Chanelle and Joe share a life, marriage, art. Now they face an incurable cancer diagnosis

Artists Chanelle Collier, 42, and Joe Wilson, 45, met in 2006, joined their art practice in 2018, and married in 2023. Earlier that year, Chanelle had been diagnosed with a rare and incurable cancer.

Chanelle: I was walking down Crown Street [in inner Sydney] when this lanky guy in a beanie came up behind me and said, “Hi, I’m Joe.” It was before internet dating, so it was less creepy, but I was still slightly freaked out … although he was really cute. He walked me 30 metres to the pub, then said goodbye. Half an hour later, he suddenly reappeared and asked me to a street party that was happening in a tiny laneway – then he didn’t talk to me the whole time! But just before he left, he got my number.

I wasn’t looking for a boyfriend, but he was so kind, so considerate – it felt so easy. Really, we’ve done everything together ever since we met. As artists, consolidating our practice does mean we don’t have our own agency; every decision has to be negotiated and, of course, we argue. But it’s wonderful because all the things you want to do, you’re doing together.

I was diagnosed [with a rare subtype of lung cancer not caused by smoking] without symptoms. I remember my doctor sitting there telling us that, without treatment, it’s six months. The targeted therapy I’m on is, for now, working incredibly well, and I’ve found great support from patient and carer-led organisation ALK Positive Australia, which directly funds research. The average life expectancy has improved from five years to about seven, but it remains incurable – and for someone diagnosed in their 30s, it’s shitty.

In a strange way, it feels worse for Joe than for me because there’s this very large anticipatory grief. We’ve been inseparable all these years and now it’s like he knows it’s coming – this future point when I won’t be here. He lives intensely in the present, so I’m not sure, really, how he’s processing that. I think, in the past, we’ve probably both been much more confident to just blurt everything out, but now we’re more careful how we express ourselves because we’re both holding a lot. Just because I want to share something with him doesn’t mean he can take it; it doesn’t mean it’s good for him. And I think he’s the same.

‘Things feel heavy. But also, every single experience is intensified – brighter and richer.’

Chanelle Collier

One thing that’s affected us both is this feeling of everything being dualistic – even our happiest moments are tinged with this sensation of loss; or of how precious this time is; or the precariousness of everything. Things feel heavy. But also, every single experience is intensified – brighter and richer. That’s why we got married in 2023. We used to have this vista of forever, and now we live from one scan to the next.

Our “Farewell Tour” [playing at Bundanon, NSW, today, at MONA in Hobart in June and Wollongong Art Gallery in August] is an ambient psych-rock performance. We developed it as a cathartic response to our grief. The response has been incredible. Somehow, the music allows audiences to contemplate death and life together in a really present way.

Joe’s kindness never fails him. He pays attention. He’ll speak for me if I need something, which sounds trivial but is incredibly powerful. He’s the same in our performances. I’m often having a wobbly beforehand because I’m scared and nervous, and he’s just true and calm and the grounding force. He’s always telling me how beautiful I am and that I’m an incredible artist and who gives a f--- if no one else likes it.

Joe: The other day, I saw a picture of Chanelle from just after we met and I thought, “Oh, yeah. No wonder I was powerless.” It’s kind of strange – I don’t think we’ve spent more than three weeks apart in 20 years – to realise just what a fragile moment our meeting was. Actually, a series of fragile moments. I mean, at that street party, I was too nervous to speak to her. And then, when we started hanging out, she wanted to break up with me pretty quick. But I told her, “That’s fine; love without conditions is how it works best anyway, so let’s just go to this festival in the park and drink whisky” – and that seemed to smooth over the humps really well.

Chanelle has just grown more beautiful and more talented and more skilled over time. When she started [as an artist], she made small, carved sculptures out of books – she did really well straight away. And then, as I began doing larger work, she liked getting in and helping, and I was like, “I’m putting your name to this with mine.” She can also make a home with nothing – a lamp, a rug and a flower in a beer bottle. Every single thing in my life has been touched by someone with an uncanny ability to make things beautiful.

The day of the diagnosis … there’s a sound you can’t forget when somebody learns about, or expresses, the passing of another person. I can still hear the air going into Chanelle’s mother’s chest as she hears the words uttered by our oncologist. Afterwards, I think a tremendous, tremendous fear set in. And it all happened within one work week, so it was an incredible shock.

We had to learn to be with each other again. As partners, you want equality and equilibrium and respect – but, as patient and carer, her needs have to be met and I need to be in the best and strongest place, in myself, to meet them. That’s very difficult. Early on, Chanelle felt quite heartbroken because I couldn’t quite keep up with where she needed to go – our paths were unaligned for the first time. It just took patience. I can’t live her experience; nor can she live mine.

For me, the thought of her dying comes in two ways. The healthy thought comes from a place of curiosity, where you can imagine the future positively – at least, in small ways. The other way, which is overwhelming and has been profoundly impacting, is, well, “I’m going to finish as well. I’m going to just – I don’t want to be here. How could I?” That’s been an enormous challenge, to be honest. I’ve had to do a lot of work – mindfulness and therapy and counselling – to sort of learn to at least be at peace with those thoughts.

For Chanelle, the deep certainty is a desire to survive: she wants every option on the table. She says, if it’s about survival, she’s going to move the dial one little percentage at a time. Her approach is very careful, very curated: medications, exercise, diet. She’s always been an unstoppable force. Whether it’s through fear or joy, one of her mottoes is, “Not nothing”. That’s still true.

Read more from Good Weekend’s Two of Us column:

• Jenny Kee was running late to visit fellow artist Linda Jackson. It saved her life
• Comedian Anh Do can’t joke his way out of one situation with wife Suzanne
• Over 34 years, Nicci and Sean have penned 27 thrillers together – under one pseudonym
• For decades, Vince remembered what one teacher had told him. Then they met again
• What is it like to become friends in your 70s? Very different to when you are in your 20s

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