Holly Mae Pendergast

Mask allows artist to expose herself to the world
by Monika Guendner - Park Record

Holly Pendergast will not pick up a newspaper to read this story. Nor will she paint with her favorite oil colors, take an aspirin for her headaches or eat a vegetarian diet.

That's because, while Pendergast looks like a healthy woman in her early 30s, she is violently allergic to newsprint ink, linseed oil, most medications and soy products.

In fact, Pendergast is allergic to so many things, she only leaves her house with a charcoal-filter face mask, and only when her neighbor's drier is not venting perfumed exhaust. At the height of her hyperimmunity, she was not able to leave her house, just outside of Wanship, for weeks at a time.

This extreme reaction, known as multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) or environmental illness, has done more than inconvenience Pendergast, it has debilitated her at times with disorientation, delayed vision and depression. It has also left her virtually jobless.
She made her living from her oil paintings, a passion she has earned money from her entire adult life. Galleries are asking for more of her work, but production has been "way down" since January, when she took advantage of a scholarship for a 10-day class in Scottsdale Ariz. That trip drove her deeper into her illness.
One of the characteristics of MCS is that an extreme exposure unleashes violent reactions to chemicals and other environmental factors that only caused a slight reaction or no reaction before.
"I had symptoms for years, but I didn't know what it was," said Pendergast.

People with MCS describe the body as a rain barrel, with exposures filling up the barrel but reactions remaining contained. One soaking rainstorm, or extreme exposure, however, overfills the barrel and reactions to otherwise tolerated substances spill out of the body.
One example for Pendergast was the sudden blisters she developed on her hands, feet and eyelids after eating soy, even though she had been a vegetarian for years.

She wore a full-face mask during her class in Scottsdale, but with the exposure to oil paints, turpentine and other chemicals, her rain barrel was reaching its peak.

After the class, everything seemed to make her sick. A trip to the grocery store left her in bed for two days afterwards. She began staying at home to remove herself from any more stimulus.
In the spring, she was tested for allergies to 125 substances. She reacted positively to 100 of them. Her doctor also tested her liver function, which was found to be suppressed. Because of this, Pendergast is unable to process medications that might help to treat her symptoms.

As an independent artist, she does not have workman's compensation or unemployment to fall back on. Her savings were used when her husband Mike lost his job in stonework after a back injury that resulted in five fused vertebrae. The couple's financial goal has been whittled down to making their mortgage payment each month.

"[The past year] has been such a good lesson for me in humility," said Pendergast.

It has also been a test of creativity. After reducing her exposure from an estimated average 500 chemicals per day to less than 50, Pendergast began building a sort of incubator in her home that would reduce her exposure to art supplies even more. Constructed out of plastic and venting to the outside, she is experimenting these days with acrylic paints.

In the past, acrylics have caused her to shake uncontrollably, but she is hopeful that her new ventilation system will help. Using water colors may be her last hope if this venture fails, and even though it will still be art, it will be a faded version of her vocation.

"I'll do [water colors] if I have to. They're just not the same. They're not my passion. I like thicker paints, and I'm trying to find a compromise [with the acrylics.]"

One of the problems with MCS is even though some physicians can identify it, for many more it is too nebulous to recognize right away. Others dismiss it outright. Even if a physician does make a diagnosis of MCS, western medicine has no cure for it.

Pendergast has been accused of having psychosomatic illnesses she spent two years on antidepressants and talking with a therapist and regularly receives stares and rolling eyes when she appears in public with her mask. She has lost much of her social life as well, with only her closest friends willing to wash their clothes in a specific laundry detergent in order to visit her.

Those reactions are mild compared to what others with MCS experience rejection by skeptical family members, taunting, accusations of insanity and even homelessness. Pendergast considers herself lucky. Despite a dwindling income, she and her husband have remained close and they can still afford their small home and car.

Pendergast eventually plans to build herself a safe house, ideally in the middle of 100 acres, made from natural materials to lessen her exposures even further. Her sense of smell has increased with the increase in sensitivity and the isolation would be a barrier to unexpected chemical exposure.

Pendergast believes she can overcome MCS, even though the prevailing opinion views it as incurable but controllable.
Meditation to calm her mind and immune system has been a key tool in her recovery from this summer's heightened sensitivity.
Businesses around Park City have been willing to accommodate her specific needs, from taking her down a resort mountain in a truck to avoid fumes from a diesel spill to snuffing scented candles at a private club. Pendergast has been able to enjoy some semblance of a normal life.

She is beginning an active education of area resorts and businesses, giving them information on what MCS is and how to deal with someone who cannot be pulled behind the exhaust of a snowmobile or tolerate a plastic hospital mask. She also hopes to get the word out about MCS to art students and employees in other professions where chemical exposures are frequent.

She refuses to see herself as a victim of MCS and views every set of rolling eyes as an opportunity to educate another person about environmental illness.

But just as her art production is slow, so is everything else in her life. MCS has made her allergic to most foods and she keeps herself on a strict rotating diet to avoid losing a tolerance to any more food groups. The once faithful vegetarian now eats mostly meat because her body can still tolerate it.

"I'm in reaction five days a week because of food, but I have to eat," she said. "I don't know how people do it alone."

MCS has meant putting off children, at least for now. She says she can barely consume enough calories for herself, much less for a baby. Adoption may be an option in the future, if their financial situation improves.

Even as she deals with the ever-evolving challenges of her sensitivities, Pendergast expresses the spirit of an artist.
"I have to do something with this experience. I have to make something beautiful out of it."