Suzanne Marshall (25)

Suzanne writes about the Mastectomy Quilt:

'The Mastectomy' is my first attempt at making a non-traditional quilt. Puzzle pieces depict the mammogram, horror at the diagnosis, surgery, recovery, refusing breast implants, and enjoyment of life in spite of a changed body.

Suzanne Marshall

Alia El-Bermani (24)

-Self Consumption-

16” x 24”, oil on canvas, 2000

Alia's site and blog

LuAnn Palazzo (23)

as I once turned inward to create
I now turn outward to evolve

the body curves where it never did
and hides surprises in its folds

the falling away of possibilities
brings the promise of others

the loss, the gain–
not really a pause at all


www.thedesigndiva.net

Sofia Kapnissi (22)

a-sleep

together we walk

Sofia Kapnissi writes:

The search for the identity of the physical and metaphysical female body has been present in my work more than a decade. It has found though a more concrete expres­sion since 2005 when I started the series of drawings “360 days”, a visual diary of myself/ a woman who makes a full turn (360 degrees) around herself. There, the body revealed its capacity to be different each day according to its intellectual and emotional positioning. The most recent works under the title "The ups and downs of motherhood" talk about a different beauty, there where the change itself has led to another level of body- conscience.

www.kapnissi.kymaweb.com

Faustine Puras (21)

-from "moments"-

From spaces, landscapes, but mostly rusty surfaces, Faustine Puras develops natural environments, interior experiences or external views.
All final works are photographs, none of the original works remain as such, but the photograph itself becomes the new piece.

video:

-Inslapen/Falling Asleep-
Physical changes of a child during the 'falling asleep'-faze.

More on Faustine's work:

www.puras.be

Daria Endresen (20)

-zu warten-

-kevlar soul-

-protection-

Daria writes:

The Other Side Of Eden

Oak trees grow to be hundreds of years old. They only have to produce one single tree every hundred years in order to procreate ... The acorns fell on the roof then too ... they kept falling and falling ... and dying and dying ... And I understood that everything that used to be beautiful about Eden was perhaps hideous ... Now I could hear what I couldn't hear before - the cry of all the things that are to die.

http://dariaendresen.com

Absurdas (19)

-Exquisite Corpse-

The "Absurdas" write:

Our group of artists is called "Absurdas," we are a loosely organized group of artists living around the San Francisco Bay Area. We meet to work on art pieces and to learn new techniques from each other. Sometimes we exhibit together on a particular theme.

Exquisite corpse (also known as exquisite cadaver or rotating corpse) resulted from a method by which a collection of words or images is collectively assembled, the result being known as the exquisite corpse or cadavre exquis in French. In this technique, each collaborator adds to a composition in sequence, either by following a rule (e.g. "The adjective noun adverb verb the adjective noun") or by being allowed to see the end of what the previous person contributed.

http://absurdasart.blogspot.com/

Mariana Palova (18)

-incapaz de ser libre/unable to be free-

The exit is there, opened for you, you want to go out, to feel the freedom... but you did not notice, that it's you yourself, who is blocking your own escape.

La salida está ahí, abierta para ti, tu quieres salir, sentir la libertad... pero no notaste, que tu eres el que está obstruyendo tu propio escape.

-la moda/fashion-

Under the black hat, under the mask of superficiality.

Bajo el sombrero negro, bajo la máscara de la superficialidad.

-Sognatore (Soñador)/Dreamer-

Separated from my own body, very far away from my heart, dreaming, going very high, but always keeping a way to go back.

Separada de mi propio cuerpo, muy lejos de mi corazón, soñando, yendo muy alto, pero siempre conservando una forma de regresar.

