contrast between her paintings “Routine” and “Good Morning” challenge the oft-assumed assertions that self-care is transparently plotted. The work depicts a large blackboard (not a surprising choice given Jacobs’s occupation) with the word “Routine” written repeatedly over ten lines. The word is recurrently broken up when space runs out at the end of the chalkboard. The reiteration of the word “routine” boldly and appropriately mimics the management regimen it is meant to index. However, due to lack of space on the board, routine is also discrepant in its composition, unsettling the very idea of a direct approach to controlling blood sugar. Despite the lack of coherence suggested in the piece, the entirety of the word “routine” is centered in the middle of the blackboard four lines down. Periodically, it would seem, routine comes together. The creation’s purpose appears to convey that to have diabetes is both to perform routine and be caught in its accusational gaze. Management looms large even as one mulls over its simultaneous discontinuities and monotony.
Figure 1.3. Jen Jacobs, “Good Morning.” Used by permission of Jen Jacobs (diabetesart.com).
Conversely, her works “Good Morning” and “Every Time I Eat” present the dilemmas of management when the fantasy of habitual technique is disrupted. While “Routine” presents viewers with the idea of persistent, almost dreadful repetition, “Good Morning” probes the intricacies of diabetes management, framing it as a math problem with a preponderance of variables that must be analyzed before eating. Like “Routine,” this painting is conceptualized on a chalkboard that insinuates education, critical thinking, and calculation. The problem reads:
Starting the Day
Diana Betes wakes up at 6:30 a.m. with a Blood glucose (BG) of 60 ml/dl. She plans to have a cup of coffee with 4 oz. of milk on her ½ mile walk to work.
A) How many glucose tablets does Diana need to correct her BG level?
B) How many units of insulin does Diana need?
Alongside these words is a segmented table labeled, “Givens,” which includes information about her blood sugar targets, the number of carbs in milk and glucose tablets, and the amount of insulin needed to metabolize them. In contrast to “Routine,” which is circular despite its periodic breaks, “Good Morning” offers a range of contingencies, some of which will be familiar to observers and others of which may not. The concept of the “Dawn Phenomenon,” for example, will likely seem mysterious to many. The dawn effect, as it is also called, is a surge of glucose made naturally by the body in the early morning hours to provide energy for the day ahead. Below the extended math problem are two formulas for calculating how much insulin Diana must administer to herself.
The use of the blackboard in each of these implies a public that is being educated about the tribulations of diabetes. Like many artistic ventures, the work appears to be directed at a universal audience, encouraging patrons to deepen their understandings of the disease, even if it is done through identification with the fictitious Diana Betes and her quandaries. “Good Morning” is not as easily processed as “Routine,” as it calls upon viewers to evaluate myriad factors: time, space, consumption, caution, and calculation. Time is a noteworthy theme across Jacobs’s work, illustrating repeatedly that people with diabetes are persistently focused on the time of day, the times they need insulin, and the time they have left in this world. Diabetes is, after all, a chronic disease, structured around the gradations of the calendar and the gradualism of the clock. In this way, Jacobs’s work is astoundingly rhetorical—being concerned with the contingencies of situations as much as they are the universal qualities usually privileged in art.
Figure 1.4. Jen Jacobs, “Every Time I Eat.” Used by permission of Jen Jacobs (diabetesart.com).
Figure 1.5. Jen Jacobs, “Can You Eat That?” Used by permission of Jen Jacobs (diabetesart.com).
Being public is a captivating idea in Jacobs’s work, giving primacy to the ways diabetes is made relationally intelligible, not simply in the confines of one’s home or in the space of the clinic. Both “Can You Eat That?” and “Downtown” highlight the extremes of insulin use, one preoccupying itself with the prospects of hyperglycemia and the other with hypoglycemia. “Can You Eat That?” focuses on a singular object: a large sundae that shimmers on the canvas. Jacobs has noted that her work is sometimes satirical in its impulse. She incorporates humor to deal with the pressures of diabetes, as so many living with the disease do. This painting fits the bill, as any person with diabetes recognizes the absurd exchange this situation immediately invites. The ice cream has multiple layers—hot fudge, caramel, whipped topping, and the proverbial cherry on top. The glass holding the dessert is transparent, but crystalized, representing the very warning that is denoted in the painting’s name. The visual material might otherwise be mundane until one realizes that the title is a query directed at a person with diabetes. This is not mere decadence, but also a moment of judgment that is interpretively polysemous. The painting could be depicting an instance of disciplining the diabetic body. It could betoken resistance to other, wiser food choices. It could reveal anxieties shared among both actors in the interaction—the person posing the question who has no knowledge of what happens next if the person with diabetes elects to eat the ice cream and the burden of being surveyed for the interlocutor with diabetes. The work depicts a moral question as much as it does a medical one, an account that reflects the fleeting but ominous structures that organize the life of someone who is insulin-dependent.
Figure 1.6. Jen Jacobs, “Downtown.” Used by permission of Jen Jacobs (diabetesart.com), and the owner, Claude Piche.
“Downtown” is, to my mind, Jacobs’s most compelling painting if only because its abstraction reflects the difficulty of capturing the experience of hypoglycemia. Jacobs’s work concocts a memory of her blood sugar descending rapidly at a farmer’s market. Like Socrates and Anzaldúa, Jacobs is walking, performing the most ordinary of tasks in an otherwise unremarkable setting, when the hypoglycemia strikes. The feeling of dangerously low blood sugar is experienced differently among people and can have varying effects on the body. For some, hypoglycemia is disorienting. Others may become obstinate. Still others may become tired, weak, giddy, or despondent. Jacobs’s painting captures the disorientation created by hypoglycemia, noting the distortions, panic, and anxiety that can materialize if one is in public and others are unaware of the condition. Are you alone? Do you have food or drink that can amplify your blood sugar? How quickly are your levels dropping? The numbers on the board at the bottom left of the painting indicate a quick fall from mild hypoglycemia (the number 72 is low, but still relatively safe) to the number 31, which signifies a dangerous state that can render a person unconscious. The numerals visually slide off of the sign, literally hitting the floor, indicating what is to come if action is not taken immediately. We might expect that Jacobs is one of the figures in the painting (presumably the person next to the numbers) or the entire occurrence might be understood from her perspective. The scene and agent blur into one configuration, where the danger of low blood sugar is both internally and externally present. The shadows on the abstractions stretch in different directions, the buildings are distorted, and the lines discernably not straight. While there is food and drink all around her, confusion persists.
Jacobs’s art grants an opportunity to explore diabetes in ways not typically seen in academic literature.68 Each of these paintings is a snapshot of her life with diabetes that resides outside the realm of the clinic, shining a spotlight on the complications and contradictions of management, the boldness of proclamations about routine, and the nuances that must be addressed to truly apprehend and
