This page from an “Illness & Healing” sketchbook shows three thumbnail drawings, all of a slightly fantastic or allegorical nature. Below the top left image, Robert has written: “Annunciation — angel — nurse.” The nurse functions like an angel, holding the man’s hand, pulling the reluctant patient forward, perhaps bringing good news about his health. There’s a trace of this idea in the painting, New Steps. The drawing, top right, is a study for Dream: Diggers, though the dreaming patient has been left out of this version. The study shows three workmen digging a hole in the ground and disappearing from view. Nova Scotia has a rich lore of pirates and many legends of buried treasure. The delusional treasure seeker who abandons all other responsibilities is a central character in the novels of Gabriel Garcia Marquis. Underneath this drawing is an image of a speeding motorboat, crowded with five people and a dog. The people and dog may be wearing masks and no one seems to be steering or in control of the boat. This may be a “ship of fools,” but it is unclear who is the target of this allegory of ignorance. The boat appears in the image, Halifax Harbour, Speedboat, Hospital and Refinery.

It is interesting to note that Robert has located two of these three images outside of a hospital. He may have been linking cancer to threats to the environment and to poor lifestyle choices that lead to illness. Or these scenes may function as dream-like wish-fulfillments that have gone astray as the patient momentarily escapes the confines of room and illness.