MarianaPalova

Karen Elizabeth Peters (17)

Karen writes:

My struggle began slowly, with morning stiffness and sore hands. As weeks and months ebbed away, so did my health. I went from being an active person to someone who could only mange one small task and then needed to rest for quite a while. It came on gradually, but one day I noticed my life had changed. I couldn't hold a pen and write more than few sentences, my hand would seize up for hours. Painting was out of the question and that broke my heart. I could no longer take my dog on long walks through the woods or around the neighbourhood. My hands, feet, knees and wrists hurt constantly. I couldn't even use a can opener! There were visible changes in the shape of my joints. The fatigue was brutal. I would sleep for 10 or 11 hours and yet wake up looking and feeling exhausted. My symptoms seemed nebulous but I have a wonderful family doctor who felt it might be rheumatoid arthritis. Tests upon tests pointed to that conclusion. I was put on a waiting list to see a specialist. While waiting, everything got worse. I lost weight because quite frankly I didn't have the energy or appetite to eat. I worked but often came home so tired and sore I could have thrown up. It even hurt to steer the car or move my foot from accelerator to brake. On December 18th, a day before my 43rd birthday, I got answers. It was rheumatoid arthritis and it was an aggressive case. The medicines all sounded scary and harmful but what choice did I have if I wanted to get my life back? I started on low dose chemotherapy and other medicines to slow down the debilitating effects of the disease. I vowed to do everything in my power to get myself better. The specialist said yoga, walking, getting enough quality sleep and eating well would all make a difference. I became a coach, of sorts, for myself and started a regimen of taking good care of myself. I learned to pace myself, not an easy task for me. As a naturally born type A personality, I have a very hard time leaving things undone. I learned my energy is a precious commodity that needs to be well managed. Some days the house looks cleaner than it does on others but I always serve good, healthy meals (I bulk bake on my good days). I make yoga, even five minutes on tough days, a staple of my life. Each night I'm in bed by 9:30.

It's been almost six weeks and I am seeing such a difference in both my symptoms and myself. As much as it has been a struggle, I've had a few "ah ha" moments. I discovered that the physical was only half the battle. I looked within myself and realized that in order to really make the most of my healing I had to mentally realign myself. It has taught me to flow with life and to release all resistance, all negativity. I have no choice but to accept myself as I am. I'm finding this courtesy is being extended to others as well. Out of my illness came a sort of liberation.

www.paintingcanada.ca

Amanda Rae (16)

Amanda writes:

Art making has been a way to express my self and my experiences and has been a healing method. My Art practice assists me in problem solving, as a communication tool, and as an expression and externalization of issues and conflicts that concern me. The ‘making of’ has become an increasingly important element, enabling me to transform painful emotions and experiences into creative energy.

Amanda's Saatchi-gallery.

Joan Harrison (15)

Joan writes:

When I was recovering from cancer and unsure of my survival I made this image called the "Transference of Motherhood." Male sea horses carry their young and this sea horse was a gift from my husband. With this image I entrusted the care of our daughters to him as I healed and tried to find a way to live in a body that had been invaded, then cut, slashed, poisoned and burned in the name of survival. With this image I entrusted him with surrogate motherhood.

www.joanharrison.com

Venus Raven (14)

-Love and Light-

Battle Song


LOVE CONSTANT BEYOND DEATH

The final shadow that will close my eyes
will in its darkness take me from white day
and instantly untie the soul from lies
and flattery of death, and find its way,
and yet my soul won’t leave its memory
of love there on the shore where it has burned:
my flame can swim cold water and has learned
to lose respect for laws’ severity.
My soul, whom a God made its prison of,
my veins, which a liquid humor fed to fire,
my marrows, which have gloriously flamed,
will leave their body, never their desire;
they will be ash but ash in feeling framed;
they will be dust but will be dust in love.

(Francisco Gomez de Quevedo, 1580-1645. Translated by Willis Barnstone)

Venus writes:

The more important a certain subject is to us, the more difficult it is to address it. For me this poem, although written by another and especially by a male, presents the epitome of the burden that females have been carrying throughout history and the depths that our passion leads us to when put under restraint. This is a deeply feminine perspective, to endure pain and overcome all obstacles, especially when being in love. Being a female is essentially a dual role of life-giver and peaceful warrior and the deepest connection to the feminine displays a magnanimity in both enduring hardships and sacrificing all that it takes to reach that balance between the womb and the divinity it embodies.

http://www.ravenus9.deviantart.com

Grace Graupe Pillard (13)

The Four Graces:

Grace writes about the video:

THE FOUR GRACES, A Video in four chapters speaking to my obsession with time and the fact that I embrace the "dance of life" despite aging.

