Claire Lawrence

Claire Lawrence is a storyteller and mixed-media visual artist based in British Columbia. Claire is a former street nurse and needle exchange worker from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside. Working with society’s vulnerable and marginalized populations was emotionally, physically and psychologically demanding. For nurses, providing frontline medical care in alleys, bars, flop hotels, strip clubs, bathhouses and even on the trails in Stanley Park, was dangerous, depressing and stressful. To counter the moral injury incurred from limited resources, limited staffing, and chronic stress/and post traumatic stress, I was encouraged to develop positive coping mechanisms: debriefing, counselling and developing external interests and supports. Trauma, pain and depression doesn’t disappear when the job is done. I turned to painting and writing as a coping mechanism.