Angela Fama (48)

-Mirrorface 09: Angela-

Angela writes:

Almost 4 years ago, just after my 30th birthday, I was driving my black '76 firebird, when I got T-boned by a bus that resulted in nearly killing me (a mm away... quick coma, fractured skull and a brain injury to boot). I am a photographer, who had been straying from my real love (ART!), driving to an editorial shot for a designer friend, focusing on the world of commercial, so far from that real love... same pot, yet at the heart of it, totally different soup. I also ended up having my left shooting eye, the one right where the fractured skull was underneath, blood glued shut and close to being totally out of commission. Needless to say, it was a little shocking when I woke up in a hospital with a neck brace and a lot of people (family, friends, nurses) all standing around in a half moon staring at me... also needless to say, after a long, slow, mellow recovery, mostly all in my head (aka brain injury), the accident resulted in serious life changes for me. Thankfully and luckily enough, more in my mind and heart than my the body and it's abilities. I ended up with a scar on my forehead, a few other facial scars that are barely visible and everything working just fine. Brain injuries are a strange event, they take a long, non-visually aided (no broken foot to watch heal or explain the pain), time and in the beginning, it's like being a really smart kid while you're brain is busy healing. You can stand, talk, move, hang out at home but you might not remember the intelligent, revealing conversation you just had and simply don't have the brain energy to care for all the walls and conceived realities we build up around our lives, our minds are too busy healing to get into our heads and twist and create messy ideas or concepts. It took me over a year to get back at things fully and since then I have been switching my focus back to my first love, art. This decision resulted in showing at my first "real" gallery, Elliot Louis, and since then, my current body of work, Mirrorface, which I shot while still taking things "easy" in recovery, has just shown solo in 2 collaborating "real" galleries (Grace Gallery and ON MAIN). Thanks to my shock, I have the pride and confidence to say again, I am an artist, first and foremost. We only live once in this world and every second counts.

Angela Fama

Summer Geraghty (47)

-From the Project: "Self-Test Necklaces I, II, III", Self-Test III-

Multi-media installation

Summer writes:

I wish not to be myself; not human, not made of skin, not static and dormant within one mind and body set.

My pieces are not imagery; they are equations of my personality. With varying media, I explore divergent areas of my psyche. My works are the manifestations of my history, thoughts and theories. Religiosity, abuse, abjection, identity, stages of life and ephemerality are sectors that preoccupy my mind. All my pieces are forms of portraiture; they emanate from personal experiences and then broaden with others’.

Self-Test Necklace III materialized from a Hirudotherapy session with ten leeches. Documenting both the session and the aftermath was vital because the notion of healing is as important as the act of endurance. The singularity of the experience invoked the understanding that any living organism requires sustenance and that I was happy to become the host. Wishing to renovate the parasitic nature of humanity by transferring my position to that of the host, I allowed the leeches to drink from me. As Hirudotherapy is used for medicinal purposes, the act of bloodletting is necessary for the rejuvenation of new blood. As I allowed this to transpire, my thought process was to document it as the beginning of a cathartic process, one that resulted in a five day photography record in which the bites and bruising healed. The main aspect to abjection, for me, is the catharsis that emerges from it.

Summer Geraghty on myartspace

Sally Piller (46)

-Wrist Surgery-

moku hanga woodblock print

Sally writes:

I always had very strong hands and love to use them in intricate ways. I am a printmaker by trade and my specialty is making woodblock prints. I've been making them for about 35 years. Hands are so essential to the life of a human being, particularly an artist. I took my hands for granted and after hammering away and using hand pressure to create a self portrait woodblock print, they started to go numb, then came searing pain at night. I had given myself a nasty case of carpal tunnel syndrome. I know, nothing to compare to some of the life threatening experiences of other stories in this series, but it surprised me that I had been so careless with a part of my body that is so integral to my identity. Both hands were affected, not surprisingly, because when one got tired I'd switch to the other. I've always been somewhat ambidextrous. So I had surgery on one hand, the right, after which they both improved. I guess this happens. Nerves are funny things. My hands still go numb though. And they are not nearly as strong as before. Artists! Don't take your hands for granted!

This moku hanga woodblock print is called "Wrist Surgery". The broken feather represents my messed up hand.

Chris Aerfeldt (45)

'Red, red heart' from the series 'Silver threads and golden needles (cannot mend this heart of mine)'.