CHAPTER 1 – I CAN STILL DANCE AND PAINT
A self-portrait depicting my passion for painting, and my dance through that process over a lifetime; all of which involves risk and a baring of the truth as I see it. The paintings in this video are part of my "Desecrated Landscape" series.
CHAPTER 2 – THE SLOW DANCE OF TIME
My obsession with the passing of time as I perform a "slow" dance weaving my body in and out of the rain, clouds and earth.
CHAPTER 3 – A REBEL DANCING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS – RISE UP!
Dancing against a backdrop of urban images of graffiti, a beautiful art form which does not get the respect that it should. The personal and the political are interlaced as time speeds on.
CHAPTER 4 – PAINTING EXPOSED
This video depicts an artist dancing exposed and vulnerable. Art openings, pre-painting rituals, the act of painting, are the focus of this video.

 Floating:

Floating in a sea of water, snow, fire, earth and sky. Dealing metaphorically with the subconscious memories of my grandparents as well as other family members' deaths in a concentration camp during Hitler's Third Reich in Germany. This piece addresses my feelings of aging and vulnerability as I am literally "bared" and the ever-present nature of change be it constructive or destructive.

I will not be Intimidated:

I Will Not Be Intimidated! from Grace Graupe Pillard on Vimeo

This video specifically speaks to the way the aging female flesh is often viewed as not worthy of being seen in public; women often wrap scarves on their necks, prefer long sleeve tops, and often do not wear comfortable shorts even in the summer heat.

Grace Graupe Pillard

Clarity Haynes (12)

-Flight-

charcoal and pastel on paper, 50" x 66", 2007.

Clarity writes:

My work is based on the body; I am always creating portraits whether the model is physically in front of me or not. This piece is from a series that has moved away from my more clinical nude portraits to portray allegorical/dreamy presences. I was thinking about the power of the Crone archetype and the sensual beauty of hair as lived experience, as unbridled energy.

www.clarityhaynes.com

Susan Shulman (11)

-Mother Earth-

oils and oil sticks on canvas 30"x36"

-A Fish out of Water-

oil sticks on stonehenge paper, 4'x5'

Susan writes:

-Mother Earth-

I was thinking about motherhood and the effect is had on my body. So I decided to show one painting called Mother Earth. This was painted with oil and oil sticks at a time when my daughter was an enfant. I was a fist-time mother with all the angst that goes along with that time. I had gained about 50 pounds with the help of Haagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream and an OBGYN who encouraged me to enjoy this time and not worry about weight. No wonder my daughter loves all ice cream except vanilla. It just dawned on me.

Well, after I gave birth, it was quite surprising that not all the weight disappeared. That was a shock to me. And, no matter what I did for the first year, nothing would move. I also was so aware of my enormous breasts. They were not small to start with. Well, I had to adjust to my new body and I felt like I was a character out of Jack Chalker's "Midnight at the Well of Souls" science fiction adventure. I had morphed into Mother Earth. I was living in a new and different world. In this painting, I painted myself lying on the soft ground in a primitive kind of depiction. Almost like an animal waiting to feed its litter. All the babies are various images of my daughter. As always, I have my guardian angel or in this case a fairy helping me. I also have the past gods on the mountains to the left watching and guiding me. The ship above me is being chased by fish. It is the death ship. The ghost of my life past. The woman kneeling on my stomach is actually drawing a hopscotch game on me since my body wasn’t mine anymore and she could and the imp near my chin was ready to appear and cause more havoc on my new life. Even today when I look at this work I feel the joy of motherhood and the heaviness of that time when my body was no longer mine, but owned by the universe when I joined the Mother Earth club.

-A Fish out of Water-

I added this piece which came a few years after Mother Earth where I was back to my normal life except traveling a lot to New York which is the imagery in the bottom left. It is called a Fish out of water because I was not sure about the life I was living. so, just to get to the point of self image, you will see in the close up an image of a woman (me) with a tortous shell coat and inside you see my body back to normal. This was symbolic that inside us all is that beautiful woman who has always been there but never wanted to shine or show it. That sometimes life takes us to experience many challenges but inside we are all that same person we always were. Next to that image is a couple in a sardine tin. Well, I will not elaborate on that except to say I felt canned in! And, yes the large image is me. A self portrait of myself as the sirene blue goddess crossing the oceans of time and space. The fish within my body are my spirits, my life, and my religion keeping me safe and guiding me through my journeys.

http://www.susanshulman.com

Lina Eve (10)

