Paintings” show at the Kaua‘i Society of Artists gallery at Kukui Grove Center, which runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. until Thursday.
“We’re going to be here during that time,” said Becky.
Reggie, formerly a well-versed disc jockey of oldies for the KUAI 720 radio station, said they have a growing number of artwork at their home.
“It’s amazing because everything here came from our home,” Reggie said. “I didn’t realize we had this many pieces.”
Laurel Brier, a counselor with the state’s vocational rehabilitation program, said the couple met with life-changing disabilities which forced them to leave their professional careers.
“As a child, I would draw over and over again, wishing to someday be an artist,” Becky said in a letter. “I never expected to express myself and support myself one day in art because of my disability. Despite my love for teaching, this was an odd change for the better.”
Becky, an architectural and mechanical drafting teacher in Phoenix, moved to Kaua‘i in 1989 and married Reggie in 1991.
She taught for two years at Waimea Canyon School and another two years at Waimea High School before moving to Koloa Elementary School, all the while working with contractors and architects with drafting plans and helping with specifications.
But shortly after moving to Kaua‘i, Becky was diagnosed with petit mal, a form of epilepsy, and teaching at Koloa School ended when she showed up for school an hour and a half late for her second-grade class.
“I didn’t have a clue where I had been,” Becky said. “I had a seizure in which I lost consciousness and to this day, I don’t know where, or when.”
Becky said following that episode she realized she would have short-term memory loss and be on medication for the rest of her life.
Reggie, born and raised on the Big Island, got his first job in radio at 15 by filing records and playing religious tapes at KPUA in Hilo.
Moving to Kaua‘i in 1974, Reggie’s good friend and fellow disc jockey Jim Kennedy, aka JK of The JK Show, helped him settle into a radio job at KIVM.
He got a full-time job at KUAI in 1976 and was on the air until 2007, working as a disc jockey, selling and producing commercials, engineering, radio music programming and just about everything there is to know about running a radio station.
“I loved radio and was ready to work to a ripe old age in broadcasting,” Reggie said. “However, fate had other plans for me.”
He was diagnosed with a rare and deadly type of cancer called ocular melanoma in 2006.
“I was told it affected roughly two people out of a million,” Reggie said. “In late summer of 2006, I had my right eye removed in an attempt to stop the cancer from spreading.”
Shortly following the removal of his eye, he was also diagnosed with the early stages of Parkinson’s disease; the left side of his body and his left arm developed increasing tremors over the next several years.
“Perhaps the most frustrating part of Parkinson’s has been the extreme bouts of fatigue that hit me several times a day,” Reggie said. “Meanwhile, working in radio became more and more of a challenge and my performance started to go in a downward cycle.”
In 2007, with poor eyesight and problems related to the Parkinson’s posing a liability, his career in radio ended.
“It was shortly after I lost my career in radio that I began to get into artwork,” Reggie said. “Painting pictures was always a fun hobby of mine that I learned about in the early ’70s. From what started as a fun hobby eventually began to help make ends meet.”
The road to artwork merged as the couple began to paint more and sell more at local craft fairs, including the annual Kaua‘i Museum Christmas craft fair, a juried and one of the larger events on the island.
“We soon learned what the phrase ‘starving artists’ meant,” Reggie said. “To complicate our situation more, the melanoma returned in late 2010 and I found out my cancer had spread to my liver.”
To curb the spread, he underwent major surgery where more than 60 percent of his liver was removed, including the portion where tumors had developed.
“My liver is continuing to regenerate itself and my body is healing from that ordeal,” Reggie said. “Meanwhile, the shaking from Parkinson’s is slowly progressing, but luckily, is still staying on the left side of my body, which means I am still able to paint with my dominant right hand. The loss of one of my eyes has also brought new and vibrant colors to my art, which my wife says was never evident before.”
Becky said her petit mal has forced her to push to produce and talk with people. And now she has time to work outside, something she loves dearly.
“I never find life boring and constantly have something to do,” she said. “I have time for writing and editing and can do it more thoroughly now. I count on Reg for memory. He counts on me for accounting and writing. I count on him when I don’t want to paint mountains, or the sea. He counts on me to paint flowers and plantation homes. Our paintings are sometimes painted together.”
Reggie said following the first of two scheduled showings at the KSA gallery, he and Becky maintain regular hours on Saturdays at the Marriott’s Waiohai Beach Club and has another KSA showing scheduled Aug. 21 through Sept. 7 at the Kukui Grove Center. They also have a website, www.kauaipaintings.com, which feature their artwork.
Becky said the vocational rehabilitation program helped them secure the KSA gallery showing and she appreciates their efforts very much. “Thank goodness, Reg is in my life today,” Becky said. “Art rescued us as our jobs left us.”
