Augusta Sue Arnall Made Sketches Based On
Hallucinations Caused by Charles Bonnet Syndrome
When Augusta Sue Arnall kept seeing a woman peering toward her from behind a brick wall, she decided to sketch the stranger’s image on paper to explain it to her husband, Frank.
This woman’s face was just one of the many visions, or hallucinations, that Augusta saw when she was suffering from a combination of Charles Bonnet Syndrome and Parkinsonism with Lewy Bodies Dementia.
After a six-year battle with these diseases, Augusta passed away on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 25, 2015, at the age of 72.
Frank Arnall is intent on keeping his late wife’s memory alive and has turned the art she created into prints and cards to raise awareness about Charles Bonnet Syndrome, or CBS, which is a condition that causes people who lose their vision to see hallucinations.
“It is of interest that Augusta had no formal training in drawing or artistic technique,” he said.
“What you see here came from her soul as if to demonstrate the powers of our brain to create expressions beyond our understanding.”
Frank will be selling his late wife’s art at a booth called “Augusta’s Art” on Saturday, Sept. 17 at St. Edmund’s Street Fair from 4-8 p.m. at St. Edmund’s Episcopal Church, 1175 San Gabriel Blvd. in San Marino. The proceeds will be donated to the church.
“The money goes back to the church in support of church programs like care for the elderly and outreach, and the day school,” he said. “These cards and this work are so meaningful to people who have this type of condition. Just to see that someone else has it is very therapeutic.”
Frank is a parishioner at St. Edmund’s and Augusta was one when the couple lived in Alhambra.
“The people here were so friendly and accepting, and so understanding of the disease and the limitations that she had,” he said.
St. Edmund’s the Rev. Canon George Woodward III referred to Augusta as “a wonderful woman.”
“Her crisis really began when she was very much a member here at St. Edmund’s before the temporary relocation to Utah,” he said. “She would have to work this through, often in context of parish events.”
Woodward said the Arnalls were a brave and outstanding couple.
Frank grew up in Central Florida, attended the University of Florida and moved to Central California during the 1980s for his job in agriculture. He met Augusta, a Fresno native who was in the hotel business, at a San Luis Obispo Rotary Club meeting in 1988.
“This is when they brought ladies into Rotary,” Frank said. “She was one of the first ladies in Rotary.”
They married in 1991 and lived in several cities on California’s Central Coast until they moved to Salt Lake City in 2002. Through the company she worked for, Augusta was provided the chance to renovate a 150-year-old hotel, Peery Hotel, in downtown Salt Lake City. Frank was able to work remotely from Utah. Frank and Augusta eventually retired from their jobs and went into the real estate business together. Augusta began to show symptoms of Parkinsonism in 2009.
“Her particular type of Parkinson’s was the failure of her automatic nerve system,” Frank said. “That particular type of Parkinson’s messes with your eyesight.”
The couple felt that there were better medical resources to help diagnose Augusta and her hallucinations in the Los Angeles area, so they moved to Alhambra in 2011.
“That’s where her Charles Bonnet symptoms began to show,” Frank said. “It turned out it wasn’t caused by Parkinson’s, but it was caused by eye failure and glaucoma. They called it ‘integration’ when your brain and your eyes don’t integrate and the brain starts getting messages that it doesn’t understand, it will begin to make images. It draws from the memory portion of your brain and projects images.”
Augusta was diagnosed with Charles Bonnet Syndrome at USC Medical Center.
Of the many visions she would see would be a woman looking over a brick wall at her on their patio in Alhambra.
“This lady would appear to her,” Frank said. “She would stay with her for about a week. Sometimes a little less.”
He said his wife explained, “These people are real to me” and urged him to take a photograph. When no one showed up on the photo, the couple went out to buy art supplies so Augusta could draw these people in her hallucinations as a form of therapy.
“The first couple were very basic and then it just flowed out,” Frank said, estimating that his late wife created about 25 artworks using pastel crayons. The art was based on Augusta’s hallucinations and took her about a day to complete.
“One day I came in and she was sitting on the floor in the kitchen,” he said. “I said, ‘What are you doing drawing the washing machine?’ She said, ‘Well this little girl has been watching me all day. I see fish in the washing machine and she’s been looking at me from inside the dryer. I just want to draw her.’”
Frank said, “As time progressed, (the drawings) began to get more fierce.” Soon Augusta’s doctor suggested that she stop making art after approximately four months in late 2012. She did stop and when the time came when she wanted to start drawing again, she couldn’t do it.”
Frank and Augusta chose to move back to the Salt Lake City area, specifically Ogden, Utah, to be near their daughter, who is a nurse.
“We took care of her for almost three years,” Frank said, explaining that her hallucinations became horrifying with his wife complaining about 15-20 people wearing cloaks and carrying knives and guns invading their home.
Augusta was able to stay at home in Ogden under hospice care until her death. Frank said while he did discuss what to do with the artwork when Augusta was alive, she didn’t know what he’d eventually do with the creations. He said she’d be happy to know what her husband is now doing with her artwork.
“It’s been wonderful therapy for me,” Frank said. “I know she knows what I’m doing. I know she would approve. It’s given me an opportunity to extend my relationship with her on a personal basis for six months anyway, now.”
Funds raised from the art have been donated to the Parkinson’s Research Association and St. Paul’s Episcopal Church Food Pantry, both in in the Salt Lake City area.