About the series, Chris writes:

For some time I have been intrigued by small 17th century Dutch genre paintings, such as those by Vermeer, Teniers, van Mieris, and Dou, depicting women in the home. I have been mulling over the meanings and stories behind these paintings (by men) of beautiful yet moralising pictures (of women).
This entire series 'Silver threads and golden needles (cannot mend this heart of mine)' this piece is a part of, can be traced back to one small painting that I saw in the Musee Fabre in Montpellier, the Enfileuse de perles (which translates as ‘Female pearl threader’) and is by the 17th century Dutch artist Frans van Mieris. In it we see a young woman in the privacy of her own boudoir, sitting at a table looking towards us whilst threading a string of pearls, with her maid in the background. Each time I see it I am transfixed by the woman with the ambiguous expression on her face, trying to work out what is inside her head.
I started doing some research ... In French the verb enfiler (to thread), which is at the root of enfileuse, has a double meaning, and also refers to the sexual act. The eye of the needle is called a chas in French, which when spoken sounds exactly like chat (cat). This can be extended to chatte (a female cat), which is the French equivalent of the English ‘pussy’. So threading pearls may not be as innocent as it appears.

www.aerfeldt.com

Ann Marshall (44)

-Maybe Baby-

Pastel and paper collage
on paper
44 x 60 3/4

Ann writes:

Within the last year, I was in a freak accident where a tree fell on me while I was walking on the sidewalk. It hit me from behind and broke several of my ribs, vertebra, and blew my hip out of its socket. I found out later when examining what remained of the clothes the paramedics had not cut off from my body, the soles had been blown off my new boots -- such was the force of impact. It was the most traumatic painful event I’ve ever experienced. I will spare you the details, but I’m lucky to be alive and still have the use of my legs.

While still in the hospital, I noticed a sign for art therapy on the wall in my room. Bored and looking for comfort, I asked what was available. The night nurse told me to inquire with the day shift, but instead I asked my boyfriend to pick up some Playdoh next time he went out to run errands. Curiously, I didn’t want to draw. I’m an artist by profession and sometimes the self-pressure to perform is too acute. I was a broken person now. I didn’t feel like trying and then being disappointed. Instead, I was looking to escape and forget. Before personal ambition set in, I had spent many fun afternoons as a child unselfconsciously playing with clay on our kitchen table, amused by my ability to bring even the crudest figurines into existence only to flatten them later with a rolling pin. That was the speed I was on now.

After my boyfriend returned, I spent the afternoon making silly sculptures in between naps (I was pretty heavy drugged) and lined up my creations on the tray beside my bed. I asked any visitors to bring clay in lieu of flowers and entertained everyone with my resulting creations. They made me happy in painful circumstances.

I soon went home but was highly incapacitated for a month. I was in a lot of pain. My greatest efforts went into physical recovery and the first very short exhausting walks gradually became longer. I was soon able to dress myself again--slowly, though for several weeks I had to use a grabbing device to reach anything on the floor. Eventually, my boyfriend no longer had to help me out of bed and I could shower by myself again. As I improved, I became bored with my confinement. Movies and television provided a glimpse into the outside world, but passively watching made me restless. I needed actual activities. I baked and cooked what I could. I hobbled down the block on crutches. I continued to play with clay. Surprisingly, the very crude sculptures brought me a happiness my professional work had been missing for some time. I posted them on Facebook in an album entitled “Percocet and Playdoh” and they were wildly popular with my friends and family. I made a mental note to myself.

Eventually, I healed enough and returned to the studio, I tried to remember to carry over the joy I had found in my small housebound projects into my real work. This was the constructive result of my accident, at least as pertains to art: have fun. You did once, and then all the adult pressures piled on. I try to appreciate and celebrate my subjects, and create work that brings pleasure to the viewer. Interest, joy, and excitement are contagious. I do not find them lesser goals.

Ann Marshall

Helene Ruiz (43)

-miscarriage-

-my resurrection-

-carry on-

Bread Crumbs
The piercing of

dried

hearts

by lubricated oracles

in attempt

to condemn

and

judge

because

the

bread

has become

a

million

dried

crumbs…

once

these crumbs

were

the bread of you

and

soon

your bread

will

be these

crumbs.

3/14/2010

Helene writes in her artist's statement:

Art is my passion, religion and salvation. It is my way of surviving and coping. I paint what I feel, when I feel, Although most of my works are considered “surreal” in style by many, my work is actually my “reality” and my perception and creative expression of my life and my interpretation of my environment and the lives of others around me. There is no “correct” way to conclude the meaning behind my work as it is meant to reach inside of you and for you to decide how it relates to your soul, your life, your experiences. I love to paint, I cannot imagine my life without it, nor do I think I would have survived without it. Drawing and Painting is my true “freedom” as I can say whatever I want without restriction, and every painting began with a drawing first. This is how I can express myself when words are at a loss. Sometimes, there are no words that can describe my reality. The stories behind my works are many, I would love to hear how my works may relate to your stories.

