PORT TOWNSEND — On Aug. 24, Sue Garlinghouse was invited to tour Seattle Children’s Hospital’s new Center for Childhood Cancer Research as part of a group of hospital thrift store managers.
They also met the center’s director, Dr. Michael Jensen, who told them about the success of a treatment method he developed that uses the person’s own immune system to kill cancer cells.
The approach, which involves the injection of reprogrammed white cells, called T cells, into the body, would make chemotherapy and radiation a thing of the past.
“When we all left there, we were so invigorated,” Garlinghouse said.
“The new treatments mean we will no longer have to use archaic methods that are poison. We are no longer on the edge of a breakthrough; we are there and just have to get it from the lab to the bedside.”
Stores’ challenge
Garlinghouse, who manages the Jefferson County Seattle Children’s Hospital thrift store at 2120 Sims Way, learned that Jensen is hiring 100 researchers to take the treatment through the approval process and into clinics.
Each store manager was also given a challenge: to raise $2,500, outside of profits from sales, during September, which is Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month.
While other mangers were brainstorming ideas for fundraisers like bake sales, Garlinghouse knew exactly what she was going to do.
“I said, ‘I’m going to do rocks, and I better get to cutting and I don’t mean cookies,’” Garlinghouse recalled.
In addition to her full-time job, Garlinghouse is a mosaic artist who uses iridized glass to create works of art out of bowling balls, river rocks and other curved surfaces.
This month, she is donating 25 mosaic river rocks available for a donation of $100 apiece to meet the challenge.
Starting a club
“We are starting the ‘Rock-Solid Supporter Club,’” Garlinghouse said.
She has previously raised money for the store by raffling off reflecting balls made from bowling balls donated by Nancy Hafner, whose late husband owned a bowling pro shop. The iridescent surface of the glass pieces changes color when viewed from different angles.
Garlinghouse says that the iridized glass mosaics she has in her house show the color of the glass — green, gold or red — during the day.
But at night, when she walks through the house turning out the lights, the iridescent surfaces create a twinkling effect in the ambient light.
Some of the pieces of glass have a matte finish while others are shiny, but the effect is subtle.
Garlinghouse aims for a subtle natural design, she said, in the manner of Tiffany, the master of Art Deco stained glass.
Originally from Lewiston, Idaho, Garlinghouse studied art in high school, college and in Europe, working in oils and acrylics, watercolors and pastels. She also tried tile work and carving before discovering a manual on glass mosaics in an art supply store while on vacation.
“When I found mosaics, it was all over,” she said.
She starts by creating a design on paper, she said, then cuts small rounds of iridized glass out of sheets one-eighth of an inch thick, which she buys at Akami.
Using a tool called a grozer, she nips the corners and smooths the edges before gluing each piece to the surface. Then she grouts around the pieces and paints the grout so that the glass appears embedded in the surface.
“I touch each piece of glass at least five times,” she said.
Garlinghouse is creating mosaic rocks for the Rock-Solid Supporter Club as the first ones are taken.
The first person to join the “club” was Pat Byrd of Port Townsend, who shops at the store and started volunteering six months ago.
Byrd chose “Fish Creek,” which has tiny glass fish swimming in the currents of color.
A woman from Kingston called after shopping at the store and claimed the second rock, Garlinghouse said. Barbara Gray, another volunteer, bought “Peacock Rock,” which has swirls of color that match the logo on the Seattle Children’s Hospital calendar.
That there is a gentle alternative to cancer treatment for children brings a light to Garlinghouse’s face.
Cancer is the leading cause of death by disease in children and young adults, according to the hospital’s website, www.seattlechildrens.org.
Jensen’s work, “A World Without Childhood Cancer,” is a video on the website.
The Port Townsend Children’s Hospital Thrift Store is open Monday through Saturday, 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Sunday noon to 4 p.m.
Garlinghouse can be reached at 360-385-6639.
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Port Townsend/Jefferson County writer-columnist Jennifer Jackson can be reached at jjackson@olypen.com.