-Lush Kate-

Lina writes:

I'm an Australian artist and photographer, and have many images of women. The one I'm sending you is of a friend called Kate, who I photographed a few years back. She's since died of stomach cancer, but she was such a glorious woman and totally adored by her guy right to the end. We called this shot, "Lush Kate."

lina eve

Juliette Verberk (9)

-knickers-

45 x 120 cm

acrylics on hardboard

Juliette writes:

I use just normal everyday things to construct my images. Obviously my own female body is part of that and I use it or parts of it in a mix with other common objects. By mixing those different normalities, I try to construct an image that creates it's own reality, slightly different than ours.

www.julietteverberk.nl

Zoe Hiigli-Self Portraits (8)

Once there was a DJ named Zoe...

happy place
 

 when a problem comes along, you must whip it

 radiohead

i dont mind the rain

last night, i realized...

love yourself

i dont wanna leave
 

 parallel lines

and I feel pretty, pretty enough for you...
 

new years dress


Zoe writes:

I think every woman should have beautiful pictures of herself... naked and clothed. I have found so much power in myself through my self portraits.

www.zoehiigli.com

Tamar Kasparian (7)

 

"

Tamar writes:

These are paintings I made with my hair. I made these paintings last year when my 17-year relationship with a man ended. They're about love, sex, memories in my body but also about something that my body has never lived (having a child)."

A description of Tamar Kasparian's work:

"Creating, not to know who one is, but may be what or who one is becoming. Tamar's drawings and paintings are an experimental description of a mutation. What or who are we during this endless process? Growing into an organic structure, whose roots disperse while having a great hold on the earth, a living being, serene like a tree, with a sharp contour but whose inner nature seethes, an empty space marked with the stamp of an absent one. Strange feeling of aspiration and of dizziness born from this emptiness, and strange feeling opposite and also vigorous of fullness, abundance, intensity, when the background of the paintings fills the existing space and transforms it in a matrix of energies.”

tamarkasparian.net

Anki King (6)

-Shadow-

-Strength-

-Lullaby I-II-III-

These paintings are part of a series you can see here. Some of the pieces of that series will be part of a 2-women exhibit named "Naked" at the Lichtenstein Center for the Arts in MA in November 2010.

www.ankiking.com

Betty Esperanza (5)

(Represented by Benude Media, Betty Esperanza and Emery)

The exploration of self-image is arguably the determining constant in anyone’s life, and the most important and enduring concept. As humans, we are more likely to live our lives according to who we think we are than according to who we are objectively, under the dominance of self-perception.

Photographer Karl Duarte has been exploring this subject through photography over many years, and has met with many subjects/models beset by negative self-perception. They chose to take charge of this through posing for him—a potentially empowering move, which expressed how taking charge of aspects of our lives can catalyze greater change.

Betty Esperanza and Emery were two of these subjects, who opted to explore their own images and engage with their personal fears. What they discovered at the other end of Duarte’s lens changed their lives and inspired the creation of BeNude media.

After putting on considerable weight from radiation during a grueling battle with cancer, Betty Esperanza felt ready to free herself from the weight of her past struggle and re-emerge with the lightness of rebirth. To this end, Betty immersed herself in an artistic adventure to take charge of her negative self-image.

Four years post-radiation, and 50 pounds lighter, with a bit of encouragement from her good friend Duarte and her partner Emery, Betty celebrated the culmination of this adventure of self-discovery with a nude photo session. What she experienced throughout the nonstop 3-hour shoot and afterwards upon viewing the moments captured within, became moments she would later mentally earmark for emotional authenticity. Betty experienced the harmonization of who she truly was and who she felt herself to be, and felt elated, alive, and most astonishingly—immortal.

The photo included for submission to the art bank is the favourite of the series. It depicts a consuming moment of cathartic release of pain and negative self-perception, all crystallized in the stillness of a snapshot.

This form of media-nude art photography-has the potential to heal years of self-torture, and to release the creative soul of the subject.

www.benudemedia.blogspot.com

Patricia Lay-Dorsey (4)

FALLING INTO PLACE

self portraits by Patricia Lay-Dorsey

Self portraits are strange animals. For most photographers being at the wrong end of the lens is not our first choice. Besides wasn’t it Narcissus who was so mesmerized by his own reflection in the pond that he forgot to eat and pined away and died? Too much self-absorption can be dangerous.