Helene Ruiz

Kathryn Ashill (42)

‘If it is a social object, the body can be redefined,

its forms and functions can be contested

and its place in culture

revaluated and transformed’. (1)

I personally identify with my body as a ‘social object’, which can be used as an instigative tool for social intervention. After having to revaluate my body as a result of significant weight loss I turned to performance as a means of reconnecting with my physicality. My work is focused on the desire to explore my surroundings and other people through making corporeal connections.

Having grown up in a typical Welsh household where there was a lack of filial tactility I crave physical affection. This feeds significantly into my work as I aim to gain a physical bond with the participants in the performances. There is a strong theme of care running through the body of work: I have been publicly dressed (Dress Doll 2006), publicly washed (Tawe Performances 2006-2008), and hand fed by my family (Feast/Gwledd 2008).

Intimacy is fostered through these actions. My latest piece Sws (Welsh for ‘kiss’) involved participants applying red lipstick and then coming to kiss me. I became shrine like and relished the physical contact. As a ‘social object’ my body can be used as a tool for pushing the reserved British public to embrace more often.

(1) R. Betterton, An Intimate Distance: Women, Artists and the Body (London, New York: Phaidon 1996) p.13

Photo credits to: Paul Avis, Daryl Corner, Rhiannon Guven and Michelle Huggleston.

Kathryn Ashill, Sws
Kathryn Ashill on CultureColony

Jennie Rosenbaum (41)

-Crawl- 36x48 Acrylic, Pastel and Gesso on Canvas-

I understand the healing power of art, I have a chronic pain disability resulting from a car accident. Art has turned my life around, given me a career and a path forward. This piece is about my rediscovering myself, my love of art and my joy at finding what I was truly supposed to be doing with my life. It's also about the way art transports me when I paint. The pain drops away and I feel lighter, freer and ready to tackle the world once more.

-Expecting - Watercolors and Pencil on Paper-

I never realized the way pregnancy would redefine the way I treat my body. The care and love I felt for the tiny life growing inside me made me realize that I had to care for myself and treat myself better so that my baby would have the best chance. This has extended into motherhood. There is no bliss I've felt that compares to finding out I was pregnant, except the moment when she was placed on my chest after her birth. This piece is the beginning of this wondrous journey.

www.jennierosenbaum.com
www.jenniespalette.com

Ella Nitters (40)

-Rags of my anatomy #2-

Ella writes:

I grew up having an extreme phobia for the inside of the human body, particularly the skeleton. I still don’t understand the origin of this phobia, but as a small child I realized at some point that my body too “contained” a skeleton, which resulted in many waves of fear during my childhood and even later in life. All I could do was wait until it was over, since I could not run away from it, like people normally tend to do when something terrifies them. Fortunately, human beings do have a weird way of “forgetting” their bodies in a normal state and it only comes into our consciousness on occasion, such as in the case of sickness. I did tend to forget my body in that sense for most of the time but it would come back to me often. I have grown over this fear, or at least to the point where it doesn’t paralyze me anymore and it has grown into a fascination too. What I want to investigate in my work is what we exist of, to get a grip on that weird “tissue” that we are. We don’t just have a body, we are a body.

I made this piece during my stay at the Vermont Studio Center in march 2010.

www.nitters.nl

Yoko Ono (39)

Yoko writes:

When I was a very young and a serious poet, I admired a drawing by Picasso, which was of a very, very skinny woman folding her body in a beautiful way as if to express her resignation to life. I thought I would like to be like her one day. I am not like that yet. But I don't mind that I will be if and when I do. What I want to say is that I am very happy with the changes my body had gone through up to now. And so I will be, as my body progressed into an age when I would look totally spiritual. Change is beautiful. Each year, I am thankful that I am making the change. Each year, I am looking more like the 100 year old trees I see in the park - quietly powerful - and loving life.

yoko

imaginepeace

Judith Peck (38)

-Complications-

Judith writes:

I have always been a student of history because I was seeking an explanation for the injustices I saw. I grew up wanting to try to understand how it can be changed. Now I try to paint it, so everyone might see our connectivity. I had no intention of getting married or having children, but it happened. This painting, Complications, is about the decision to bring a baby into the world in spite of what I know.

