If you study the work of Iowa artist Frank Hiffernan, you’ll notice a botanical theme in his sculptures and paintings.

“I like to think of this life like a flower," says Hiffernan, who lives in Shelby County. “Our time here is beautiful in its season. It can be appreciated and celebrated for everything that it is, and everything that it is not.”

Hiffernan’s appreciation for life is shaped by survival. First, surviving cancer. Doctors discovered his bone cancer when he was just 14 and broke his arm playing basketball, leading to a two-part surgery.

“The first surgery removed the tumor and affected tissues, which were tested for live cancer cells,” Hiffernan explains. “I was fortunate that the chemotherapy had killed the tumor completely. The second surgery replaced the section of bone with a titanium rod.”

He defeated cancer, but Hiffernan’s challenges weren’t over. Just three years ago, he was unemployed and looking for purpose. He found himself living in the storage room of a commercial building, searching for what to do next and dreaming of becoming an artist.

“Behind my building was a muffler shop, and they let me take what I wanted from their dumpster,” he says.

He borrowed a welder from a friend and spent his last $100 on an angle grinder. And that’s how he started sculpting.

“I was selling my artwork through 16 stores in the first three months and was approached by three art galleries,” Hiffernan says. “I sold over 500 sculptures that year.”

Now a prolific artist, Hiffernan returns to Nebraska Medical Center every year or so to make sure the hardware in his arm is in place.  He treasures the relationships he created over the years with Don Coulter, MD, pediatric oncologist/hematologist, and Sean McGarry, MD, orthopaedic surgeon, who performed his operation.

“He’s always pleased to see the range of motion, strength, and dexterity I’ve retained and improved on over time,” Hiffernan says. “He looks at me the way my mother looks at her garden, or the way I look at my sculptures. Most people only see the end result when things are beautiful. Dr. McGarry understands what it took to become beautiful.”

Hiffernan recently had a flower sculpture installed in the city of Blair, and his paintings will be featured in an exhibition this December at Omaha’s Clover 24 gallery. You can see more of his artwork here. He also recently shared his story with KMTV.

Hiffernan says what he’s lived through not only impacts his art, but his whole perspective on life.

“A person who refuses to give up can never be defeated,” he explains. “With a permanent disability and from the edge of homelessness, in three years I rose from impoverished obscurity to having international success doing what I love most in the entire world.”