But there can come a time when the only person who can tell your story is yourself.

That’s where I was when I started this eighteen months ago. I call this essay “Falling Into Place” because, in some strange way, I feel this IS my place, to see the world waist-high rather than face-to-face. Besides, it all started with a fall, a knee-buckling ankle-spraining fall onto an unyielding sidewalk one cold January day.

After the fifth unexplained fall in six months, I saw a neurologist who put me through a series of tests. Two months later he gave me a “75% certain” diagnosis of chronic progressive multiple sclerosis. Within the year he’d changed it to 100%.

Twenty-one years later I wonder who I’d be and what I’d be doing were it not for this unexpected assault on my body. I’m not going to say I’m glad it happened. Sure I’d love to be able to run another marathon, or bike another 200-mile weekend tour, or even open a flip-top can by myself. It’s a real pain to take a half hour to change into my swimsuit, to wet my dress because I couldn’t make it to the toilet in time, to ask for help opening every door that pulls rather than pushes. And more. Much more. Being disabled can really suck.

And it can teach too. Patience, humility, determination, even gratitude. How much I appreciate small things like being able to pick up my camera’s memory card when I drop it (again and again) on the floor. How proud I was last June when I drove by myself the 1300 miles/2092 km to and from Charlottesville, Virginia, and then turned around two months later and drove the same distance to and from Burlington, Vermont. How pleased I am that my claw-like fingers can still hit the shutter release button.

So much of what I show in these portraits is private, the side of my life that no one sees. Until now, that is. And the strange thing about opening my bedroom, my bathroom, my nakedness to view is that my former sense of shame and embarrassment is gone.

I now see my life as a disabled woman is normal in its own way.

patricialaydorsey.com

Genevieve Thul (3)

Genevieve writes:

I am a devoted reader (or viewer?) of painting2cancers as a young woman with thyroid cancer. Thyroid cancer struck at age 29, and it was a surreal experience. It didn't really sink in until I woke up in the recovery room - still intubated, I couldn't ask any questions. But when I heard the words "total Thyroidectomy with lymph node dissection I knew it meant I had cancer. I'll never forget that moment. I was a bridesmaid in my brother's wedding just 3 days after surgery, and wore a scarf around my neck. I am not self-conscious about my very "nice" scar, but it is symbolic of everything that changed in my life in that one short surgery. I blog about my cancer, life as a mom of 4, grad student, and woman struggling through her faith at

TurquoiseGates

Kathleen McHugh (2)

I’m interested to see how other women artists create as they are ‘touched' by life.

Kathleen McHugh writes:

I believe that the aim of a visual artist is to create a strong metaphorical world. There are many different genres, intellectual histories, and categories in which artists work to develop and express a metaphorical world in visual language. When I was in school, some of the dominant themes were coming out of minimalism, conceptual art, pop art and gestural abstraction. Before I studied visual art, I studied literature and I felt pulled towards William Blake and the way he overlapped words and pictures to create his metaphorical world full of references and subject matter in a rather emotional messy humanistic way. Judy Chicago and her dinner party were beginning to get critical attention. Narrative art by African American, Hispanic and self-taught outsider artists and assemblage makers was becoming part of the recognized lexicon. Thinking about art created in a dialogue with art (thereby eliminating subject matter and reference outside critical theory) interested me intellectually, but when it came time to create my own metaphor, I was drawn to keep visual company with emotional, visceral narrative artists. To me, this presented the challenge of maintaining the sincerity of naive raw outsider art in combination with the skills and knowledge of context learned in school in order to develop an authentic metaphor. I married and had three children. During the time I was developing this particular visual world as seen in the jpegs, my children were of grade school age. My "studio" was in our home. I had "art everywhere" and wasn't at a point that I could put it in a closet when my daughter had a birthday. A friend offered to throw the party at her house. We all went over there for a slumber party with my young daughter's friends and classmates. In a goodnatured way my daughter said to me, "I don't know if I will be able to fit you into my lifestyle when I grow up". Art is touched by life, and the ordinary habits and routines of living life as an artist are touched by art as well since art is a vocation and not an 8:00am to 5:00pm job.--

Kathleen McHugh

Angela Ferrara (1)

angelaferrara.com