Judith Peck

Toyah Blackburn (37)

-Self-Portrait (Acceptance)-

Toyah writes:

I am a disabled female artist. I was born with spina bifida and subsequently use a wheelchair. The image is a self-portrait I did a few months ago: the scar has been on my back since birth. I wanted to document this, and celebrate my acceptance of the way my body looks. My plan is to do more painting and sculpture in the future about disability ...

artbytoyah

Mary Bogdan (36)

-Love [ME] Tender-

 love [me] tender, a film by mary bogdan


Mary writes:

This series of intimate self-portraits has been a long time coming... it was my sister who was the "pretty one"... the "thin one"... the "smart one"... I grew up in her shadow... I was her little sister... never quite matching up to her, never able to be mom's "favorite"... These are painful thoughts, years of feeling self-loathing... today I took these photos of myself with love and forgiveness, and thoughts of "I am beautiful"... chubby, but beautiful...

My mother's heritage to me was her sense of herself as a "fat person"... not quite worthy of beauty and maybe this is why she admired and "loved" my sister more, for she was the "beautiful one".... Maybe I was too much a mirror to her.

Feeling deep pains as I write this... but today is the day I fight back and say to my mother "It's OK to be fat"... It's beautiful if you feel beautiful inside, if you are loved deeply by a wonderful man, and if you love yourself enough to forgive yourself for being "fat"....

I think these photos of myself are full of love and beauty... that's how I feel about [ME].... today....

www.marybogdan.com

www.marybogdan.blogspot.com

www.flickr.com/photos/marybogdan

Liv Sørvaag (35)

Liv writes:

Since 1994 I have got CFS/me, that has taken control over my body ... It's an illness that affects the whole body. I'm so happy that I'm able to work with art, as it really gives me strength and joy! ... I love doing all kinds of art ...

Liv Sørvaag

Stephanie Kolpy (34)

-She Is Gone-

Stephanie writes:

My mother died last august from breast cancer. Here is her memorial piece called "She Is Gone" It is oil and gold leaf on panel the eighteen natural pigments in jars in reliquary. The reliquary and the crown are a symbol of her accomplishments here on earth - transforming her into a saint. The elephant is the most matriarchal of animals and the vultures represent cancer and all the things that force us into this life cycle- we come from the earth and return to the earth. Notice how the colored pigments are creating the landscape, the color pigments represent her soul.

Stephanie Kolpy
Mythos for the Mortal

Louise Millmann (33)

Louise writes:

Within 1 month of my 45th birthday

my eyes started to fail me.

Now I must wear glasses

everyday, all day

and sometimes I can't see clearly.

I feel like I am seeing myself

through film grain ........

I don't know what I am supposed to

look like anymore. The mirror

is fooling with me.

Louise Millmann

Nadine Bouler (32)

-swimming-

-moongirl-

Nadine writes:

Swimming through life
Each stroke amazes me
I am more than my body
I am a contradiction
Words and images
Fastidious and rebellious
Love and loss
Afloat

boulerdesigngroup

Holly Armishaw (31)

-Fading Away-

-Desolation-

-The Death of Self-

-The Migraine-

-Symptom Six-

-Pharmacology-

-Lucid Dreaming 2-

-The Panic Attack-

-->

La Femme Tragique

By Holly Armishaw

At three A.M. I awoke suddenly one night, I had the most excruciating chest pain. My chest was so tight that I felt that if I took a deep breath, something in my heart would pop or a rib would crack. I became aware of an intense pain in my arm and slowly I lost feeling in my legs and fingers. My breathing was shallow and my lips grew numb. I felt that I was beginning to lose consciousness. I grabbed for the phone and minutes later I was in the hospital emergency room. They performed an ECG and asked a lot of questions and came to the conclusion that my heart was fine – I had suffered an intense panic attack. This was just to be the first of many.

Indeed there were issues in my life, my relationship, my job, illness in friends and family, but I thought I was holding everything together fine. However, the body has different ideas about how it can handle stress. Emotional sickness is like water – if you block one path, it will find another channel to travel through. I began having migraines and panic attacks so severe that they have landed me in the hospital ER three times. These conditions and symptoms became so debilitating that I could no longer carry out my managerial responsibilities at work. This was a blessing in disguise; I had to quit my job and at last I was free to be an artist again.

I desperately needed that time off and my body made it possible. I spent the next 6 months attempting to self-medicate, sleeping through the days, generally living a lifestyle of risk-taking , escapism and indulgence. Thoughts of suicide were common and painful, while sleep, my only refuge. Spells of debilitating migraines, chest pain, fainting, numbness, tingling, nausea, feelings of floating and leaving my body have been something that I attempt to hide or ignore, until my body gives out and I end up in an ambulance on the way to the ER again. Rather than continuing to cure the symptoms as my doctors have been doing, I have taken it upon myself to cure the causes. The first step is an act of defiance against my family values. Rather than sweep things under the carpet my first act is the disclosure with this body of work. “The suffering artist” is a timeless icon of beauty and tragedy in art history and film, poetry, etc. and it is, unfortunately, alive and real. Mood disorders are an area that affects many of us in the fine arts, and are hence, important for discussion.

