Ken Hassrick can no longer paint nor sculpt.

Two years ago, suddenly, he lost the use of his primary tools — his hands — to the effects of transverse myelitis, a neurological disease caused by inflammation of the spinal cord. He has lost some feeling from his waist through his legs. It has affected his hands as well. Now, even eating or lighting a cigarette are difficult. Walking is impossible: The disease has put him in a wheelchair.

But worst of all, he has lost his ability to create art.

Hassrick, best known for his paintings of the female figure, may never stand in front of his easel or mold clay with his hands again.

Even so, the heart and soul of the artist are functioning fine, only now all his new paintings and sculptures are in his mind.

Ill for nearly two years, Hassrick has plenty of time to think. Away from his studio and living at Careage nursing facility in Coupeville, art is still on his mind.

“It has given me a chance to back off and get a new perspective on my life,” he said.

But then, with a smile, he said, “how much more perspective do I really need?”

An additional burden that has hit Hassrick came when his wife, Doll, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. Now, for the first time in 50 years of marriage, they are living apart, he at Careage, she at an Alzheimer’s facility in Oak Harbor.

“The physical separation is difficult, but losing her mentally is terrible,” he said. “It is really a long, slow goodby. The changes in our lives have offered me a chance to stand back and see a different level of existence.”

Hassrick doesn’t let his physical limitations slow him too much, though others must now cut his food, bathe him and put him to bed.

“I could moan and feel sorry for myself all day everyday, but it would bore everyone around me, and especially myself.”

Hassrick keeps his spirits up by planning an activity each day. He is mobile with his electric wheelchair and rides Island Transit to visit Doll in Oak Harbor. Sometimes he goes to downtown Coupeville.

Most weekends his son and daughter-in-law, Matt and Vicki Hassrick with their two children visit first Ken in Coupeville, then Doll in Oak Harbor.

“What has helped Ken enormously is his attitude toward life and his ability to find interest everywhere,” Vicki Hassrick said.

The positive attitude helps him focus on therapy and exercises.

“My disease is arrested now, it’s not getting worse, so I hope for some improvement,” Hassrick said.

Still, the art is missing

During his career, Hassrick has created works of abstract metal sculpture, wax, clay and plaster, and in recent years works with a focus on evocative semi-abstract paintings of the female figure.

When Hassrick moved to the island in the mid-1970s, one of of the first people he met was South Whidbey sculptor Ed Nordin.

“There weren’t many of us (artists) here at that time,” Hassrick said. “So I called him up, we met, and have been friends every since.”

In Nordin’s mind, Hassrick is a “grand addition and one of the great art spirits on Whidbey Island.”

“Many of Ken’s paintings have a sense of translucence to them,” Nordin said recently of his friend. “The drawings in the foreground are realistic with an abstract background.”

Like his paintings, many of Hassrick’s plaster and bronze sculptures focus on the female form. Nordin appreciates that focus.

“Ken and I both believe the female figure is the most lovely form in art,” Nordin said.

Hassrick has also created kinetic sculptures of steel and wood that move in the wind.

Friends are the focus now

Hassrick said his family and Whidbey Island friends, like Nordin, are invaluable to him.

After he and Doll moved to Whidbey Island and built a home and studio in Clinton, they led the lives of artists. The sale of a business and a supplemental income allowed the Hassricks to live a comfortable, interesting life. Part of that life was spent at sea. The pair and members of their family sailed off and on for eight years.

“We had wonderful adventures in the Bahamas and South America,” Hassrick said. “I would do it again anytime.”

Before moving to Whidbey, the Hassricks raised Morgan horses on a ranch in Oregon.

By then, Hassrick had been an artist for nearly 30 years. He studied painting in 1950 in Paris with French painter Fernand Leger.

“He was a wonderful painter, but a terrible teacher,” Hassrick said.

In spite of that, Hassrick went on to a prolific art career with one-man shows at Seattle’s Davidson Gallery and the Foster-White Gallery. He has also exhibited in several other states.

Now that Hassrick’s art career is likely at an end, both he and those who appreciate his work are looking back, in part through a retrospective show and sale to be held later this month.

Hassrick’s friend, Nordin, said Hassrick’s art is still as current as when he created it.

“It is true to the sensibility of his generation.”