About the Cover Artist

Chuck McCoy is a fine artist and retired graphic designer who had his first migraine episode when he was in his 20s while he was driving. His symptoms began as vison loss with disorientation. Chuck says, “I didn’t know what was going on. I got home, went blind, nauseous, and had a terrific headache. Luckily all that passed, and I learned I had had a migraine attack. That first attack was the worst I ever had.”

Fast forward 40 years, and Chuck now has much more infrequent migraine attacks that are also less severe. He knows to treat his migraine attacks quickly and get to a dark room and rest for a while. Also affecting his vision now, however, is macular degeneration, which is constant. When a migraine starts, he sees what he describes as “the ‘rivers’ on the periphery of my eyes and from that it means I have to figure out if I am having a migraine or if my macular degeneration is getting worse. If the rivers start intensifying and kind of sparkle and move then it is a migraine, and I’m glad because I know it will eventually subside.”

Recently, Chuck has been combining digital and hand-drawn modalities and thinking about how he will make art if his eyesight worsens. He has also been incorporating the “river” that is his visual aura/artifact of migraines. Chuck says, “I wanted to work with what I see when I get a migraine and the ‘migraine river’ is what I came up with. I can place it in a piece as I see fit. My work is mostly abstract and isn’t always about my eyesight. I don’t want it to hit people over the head with how my eyes work but use it in a more subtle way. In Optic In (shown here and on cover) you can see a complete circle with more of the river in the upper right corner. They overlay a more convoluted background which is how I feel about the whole mess with my eyes including the macular degeneration."

More of Chuck McCoy's work can be viewed at https://chuckmccoystudio.com.