Holly Armishaw

Branka Djordjević (30)

-self portrait : (extra)ordinary numbers-

Branka Djordjević

CaroH (29)

-self-portrait: fear-

CaroH writes:

-->

I have used a red veil as a symbol of my suffering and also to hide that body that I was disliking and protect myself I guess. At the time when I shot this I was suffering emotionally. I had enough of the way I was living my life and needed to come out of the closet and confront my fear of becoming who I wanted to be, a fine art photographer. The best way for me to break the ice was to put myself naked with the veil and look at me as I was in the mirror, and that is what I did, all these shots ( first part of my self-portrait) were shot with the camera looking at my reflection in that mirror.

If you notice I don’t, on most of the photo, look in the mirror, it was at that time really difficult for me to do. My face is hidden with my shoulder, and the veil is reaching my face, I am looking down. I am afraid and I am cold. Will I be able to become CaroH and be that women that I know I am. By not looking in the mirror and by hiding my face, I am trying to hide my suffering, and who I was, that women who had enough of who she was. This shooting did me really good, it took me 3 months before I could even work on the photo, I needed to really disconnect from who I had been and dare to be CaroH. And I finally dare. All the way, I don’t regret a single minute of it.

I can tell that sometime it takes pain to grow and to understand the message life is sending. I think I am now starting to understand this message!

But CaroH still has a long path to climb before she becomes and feels that she is really CaroH.

www.larznangel.com

Jennifer Kosharek (28)

Jennifer writes:

After 36 years I am finally happy with my body.

Jennifer's Mail Art Blog

Wee Hoo's Looking Glass

Joyce Polance (27)

-Albatross-

84x68 inches.

Joyce writes:

'Albatross' is about anorexia - both as a physical and emotional state. The painting depicts 2 women, one carrying the other on her back. The healthy figure on the bottom is healing and strong, yet she still has the feelings and memories of what she has been through. She carries them with her.

Joyce Polance

Sarah Dees (26)

-Cancer Woman-

Acrylic on Canvas, 38 x 46 inches.

-Hope Shining Through-
Acrylic on canvas, 18 by 24 inches.

-Breath of Life-
Acrylic on canvas, 18 by 24 inches.


Sara writes:

This painting Cancer Woman was made while I was going through cancer treatment for colorectal cancer and I didn't yet know if I would survive. I painted it to show at the annual Cancer Survivor's Celebration and after the event I donated it to the Gulfcoast Oncological Foundation in thanks for a grant they gave me to help pay my mortgage for a few months while I was in treatment. It now hangs in the Oncology Ward of St. Anthony's hospital in St. Petersburg, Florida and I hear the staff and patients really love it.

It's is very symbolic and it was difficult to do, and I could never have created it if I had not experienced the reality of cancer treatment. I wanted to show beauty, strength and resilience, while also showing pain, suffering and emotional trauma. The rich colors are meant to symbolize pain, and the flowers are cancer tumors. She is "everywoman" going through cancer. Her hair is falling out and her breast is missing because of breast cancer. She has a port in her chest like I did, and the cactus flowers show the burns like I had from radiation. She is suffering, but she is still beautiful, facing forward, with hope, a survivor. I mean for her to show the hurt she feels, yet still inspire. I used my own body for the model but my daughter posed for the face. It's kind of abstract, in a way.

For a long time I was ashamed of my cancer and wouldn't tell anyone and took great care to cover up my port and then my scar. I didn't want to talk about it. At this point, I am finally okay with the experience and proudly showing my scar as my badge of courage, my survival. Now that I am 3 years past treatment I am ready to make a new painting, and planning on entering it in the Lilly Oncology on Canvas exhibition, to show what I feel like now, a little farther down the road as a cancer survivor. I feel that the journey is continuing and my perspective keeps changing and evolving. It is not over, and although I am "cancer free", I still deal with side effects of cancer treatments daily, my body is damaged, and I am a long way from what you could consider recovery. After the initial euphoria of survival passed, I sank into the long hard road of surviving survival, which is another chapter in the story. I'll send the new painting when it comes.

They came November 15th, 2010:

About Hope Shining Through & Breath of Life:

What I like about the paintings is the progression of time, the idea that things get better, and there is survival possible, of the body, mind, heart and spirit.

Sara Dees

Sara Dees Art on OncoLink

Sara Dees has a fb-page 'Cancer-Financial Assistance, Resources, Scholarships, Info'

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